The first digital assistant for local businesses launches this week in Richmond upon Thames. The tool called Jo has been in development for 6 months with support from Richmond Council, a growing number of local high street champions in the borough, hundreds of independent shopkeepers and dozens of industry experts.
Jo, developed by the organisation SaveTheHighStreet.org, helps local high street businesses grow footfall and sales by achieving goals such as online listings, improving reviews, search engine hits, social media community building, growing local online sales and optimise advertising spend.
It provides a personalised plan with top tips from other local businesses and a range of solutions to achieve each goal; with or without outside support.
“Jo was created to help level the playing field for local businesses on the high street. It brings together the top recommendations for growing local sales into one easy to use tool that’s free to join and personalised to everyone” – said Alex Schlagman, founding partner of SaveTheHighStreet.org.
Jo is free to join and any high street businesses in Richmond upon Thames can then request a free Listings Audit. The audit will check 1000+ of the most popular places for listing local businesses online, showing where details are listed incorrectly and where they aren’t listed at all on relevant sites. After receiving the free audit, business owners can choose to work on their listings themselves or get Jo to do it for a fee.
Andy Logan, co-founder of Vape Emporium (Richmond, Hampstead, Chiswick) said: “Having a good presence online helps us increase footfall. Jo showed me the websites I should be listed on and then added us to all the missing ones. I couldn’t believe how many it came up with! We’re now looking at the other ways Jo can help us grow local sales, over the coming months, which I’m really excited about.”
The digital tool was developed after a 4 month pilot programme in Barnes. During the pilot, SaveTheHighStreet.org with support from Richmond Council and Barnes Community Association provided 20 businesses with personalised recommendations and support based on their unique goals and capabilities.
“Independent retail is a vital part of the character of our borough’s high streets and quality of life – as well as the economic health of our villages. Competition from internet shopping is a challenge for our small shops and we have a shared interest in supporting these businesses become more digitally enabled with SaveTheHighStreet.org. We’ve learnt a lot from our work in Barnes and are looking forward to extending this to other areas as part of our ambitious borough Digital Strategy” – said Councillor Pamela Fleming, cabinet member of Richmond Council.
SaveTheHighStreet.org is an industry wide movement engaging 20,000+ independent local businesses, industry leaders and community champions nationwide. The goal of the movement is to support and empower local high street businesses in the UK; accelerating the transition to a stronger, better connected and digitally enabled high street.
