By Mike Sunnucks | Rose Law Group Reporter
The town of Queen Creek is partnering with a Tempe social media company to help small businesses and restaurants traverse the impacts of COVID-19.
Queen Creek is the latest city to work with Tempe-based Hownd to help local businesses with marketing and attracting new customers.
Hownd helps local merchants and businesses via social media and digital marketing campaigns including via gift cards. The company has already launched similar local business assistance programs with the cities of Tempe and Tucson as well as Pima County.
The new effort is part of the Shop Queen Creek program started by the town to help local shops, restaurants, and small businesses. The town is launching the program with a $7,500 allocation to cover the costs for local businesses who work with Hownd. The company only gets paid when it generates new customers for businesses.
“The decision to work with Hownd was based largely on their success with the City of Tempe and similar civic relationships they already have in place like Tucson and Pima County,” said Doreen Cott, Queen Creek’s Economic Development Director.
“Our partnership is modeled similar to theirs and the fund we established will help to substantially offset the fee that our merchants would otherwise pay directly to Hownd. We want to help Queen Creek-based brick and mortar merchants, and this relationship is one element of our efforts to support Queen Creek businesses,” she said.
