By Ashu Ebot-Tabi

Acworth’s Downtown Development Authority hosted its Meet the Merchants mixer event on September 11.

Hosted in City Hall’s council chambers, the event aimed to assist local businesses with branding and marketing themselves.

The event began with DDA Director Jeff Chase discussing the event’s history, which was first held this past November to help promote and market local businesses. During this time, he noted the increased development around downtown, with Keegan’s Irish Pub being one of the area’s newer establishments. This year’s mixer took that fact into mind, seeking to lend a helping hand to new businesses.

“With new business owners coming to downtown in recent years, the DDA wanted to make sure that new business owners felt welcome and had an opportunity to interact with other business owners,” Chase said.

The event then transitioned into a marketing advice presentation by Acworth Marketing and Communications Director Taylor Aubrey. She began by discussing how effective marketing has helped the city win several awards, namely the All American City award & becoming the state’s first Foster Friendly community. Passing this advice along was a key aim of the presentation. Describing the city’s past successes was done mainly to give local businesses an idea of how to effectively market themselves.

“This presentation was added to the Meet the Merchants event to give them an opportunity to learn more about how Visit Acworth brands and markets the city as a desirable destination to increase visitation downtown and, in turn, support our local merchants,” Aubrey said. “The presentation was focused on [ways] the businesses could build their brand and market it as well as ways to collaborate with Visit Acworth.”

Aubrey’s first piece of branding advice to businesses was to leverage their unique assets, like a specific sense of style. She noted how brands are built on the public’s interactions with them, and how marketing content should be tailored to fit an intended audience.

The next section of the presentation was dedicated to brand components such as logos and fonts; images of famous logos were shown, with Aubrey arguing that their effectiveness is due to the memories and sensations people associate with those brands. She recommended businesses consider what feelings they want their brand to convey, and shape their ad efforts around them. The last portion of the presentation discussed ways the city could help businesses market themselves, namely social media collaborations. 

More information about DDA can be found on the city’s website; details about Acworth’s marketing efforts can be found on Visit Acworth’s website.

Ashu Ebot-Tabi is a senior at Kennesaw State University, where he’s currently pursuing studies in Journalism and Emerging Media. With seven years of writing experience with the North Cobb Chant and Kennesaw State Sentinel, his coverage spans both local community events and significant cultural trends.