Community Matters: Shop local and save by visiting www.couponcountry.ca

Small- and medium-sized businesses are the engines that drive our local communities.

With Bruce Power now in the third year of its Life Extension Program, which is Canada’s largest infrastructure project and remains on-time and on-budget, we continue to work with the County of Bruce to ensure the communities around us – including our small business sector – grow alongside us.

Though we have countless small businesses across the region that offer a variety of products, services, amenities and experiences, many don’t have a presence on the Internet or the capacity to promote their products and services to a wider audience.

We wanted to find a way to support these locally-owned businesses, which are the backbone of our local economies, by encouraging residents to keep their shopping dollars in our communities.

That’s why we partnered with Bruce, Grey and Huron counties to launch www.couponcountry.ca. We launched this website in response to feedback we received from our community leaders about the need to raise awareness of the breadth of products and services that our small business community offers, and create a platform for them to collectively promote their businesses to an ever-expanding customer base.

CouponCountry.ca offers businesses the ability to design, develop and post a coupon to the site for free. Then, the community can download the coupon to redeem in-store for savings.

Bruce Power has 4,200 full-time employees, and hundreds more on site at any given time. As our partners in the nuclear supplier community open offices in the area to support our Life-Extension Program, we expect many families to permanently relocate to the area.

By launching couponcountry.ca, we are providing our local businesses with an opportunity to showcase themselves and their offerings to those of us who already live and shop locally; every resident of Bruce, Grey and Huron counties and people who may be moving to, or just visiting, the area.

We have a great communications and marketing plan, including social media, radio, print and mail-out campaigns, and local businesses are adding new coupons daily. We have also had great feedback from members of our business community who are taking the opportunity to profile their business, products and services – all free of charge.

Our small businesses are always quick to support local athletic teams and programs, donate to fund-raising events, and get involved in any initiative that makes our communities stronger.

Let’s support them in return by visiting couponcountry.ca and keeping our dollars in the business community that supports our everyday lives.