Business Alliance Services
Business Alliance Services (BAS) provides full-service marketing and member-support neighborhood districts, visitor bureaus, trade groups, and other mission-aligned groups of businesses.
There are many types of alliances formed between businesses and nonprofits who share a common goal. This list includes only the most commonly known:
Business associations, whether informal, BIDs, or CBDs, typically in a targeted geographic region with a shared customer base and frequently receive government subsidies or local tax revenue to operate.
Chambers of Commerce that are in a targeted geographic region, with a shared customer base, that are comprised of member businesses of all sizes.
“Buy Local” groups that are typically in a targeted geographic region, with a shared customer base, that are comprised of independent owners/makers, exclusively.
Trade groups such as booksellers, family farmers, vintners/craft brewers, artists/artisans, and unions that, though often competitors, find it valuable to collectively promote their trade to gain political favor and/or grow their businesses.
Visitor bureaus, whether taxpayer funded or not, that promote a region’s unique destination experiences such as food, shopping, culture, and entertainment, plus typically include lodging and how/when to access the region.
Fairs, festivals, farmers markets, and pop-up markets which are comprised of individual businesses participating in an event or ongoing events together to increase sales and/or brand recognition.
Services Menu
Because every Business Alliance is unique and at different stages of development, contact me for pricing.
Base services include:
Alliance website development, including member directory.
Training alliance staff to maintain the website, ongoing.
Design of business cards, letterhead, social media headers, and Mailchimp templates.
Enhanced services include:
Identity development, such as logo design, colors, and fonts.
Maintain Alliance website and member directory, ongoing.
Identity development for member businesses, if needed, such as logo design, color palette, fonts.
Website development for member businesses, if needed.
Access to toolkits for a broad range of marketing and business best practices.
Establishing an e-commerce shop on the Alliance website.
Custom services include:
Social media management to promote the business alliance (BA) and/or its individual members.
Member management including updating listings information, and if applicable, invoicing to and dues collections from members.
Digital and/or print advertising buys, negotiate with media companies, and provide follow-up campaign reports.
Mailchimp campaign and audience management.
Maintaining an e-commerce shop on the Alliance website (content, not fulfillment).
Blogging and other content-generation for the Alliance (support with vlogging and podcasting, as well.)
Press release drafting and media outreach.
Creative assets such as posters, fliers, brochures, print/digital ads, billboards, etc.
SEO and digital “footprint” optimization for the BA and/or its members.
Photography and videography services.
BA director and/or BA member executive-level coaching.
Member recruitment to join the BA.
Grant/fundraising drafting for subsidizing the BA.
Sample Marketing Strategies
Spotlight: Rockridge Business District (Oakland, CA)
Rock-N-Stroll Festival with Outdoor Music
Marketing Strategies Post-Covid to Increase Business
Holiday Marketing Campaign Including Budget
Holiday Marketing Campaign Recap Report
Holiday Shopping & Dining Guide
What are Business Alliances?
Our Credentials
Jody Colley, the founder of Business Alliance Services, has over 25 years of experience in marketing and business administration for small and medium-sized businesses, business alliances, and nonprofits. As a former newspaper publisher in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jody was dedicated to effective communications, including how to grow audiences and increase business opportunities through print and digital channels.
Jody has a passion for the power of collaborations as it relates to economic development. In the 2000’s, she helped with membership recruitment and marketing for the newly formed San Francisco Locally Owned Merchant Association. She also was on the marketing committee of the Potrero Hill/Dogpatch Association in San Francisco where her business was located.
After moving to the East Bay when becoming Publisher of a local newspaper, she co-founded Oakland Grown, a 501(c)6 nonprofit that promoted and advocated for locally-owned businesses and artists in Oakland, California. She also volunteered with and providing marketing support for Buy Local Berkeley, which had a similar mission.
In the ten years that Oakland Grown existed, Jody was involved in a wide array of projects that included:
Citywide marketing campaigns: billboards, bus shelter ads, posters, print/digital ads, media events, etc.
Securing City of Oakland funding for promotional efforts
Producing the annual City of Oakland Small Business Week events and programs
Conducting online and in-person networking events, seminars, and workshops for member business owners
Creating and maintaining the alliance’s website and membership directory.
Conducted member outreach to grow the alliance’s membership numbers (at its highest level was several hundred)
Creating buy-local incentives such as loyalty card programs for consumers, scavenger hunts, passport programs, and other fun consumer-driven initiatives.
Jody worked to help start similar alliances across the country and organized other newspaper publishers to help promote the alliances in their markets. For example, after the 2008 stock market crash, Jody led the alliances and newspapers across North America in a “Make the Pledge” campaign -- to promote shifting discretionary spending to local, independent businesses -- which led to over a billion dollars in local economic impact, collectively.
Most recently, Jody built the website and helped with outreach for Small Business Rising, a national effort to get Congress to support stronger antitrust legislation that would, for example, break up big tech companies like Amazon.com. It was featured in the Wall Street Journal.
Today, Jody has a successful website design services operation that supports medium, small and micro-businesses. As a full-time traveler for her photography work, she appreciates the differences between Oakland, California and Oakland, Texas. She currently works with business districts and alliances, including the soon to be launched national campaign comprised of alliances across the country to advocate for stricter anti-trust regulation to, for example, break up big tech companies like Amazon.com. It’s an alliance comprised of alliances!
Jody’s Team
Business Alliance Services is led by Jody Colley, but is comprised of a team of experts in website development, marketing, media, sales, design, and CEO coaching. This collection of skills and service offerings makes BAS so much more than an ad agency. We’re a uniquely focused team that understands the power of businesses working together, and we know how to maximize that effort.