After the success of last year’s program, “Shop SF. Get More.” is again being planned for November, December and January.  This is a city-wide promotion designed to encourage residents of San Francisco and the entire Bay Area to shop, dine, play and stay in San Francisco this winter.

This campaign is the joint creation of the following partner organizations:

• San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development

• San Francisco Office of Small Business

• San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau

• San Francisco Chamber of Commerce

• Hotel Council of San Francisco

Part of the promotion is “Show Your ZIP.”  Bay Area residents are invited to show their ZIP code at participating businesses to receive a compelling discount or added value.  These offers will be posted on the Web site of the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau at www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/shopsf.

We encourage you to take advantage of this targeted promotion. You do not need to be a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Convention & Visitors Bureau or any other organization.  You do need to be a business located in the City of San Francisco.

There is no cost to participate, other than the value of your offer. We recommend providing a discount of no less than 15% and keeping the offer as simple and as straightforward as possible. The greater the discount, the more likely people will use them.

The program will be highly promoted, including display advertising on MUNI trains and buses, posters in MUNI bus shelters, Mayor Gavin Newsom's press availabilities, print advertisements and articles in select Bay Area publications, and editorial in various e-newsletters.

Promotion Requirements:      

• FREE to all businesses located within the City of San Francisco

• Offers valid from Sunday, November 15, 2009, through Sunday, January 31, 2010

• Provide offer upon presentation of a ZIP code from the nine Bay Area counties (94000 through 95100)

• Provide training to familiarize your staff with “Show Your ZIP” Program
  

We suggest that you be liberal with the types of identification you will accept - drivers license, business card, passport, printed check, pay stub, utility bill, etc.  When you have a willing customer on site, don't lose their business to a technicality. 

Participating businesses will receive a link to a poster to place in your window to identify as a participating merchant. 

To participate, please complete and submit the form here http://iebms.sfcvb.org/iebms/logon/log_p4_add_acct.aspx?oc=10=LOGSHP.

Some of the benefits of being a part of Shop SF Get More promotion:

• Online Campaign:

• List of each participants’ business, promotional offer, and link to each business’ website on www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com (official website of the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau)
• Banner ads across various websites

• Print Campaign:

• Muni bus ads (on both sides and back of buses)
• Bus shelter ads (large backlit posters at bus stations)
• Outdoor billboard(s) (location(s) to be determined)
• Muni station banners (large ceiling banners from Powell to Embarcadero)
• Chronicle full-page ads (at time of launch and in January)
• Chronicle feature news story (day of launch)

• Social Media Campaign:

• Mobile Spinach: Complimentary customized mobile marketing for each participating merchant (see details below)
• Foursquare: Complimentary social city guide, gaming marketing for each participating merchant (see details below)
• Yelp: Complimentary user review, social networking, local search web promotion (see details below)

Mobile Spinach:

Mobile Spinach, a San Francisco-based mobile social marketing service, will communicate the “Show Your ZIP” offers via text to their members’ cell phones. Participating merchants will receive in-store displays, alerting shoppers that they can text the business’ name to Mobile Spinach and receive details of the offer on their phone.  “We let the member control their experience.  They tell us what they want to hear about and when they want that information plus it's geo-targeted.  This makes the message timely and relevant for each recipient and each merchant.  This is hyper local, hyper targeted, and track-able,” said John Vitti, Mobile Spinach partner.

Foursquare:

The ShopSF campaign is collaborating with the location-based social network foursquare to encourage users to take advantage of the "Show Your ZIP" offers. Called "the next Twitter" by Mashable, foursquare creates applications for mobile phones that use game mechanics to reward people for discovering new places and experiencing new things. Users earn points, win "mayorships" and unlock badges for "checking-in" at various venues and revisiting old favorites. 

Yelp:

Yelp operates a social networking, user review, and local search web site with over 25 million visitors each month.  Yelp will advertise the “Show Your Zip” campaign on their weekly newsletters that reach hundreds of thousands of their Bay Area users.  The company will also assist all participating merchants set up Business Owners Accounts and advise businesses on how to market themselves through Yelp.

Along with the free services provided by the three companies above, all participating merchants will be able to benefit from the tremendous outreach efforts by our partner organizations: the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, Office of Small Business, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and Hotel Council of San Francisco.

We look forward to a successful campaign and a wonderful holiday shopping season!

The SFCVB reserves the sole right to approve any and all offers.  Offers will be posted at www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/shopsf as promptly as possible.  

For more information, contact:
Paula Zamudio
pzamudio@sfchamber.com
Ph: 415-352-8818