Bringing your business to life online isn’t easy. Leanne Beatty learned that the hard way. When she purchased Mountain View Resort in the Spring of 2019, she knew the business’s digital presence wasn’t the best representation of all that Manitoulin Island had to offer tourists. So, she set out to level up the website and put her best foot forward.

Beatty runs Mountain View Resort with her husband. They have big dreams of turning this seasonal business into a year-round accommodation. “We want to make this a success and turn it into more than it was,” said Beatty. But, life threw the couple a curve ball when the COVID-19 pandemic hit only a few short months after they purchased the property and brought the global tourism industry to a screeching halt.

With the pandemic raging on, Beatty decided to focus on what she could control: the business’s digital presence. When she purchased the property from the previous owners in 2019, it came with a website that was “ancient and not user-friendly at all.” She knew that Mountain View Resort’s website and overall digital presence needed a serious upgrade.

She began applying for COVID relief grants and when she received federal funding, she got to work on revamping Mountain View Resort’s website. Unfortunately, the end result fell short of her vision and the business didn’t have the funds to start all over again. Beatty looks back on the first website revamp with a sense of humour. She laughs as she recounts how pleasantly surprised some guests were upon arriving at the resort because the website didn’t come close to doing the picturesque views and delightful cottages justice. “Usually it’s the other way around,” she jokes.

Not one to give up easily, Beatty turned to her community of fellow business owners for help. “We have a guy in our community who works for the District of Central Manitoulin. His name is Marcus Mohr.” As it turns out, Marcus Mohr is the local Digital service Squad (DSS) member for the municipality of Central Manitoulin. As part of the DSS Grant program, he is trained to provide one-on-one support to small businesses for basic website setup, e-commerce, social media, and much more. “He [sends out] a newsletter and he’s on top of all of the [funding opportunities],” explains Beatty. This is where she first heard about Digital Main Street’s Digital Transformation Grant Program which provides small businesses with a digital assessment, online training, and a $2,500 grant to implement their Digital Transformation Plan.

She saw an opportunity to have another go at the Mountain View Resort website and she took it.  “I’m proud that I said: ‘you know what, I’m going to go try this and if it works great’ and we were able to do some things we wouldn’t have done otherwise,” she says. Fast forward to August 2022 and it’s safe to say that it worked. Beatty received the Digital Transformation Grant (DTG) and recently launched a stunning new website. In addition to investing in a second redesign, drone footage and new photography were captured to ensure that the Mountain View Resort website was a true reflection of the time and care Beatty and her partner invested in their property.

Of everything that Beatty learned and accomplished through Digital Main Street, she says the website is her biggest success. “Our business has improved greatly because of this. We are fully booked for next summer and we have a big booking from a First Nations group that is coming to the island for a conference in September,” she says. She’s also noticed an increase in customers discovering her business through a Google search. She credits the search engine optimization work they did in conjunction with their redesign for the increase in resort bookings.

The path to business growth isn’t always smooth, but with the success earned and knowledge gained through the DTG program, Beatty has discovered a newfound confidence and she’s starting to dream even bigger. As Mountain View Resort continues to thrive, she has her sights set on leveraging the resort to launch a new retreat business. “[The] training that I received from Digital Main Street has helped me realize that, yes I can probably do this,” she says.

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