About Us
A Contactus History: 2012 – Present
Promoting Ealing Businesses and Events – Online, in Print and in Person
Carlene Bender BA Hons
(Media&Comm); MA (Soc/Anthr)
– Director, Contactus Ltd
Walking around the Ealing town centre taking photos of broken buildings and businesses just after the Ealing Riots in August 2011 started me thinking: how would these shop-owners recover? Was there anything I could do to help Ealing get back on its feet?
Besides spending more money locally myself, what I thought I could do was try to encourage others to shop more in Ealing too. Twenty-plus years of experience in newspaper and magazine newsrooms came in handy as I worked out how to start up a small publication highlighting Ealing businesses. It would be a channel for businesses, events, clubs and schools to advertise in, to spread their message beyond the usual limits of online media. Each issue would focus on a different shopping parade, and be distributed to all the neighbourhood. This new idea was happily received by Ealing residents, who are always keen to ‘shop local’.
In December 2012 the first issue of ‘Contactus Ealing’ magazine was published, with a spotlight on the businesses in Pitshanger W5, because that’s where I live. A few months later brought the launch of ‘Ealing Homebiz’, like ‘Contactus Ealing’, published twice a year, but this time geared to businesses run from home: sole traders who don’t have a counter or a shop window, but who still need to find ways of reaching customers.
What has touched me most about producing Contactus magazines is the high number of mum-based businesses in Ealing, run by parents frustrated by the constrictions of childcare, who (like me) are missing being productive at a financial level. I hoped that by putting out these magazines designed to give their businesses exposure, it would help them to realise their dreams, and open up a successful life based on being self-employed.
To extend the reach of the magazines, I decided after a year to merge the two titles, so ‘Ealing Homebiz’ became incorporated into ‘Contactus Ealing’, and there have been special editions outside the W5/W7/W13 borders, in Chiswick W4 and Acton W3. In 2016, a weekly online mini-Contactus, ‘The_Ealinger’, was launched, while ‘Contactus Ealing’ became a Christmas annual magazine.
By mid-2017, Contactus magazines finally gave way to the anti-advertising movement, and production ceased as the business model was reworked, and my emphasis shifted to include promoting local networking via the Ealing Business Diary, and especially the Ealing Business Expo annual event.
Ealing Business Expo has gone from strength to strength, and has now expanded to a two-day event, happening next across Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 March in 2022. Find out more over on the Expo website: ealingbizexpo.co.uk
Contactus magazines back issues highlighting different areas of the borough of Ealing, from Hanwell to Acton, are still online and free to read, at: issuu.com/contactusealing
More information about my background and experience on LinkedIn:
@carlene-de-bourg-bender
Connect with Local Businesses Via Live Chats and Community Groups
Come networking with me: online via social media including the #EalingHour tweetchat every first Tuesday of the month 8-9pm on Twitter
Also check out the three Contactus-based Facebook groups, featuring threads with local shop-owners and home-based businesses:
The Magazine Advertising Business Model
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