Join your MBPA friends and colleagues for one or both of two great learning opportunities scheduled for August 19th.

The first, the "TEAM Eventacular about Towns, Events, and Merchants partnering for Profits" is a Workshop that will take place from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. August 19th at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church Parish House, 105 Washington Street in Middleburg, Virginia.

Local events are a mainstay of small towns throughout Virginia and merchants need to take full advantage of the bountiful influx of potential customers who attend special events. This workshop will review best business practices for you to employ before the event, during the event and after the event.

This hands-on, two-hour workshop, delivers targeted and relevant guidance that main street retail and restaurant businesses can put to use immediately. The seminar is followed by private one-on-one consultations with interested attendees in their establishments. Consultations are limited and are by appointment only.

Marc Wilson, Virginia Small Business Development Center Retail Expert will lead the session.

The "Grow your Business with Your Marketing Tool Kit" Workshop, will take place August 19th during the evening from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Are you seeking the right strategies, tools and tactics to make your marketing efforts as effective as possible? And how do you keep up? Between Facebook and Twitter, email and mobile, deals, and whatever new social network is rolling out this month—finding the right tools for your business or organization can feel overwhelming. And, there are only so many hours in each day.

This session will quickly and easily help you make sense of the noise!

• Learn how to make the most of the combination of email and social media for your business.
• Gain a new understanding of how to strategically use marketing basics, including goals and objectives.
• Learn what a campaign is, how to select the right channel, and what to write about and offer in your campaigns.
• Get simple, powerful tips for how to get your messages opened and read, shared and socially visible.
• Learn about some great tools you can use to help engage with your existing customers and supporters, as well as expand your reach to new prospects.

Throughout the session, you'll be given opportunities to capture your own ideas and build out the framework of your own next great campaign.

So join us, and start to build a plan that will help you grow your business by eliciting the responses you want from your prospects, customers, members and supporters.

Gina Watkins, Regional Development Director, DC Metro Region, Constant Contact, will present the evening session.

Both sessions are free for current members of MPBA and a modest registration fee of $10 for non-members.

Registration details will be forthcoming.