Art Arrows runs global gem and crystal business from Mount Forest shopfront
Leanne Clark, Owner of Art Arrows, used the Digital Transformation grant to help her digital marketing strategy.
Amid pain and grief, Leanne Clark, owner of Art Arrows crystal cave and handmade gemstone jewelry shop in Mount Forest, stumbled on the healing properties of crystals.
“There was a crystal shop down the street from me, so I wandered in and bought my first crystal,” says Clark. “That was in 2016 – (crystals) have been a part of my life ever since.”
Clark had always been into crafting jewellery and painting. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Education at university, she sold her paintings and designs to pay down debt and even became a bestseller on Etsy. She discovered gemstone beads, and drawn to the uniqueness of each gemstone she began to create a collection of jewellery and crystals to sell.
Art Arrows began to gain momentum as Clark moved from Windsor to Oshawa, selling her designs at local markets. As a teacher, her gemstone and crystal side business existed exclusively online and at markets.
“I didn't really think I could take it full-time until Covid happened,” says Clark. She wasn’t a fan of the transition to online learning and felt maybe her calling as an educator could be used differently. “I was already contemplating doing my business 60 percent and teaching 40 percent but with Covid giving it that push, I dumped everything into my business a hundred percent day and night.”
In 2022, she opened Art Arrows brick-and-mortar space in Mount Forest. The shop allowed Clark to connect with her community in a more permanent way than a market booth. But it’s a balancing act – a lot of Clark’s customer base finds her through her digital presence. She's active on social media and sells her crystals online to clients all over the world.
She’s become more effective at that since working with Digital Main Street, a program combining grants, digital training and one-to-one support from the Province of Ontario alongside partners to help main street businesses strengthen their online capabilities and plan for the digital future.
Clark was able to use some of the funding from the $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant to hire a digital marketing consultancy.
“I learned how to mainstream some of my content to post it across more platforms than just Instagram and successfully reach everybody in the community, not just the 10 percent that use Instagram,” says Clark.
It’s helped her establish roots in Mount Forest while also continuing to grow that wider online community. Clark also invested in upgrading her point-of-sale software and hardware, improving the customer experience and devoted some of the funds to design software to keep her social media posts fresh.
Her shop is currently open three days a week but Clark plans to expand that in the summer. With her new approach to digital marketing, she hopes to maintain that momentum even as she puts more time into the brick-and-mortar side of the business.
“It feels like my content creation is a lot more cohesive because it’s all planned ahead of time,” she says. “When I'm focusing on it, I'm a hundred percent focused on the digital stuff so that’s been super helpful.”
Visit Art Arrows to get started on your own crystal journey! (Website, Facebook, Instagram)
Learn more about how Digital Main Street can support your small business here.
Digital Main Street was created by the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) with direct support from the City of Toronto. DMS is also supported by a group of strategic business partners, including Google, Mastercard, Shopify, Meta, Intuit QuickBooks, Square, Lightspeed, Ebay and Canada Post.
Continued investment from the Province of Ontario, through the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade (MEDJCT) has allowed the ongoing expansion the Digital Main Street Platform in order to support more businesses going digital across Ontario.
