O2 Oxygen Bar and Beauty Lounge Finds its Community with Digital Presence
When Krystal Turcotte and MaryAnne Gaudreault saw the Trenton DBIA was running a contest in 2022 to win a one-year lease for a local brick-and-mortar space, it seemed like a good push to put together a business plan for O2 Oxygen Bar and Beauty Lounge.
“MaryAnne and I both had home-based businesses – we’d shared clients back and forth and were going to each other for services… we were always talking about collaborating,” says Turcotte. “We weren’t sure we’d actually win, we thought it would motivate us to do a business plan and a pitch and a marketing plan.”
But their concept for an accessibility-focused, community space with recreational oxygen therapy and beauty services like manicures, pedicures, massages, body piercing, and cosmetic tattooing among other things won the competition for its uniqueness. And from there, things took off.
“It was a lot of learning curves,” says Turcotte. “From the renovations to marketing, getting the website up and running… that's where the Digital Main Street grant was really helpful.”
Alongside the contest, Turcotte and Gaudreault had discovered 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. O2 Oxygen Bar and Beauty Lounge applied for the $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant.
“(It helped) in those early days to offset some of those initial capital costs for marketing and taking pictures of the place,” says Turcotte. “We got our square software and hardware covered… those are big startup costs.”
They also used a portion of the grant to invest in some high-quality photography of the space that captured its essence. “It’s a relaxing place,” says Gaudreault. The design is neutral and meant to be welcoming to everybody curious about oxygen or beauty services.
“There’s no judgment,” she says. Clients are usually looked after by the owners, though they’ve steadily been building out their team and bringing in new service providers.
Social media has proven a good place to connect with their community both on a client front and with other businesses in the area.
“It's getting people in through the door,” says Gaudreault.
Going forward they plan to make the recreational oxygen therapy a bigger focus of the business, hosting events like sports games and yoga nights to bring in different types of crowds.
“It changes the dynamic and what we offer too,” says Turcotte. “We see it as an all-in-one wellness studio where there can be multiple different events going on every night by different people.”
And their digital presence will play a big role in getting people through the door.
“Having been open a year it has become a bit more obvious what works and what doesn't,” says Turcotte.
If you're in the Trenton area, visit O2 Oxygen and Beauty Bar for a quick retreat! (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok)
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.
