Town apps for BIDs and councils
Your town’s own app.
One app for the whole town: what’s on, the high street and neighbours, with an app inside it for every local business. Made for Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and councils, under your town’s own name.
- Your town’s name in the App Store and Google Play
- An app for every local business
- Customised to each BID and business
- Built on a platform that already runs apps
What is a town app?
One app for the whole town, made for three audiences
Residents, local businesses and visitors each find what they need in the same app, and the BID shapes it around the town.
Residents
What’s on, and what neighbours are saying
What’s on tonight, where to go and what people nearby are talking about. Residents post, ask, sell or give away, recommend places and report issues, in groups by neighbourhood and interest.
Businesses
An equal shopfront on the high street
Every business has a shopfront on the town’s high street, in its own colours, showing who is open now. It opens into the business’s own app: a new way for residents to find it and walk through its door.
Visitors
The town’s own guide
What’s on, and where to eat, shop and stay, on one map of the town, from the people who know it best.
Screens from Our Bristol, our example town app. Demo app, sample content.
For local businesses
Every business gets its own app
Not a listing, but its own front door, in its own brand. Each business chooses the features it wants and how its app looks, from nine templates built around what that kind of business does, with bespoke templates on request. We help every business set it up. It is the thing a BID can hand every member.
Pub
The Rummer
Menu, specials and table booking
Café
Boona Boona
Menu and order ahead
Shop
Better Food Co
New in and order for collection
Barber
The Point
Book an appointment
Garage
C T Garages
Book a slot or ask for a quote
Market
St Nicholas Market
Market days and who is trading today
Hotel
Hotel du Vin
Book on the hotel’s own site, and what’s nearby
Bookshop
Storysmith
New in, events and an offer for the till
We help you set it up
We set up each business’s app with them: the photos, the opening hours, and the features and look they want.
Your app, your way
Choose the features you want, from menus and table booking to orders for collection, appointments, quotes, offers and events, and how your app looks, in your own brand.
A new route to your door
Residents find you on the town’s high street, its map and its feed, then walk through your door: a new stream of footfall for every business.
Every business app also has
- What’s on here
- Updates that reach the town’s feed
- Mentioned by neighbours
- Recommend this place
Real Bristol businesses in our example town app. Menus, prices and offers are sample content.
What a business getsFor the Business Improvement District
What does the BID get?
- A channel you own
- Notices and news land in the town’s own feed, where residents already look, not at the mercy of a social network’s algorithm.
- Something real for every member
- Each business gets its own app inside the town’s, which the BID can hand to its members.
- Footfall
- What’s on tonight, today’s specials and who is open now, in residents’ pockets: a new route from their phones to every member’s door.
- Your town’s name, your choice of features
- Its own listing in the App Store and Google Play, in your colours. The app is fully customisable: you choose the neighbourhoods, the groups and which of its many features you want, and we shape it around them.
Getting started
How does a town get its app?
Talk to us
Tell us about your town, your members and what you want the app to do. We will show you Our Bristol on your own phone.
We shape it around your town
Your name and colours, your neighbourhoods and groups, your landmarks, and the features that matter to your BID.
We set it up with you
The BID, the first businesses and the town’s events go in before launch, so the app opens full, not empty.
It launches under your name
Residents download your town’s own app from the App Store and Google Play.
Why an app
Why not just Facebook, or our website?
A town app sits between the two. It is a place residents open for what’s on and what neighbours are saying, that the BID owns, and that every local business can use directly.
A Facebook page reaches people only when the feed allows, and the audience belongs to the network, not the town. A website is somewhere people visit once. A town app keeps the high street, the town’s events and its news in residents’ pockets, under the town’s own name.
Questions
What BIDs ask us
Is it our brand?
Yes. The app carries your town’s name and colours, has its own listing in the App Store and Google Play, and uses your own photos. We do everything we can to make it feel local: even the background is a pattern of your town’s own landmarks. Our App is the company behind it.
What does a local business need to do?
Very little: we help each business set up its app, with its photos, its hours, and the features and look it chooses, such as a menu, collection orders or appointments. In the full product, each business keeps its own app up to date and posts its own updates to the town’s feed.
Who posts first, so the app isn’t empty?
We set it up with you before launch: the BID, the council, the first businesses and a few keen residents post for real in the first week, alongside official notices, local news headlines and events.
What about abuse or bad posts?
Every post and comment has Report and Block from day one, and every post has a moderation status. Neighbours recommend places rather than rate them, which avoids review-bombing.
Can we see it working?
Yes. Our Bristol is a working example town app. Ask us for a demo and we will send you a link you can open on your own phone.
Book a demo
Talk to us about your town
We will show you Our Bristol on your own phone, and talk through what your town’s app could do for your members.
- Email freddie@our-app.com
- Phone 07833 666 475
Tell us your name, your organisation and your town, and we will set up a demo on your own phone.
We use your details only to reply to you. See our privacy notice.
Also from Our App
What else does Our App make?
The same platform also gives single businesses and organisations apps of their own.
For a single business
Community apps
A business’s own app inside one of our shared apps, such as Our Pub, Our Hotel, Taste or Our Wedding.
For companies and organisations
Corporate apps
Your own branded app in the app stores, with as many apps inside it as you need.
For shoots and cricket clubs
Club apps
Shooting apps for shoots of every size, and cricket apps for clubs and teams.