THIS WEEK the Andover Advertiser launches its Love Local Business campaign.

We aim to champion everyone from sole traders to major employers as lockdown restrictions are eased and life gets back to some kind of normal over the weeks and months ahead.

Please join us in supporting those businesses that provide livelihoods for Test Valley families, contribute through their business rates to community services, and help make our town centres the vibrant places we love so much.

We are asking you to spend your money in local shops whenever you can, and sing the praises of local businesses to family and friends, and on social media.

On our part we will be banging the drum loudly and proudly for them at every opportunity under the umbrella of our #AndoverTogether initiative.

Town resident Manuela Wahnon, behind the Attitude for Grattitude blog and an avid anti-litter, has also launched her own campaign to support the Andover.

She went around to as many businesses as possible last weekend to take photographs of traders as they reopened.

We will highlight the efforts businesses are making to emerge from the shadow of coronavirus while keeping their customers safe and re-building prosperity.

It is widely accepted that the lockdown has forced a fundamental re-think of the way firms advertise, as well as dramatically accelerating the shift to online. With that in mind, our team of digital marketing experts will be helping to guide them through this complex area.

  • If you have a good news story you'd like to share with us, or if you would like to advertise, email newsdesk@andoveradvertiser.co.uk.

The Advertiser, with its ever-growing online audiences, social media presence, loyal print readership and digital marketing expertise such as Newsquest’s LOCALiQ, is already playing a critical role in the resetting, rebooting and recovery of local economies.

As they have done for decades, journalists and commercial staff are shouting loudly about business success, highlighting how firms have adapted overnight, collaborating with BIDs and Chambers to promote important initiatives and generate revenue, lobbying on business issues and now publicising vital safety and reassurance messages to encourage people back to town high streets and city centres.