As a high school teacher in Chicago, Kenyatta Forbes was always passionate about teaching her students about black history. However, she felt that the traditional curriculum was lacking in some important ways and did not adequately capture the cultural and historical impact of black history. This led her to create a unique deck of index cards that mixed historical figures with people students might recognize, such as modern day rappers and reality TV stars. The game called “Trading Races” became an instant hit among her friends and encouraged her to launch a crowdfunding campaign. She raised $5,500 to start her new venture and sold the game at black culture festivals for several years.
However, the pandemic halted all in-person events and Kenyatta wondered if this was the end of her business as she worked on it from her home in Oakland, California. Lacking professional marketing experience and being the only person behind his business, she knew she needed help developing marketing ideas. When she heard about Verizon Small Business Digital Ready’s 1:1 live reviews, she signed up for sessions to discuss social media marketing and strategy.
The one-on-one sessions were incredibly helpful for Kenyatta as they allowed her to focus on achievable goals and go into detail about promotional ideas. Expert advice helped refine these ideas into a comprehensive marketing calendar with a coherent social media strategy that was tailored to her target audience. With better understanding of what to do, content creation, scheduling and execution of Trading Races began seeing an increase in followers and sales. Today, the business has several thousand followers on social media and has established partnerships with influencers.