My business promotes everything in the dunes from businesses, to people, to the beaches and trails in the Indiana Dunes. I wanted a catchy name that people would remember. An easy name to find on social media and a name that would be fun for people to have on merch….a shirt, a car magnet, a sticker or hat. People love to show off that they “Dig the Dunes”. !

I was a creative director ready to get out and start my own business. Dig the Dunes pretty much fell into my lap. I started out by taking photos of the beaches and trails and posting them on facebook. People loved it and my following started to grow pretty quickly. That prompted me to set up a website and start writing articles about the area. From there, we created a directory to help promote local businesses, started selling merchandise with the Dig the Dunes logo and then started having local events. My mission has always been to support local businesses, so most of our events include local businesses. We started the Mac & Cheese Fest, Scavenger Hunts, Beer Runs, Wine Tastings. Basically, any sort of event I thought I would like to go to…I decided to plan and create! In recent years, Dig the Dunes has run Dig the Dunes Trail Stop. Trail Stop was a concession/cafe at Portage Lakefront right on the beach in the National Park. We served everything from pizzas to paninis and had a very large selection of local craft beer and wine. We enjoyed the spot for three years and now look forward to going back to our roots with more EVENTS!

Building my social media has been one of my biggest success stories. It has been all about consistency. From the moment I started my facebook page, I have consistently posted beautiful photos of the beaches and trails in the area. I made sure to post all the time, post things people wanted to see and post things that people would like and comment on. Before I knew it, I went from 1,000 followers to 18,000 followers. I am now over 20,000 on facebook and 9,000 on instagram. I also stay relevant with the new trends. It’s important on instagram to post stories and reels. I also have a twitter account and a Tik Tok. I make sure my pages are interesting, full of good information and then I can also post my events or things I would like to promote in between. I’ve also started a mailing list that now has over 3,000 people. I send out a weekly e-newsletter every Wednesday.

I keep in touch with my clients through social media, through my weekly e-newsletter, and at events. We have lots of repeat customers who look for our classes, workshops and events and we see them all the time. It’s very important for me to always stay in touch with my followers on social media by answering their questions, liking photos they share with me and telling them how much we appreciate them.

In January we started a Dig the Dunes 52 week challenge on facebook. This now has over 400 members and many of them love to share the challenges as they do them. It’s turned into a support system for those who want to go out in the dunes and find new places to go.