Cullman Economic Development Agency Retail & Workforce Development manager Susan Eller explains how the “Cullman Is” website will help local business during the stay-at-home order and after it’s repealed.

The city of Cullman is rolling out a new website to help people know which businesses are open and how they’re currently operating.

Using a marketing campaign from four years ago and the Cullman Parks and Recreation marketing staff, the city is launching CullmanIs.com as a place for local businesses to promote their goods and for people to discover what they have to offer.

“The city council and the mayor have been trying to figure out some ways that we could help our small businesses,” said Susan Eller, Retail and Workforce Development manager for Cullman Economic Development Agency. Four years ago, a marketing campaign “Cullman Is . . .” was developed for the city. They revived that campaign to create the new website, with headings like “Cullman is . . . great food.”

“We have depended on these restaurants,” said Eller. “We’ve asked them to support our soccer teams, to support our cheerleaders, to support our schools. We’ve asked them to support us. And now this is hopefully a time when we can support them.”

Businesses can go on to the site and add information such as days and hours of operations, social media links, if they sell gift cards, have curbside or online services and what their occupancy rate is. “Right now, we’re going to start with restaurants, retail and services,” she said.

They don’t want to the new website to be bound to the COVID-19 pandemic permanently, although the information currently being gathered relates to it. “We realize this is an evolving situation,” said Eller. “It could change tomorrow. It could definitely change by May 1.”

The marketing team put together the website in two days, and once enough businesses have entered in their information, the city plans to make it public.

“We’ll go live as quick as we can,” said Mayor Woody Jacobs.

 “We want them to go to cullmanis.com, fill out the form and submit your information,” said Eller. “If we want to get this running, we really need their help. We’ve made it really simple.”