6 Tips for a Successful Grand Opening
When you’re preparing for a grand opening of a business, whether it’s entirely new or maybe an expansion of a currently operating company, a lot goes into planning it. If you’re hosting an event, you want everyone to leave a positive impression, and you also want to create some intrigue, interest, and a bit of buzz on social media and in traditional media.
From planning luxury swag bags to making sure people actually know about your event, there’s a lot you can do to leave a lasting impression.
The following are six tips for a successful grand opening.
1. Start Your Planning As Early As You Can
When you’re preparing for your grand opening, start to plan as soon as you can because a lot of details are going to have to come together. If you’re holding at your business, then that can be a bit easier, but if you’re booking a location, you need to have a firm date because venues book fast.
If you have it at your location, you still need to set a date because you have to book entertainment and catering.
When you’re planning, set some goals for your event. Your grand opening event is part of your marketing strategy. Everything you do in marketing needs to have a goal attached to it, and this is no exception.
As you’re planning, think about what you want to do. Do you want to get contact information from X number of people? Is your goal to raise awareness for your brand? Are you trying to build initial relationships?
Also, part of your planning is setting your budget. You should make your grand opening a portion of your marketing budget.
2. Communication Strategy
How are you going to get the word out about your event? Are you going to print invitations? Printed invitations feel special and personal but can also get lost in the mail shuffle and are more costly than communicating digitally.
Maybe you personally invite some of your most important guests, and from there, you can rely on social media, email, and digital marketing and advertising. You might also want to submit a press release to wire services.
3. Try to Attract Influencers
When we think about influencers, we think about social media. There might be local influencers in your community that have a substantial social media following you can reach out to. You can also reach out to more traditionally influential people. For example, maybe you invite your mayor or local leaders in government and business.
Maybe there’s a community TV or radio personality you’d like to invite or a blogger.
4. Make It Creative
Having a theme for a grand opening event is key to making sure that you get attention and you’re memorable. The following are some theme ideas to consider:
- Make your grand opening a charity event or fundraiser. This has multiple benefits. It gives your event a purpose, so it’s going to stand out more. Plus, you might be able to generate more publicity if you’re having a charity event. Local newspapers and media love to cover charity-related events. You are also getting a chance right off the bat to showcase your brand values. Customers want to do business with the brands they feel reflect their values, so choose a fundraiser or charity that’s in line with your corporate values. This will set the tone for everything else you do in your business as far as corporate and social responsibility.
- You can have an event based on a different time period. For example, maybe you do the 60s or 70s as your theme. Having everyone dress up is already a good icebreaker. You can also get a band or singer who focuses on that era.
- Partner with another business in the community for the event. That way, you can get the advantage of attracting both of your customer bases, and it solidifies you as part of the community. Another twist on this could be having a local artist showcase at your event.
- Make your event something that includes a class related to your business. You can teach people how to decorate a cake or make a craft, depending on your industry.
- Rather than having a traditional grand opening, you could have a pop-up. A pop-up grand opening can be a cost-effective, relatively simple way to show your new business to a bigger crowd. There are often community events that you can participate in as a pop-up.
- Consider a carnival or circus theme. What’s great about this is that you can make it a family-friendly event. People can bring their kids, and they’ll have access to entertainment, while you’re also able to show more about your business.
5. Provide Food and Entertainment
If you’re hosting a full-scale event, there’s no way you can get away with not having feed and entertainment of some type. This is why people go to business events. It’s how you attract people and get them to stick around and learn more about you.
6. Give Guests Something to Take With Them
Above, we mentioned the idea of doing swag bags. It’s important that you give your attendees something they can take with them when they leave your grand opening.
First, people love free things. This is always going to hold true, no matter your industry or targeted audience.
The second reason you need to give guests something to take away is so that your name and brand will stay fresh in their minds and also move throughout the community.
It doesn’t matter what it is. If you do a swag bag, you can keep a theme that relates to the theme of your event.
Maybe you give everyone a mug or T-shirt that’s branded. You could do something like a useful item, such as earbuds or a branded mini speaker.
The more useful the items you give away, the more often people are going to see the name of your business and think about it.
