How To Plan a Business Grand Opening, Part 3: Invite Your Guests

The easiest thing you can do right away is create a list of people you plan to invite. People you may want to invite include: potential customers; the press; neighboring businesses; your city’s chamber of commerce; government officials; vendors; employees and their guests; your friends and family; former colleagues; people who helped get your new business or location established (such as architects, loan officers, lawyers. . .).

The next step is creating, printing and mailing your invitations. Lower your costs by inviting your employees via company e-mail, bulletin board, group meeting, etc. You may want to invest in mailing lists that target potential customers. It is effective to send an invitation in the mail to complement an online invitation.

Check if the information you have on file for your guests is correct. Depending on the number of people you are inviting, it may be unrealistic to double-check all of the information. If this is the case, make sure to at least double-check the information of the people you need at your grand opening event the most.

As a general rule, expect 50% of your courtesy invites to show up. The actual number will probably be closer to 25 or 30%, but it is always better to plan for more. The percentage may be even lower if you are not targeting the right people in your invitations or are sending mass invites.

Send invitations, both print and electronic, to all local news directors and editors. That’s print, television and radio. You never know. Inviting the press can’t hurt.

Along with each invitation, you should include a personalized and hand signed letter. The letter should explain to the recipient who you are, what your business is and why your grand opening is a major event for the community. Remember that they are in the news business; if you present them with a good story, you increase your chances of getting news coverage. If you do not have an in-house PR department, consider hiring someone to take care of inviting the press.

Put someone in charge of calling to follow-up with the press and other personally invited guests. Have this person call them on the week of your grand opening event as a reminder.

When inviting the press or other high demand guests, personalize and sign each letter.

I cannot over-emphasize this. Sending a personalized letter lets the reader know your letter is not spam. Do research on each person you are inviting and have a few lines in the letter that show you know who they are. You may also be able to use information you gather to make the letter more appealing.

Be careful. Though you should be aggressively pursuing the press, remember that there is a fine line between aggressively pursuing and harassing.

Donating money to a local school or hospital, in addition to helping your community, will generate good publicity and help your efforts to garner media attention.

As you can see, a business grand opening is a lot of work. Make sure you give yourself enough preparation time so you can make changes if a problem should arise. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and your business grand opening is a big success.

Source – UPrinting

How to Plan a Business Grand Opening, Part 2: Planning Your Event

So you have set the time and place of your grand opening, now it’s time to plan your event.

Traditionally, there are speeches given by prominent figures in the company followed by a ribbon cutting ceremony. If you are a new business, you will also have the city’s chamber of commerce present you with a chamber membership.

Your business grand opening is a big day for you and you should enjoy it, but you do not want to alienate your audience. Things vary from business to business. If the attendee is an employee, he or she may enjoy a speech about what it took to get to this day. On the other hand, if the attendee is a potential customer or vendor, he or she may be bored by the speech.

Hiring an MC to intro the event and speakers is a good idea. The MC will keep the crowd lively and the program moving. If you know someone with an electrifying personality, ask if they would be willing to MC your event. If you are hiring a DJ, they too can handle the MC duties.

If possible, get a celebrity or highly accomplished guest speaker (not associated to your company) to speak at your event. This will build credibility in your audience’s eyes. You could even have this person host the event and be your MC.

Remember to use your alumni networks to your advantage. Speak to the head of your alma mater’s alumni department to see if they can help you get a guest speaker.

Is that it? What incentive is there for the regular Joe to attend? Consider having games and prizes at your grand opening event. If your company creates products, give away samples. If you are in the service industry, offer discount coupons at your event. Craft your event around the people you want to attend.

Once you have a general plan, start thinking about what you will need to throw this event. For example, you may need to rent a sound system, get carpeting, repaint areas, order food, etc.

Free food is a great draw. If you are a restaurant, consider giving free food as a means to introduce the public to your restaurant. If your company produces food products, definitely give out free samples.

If you are having your grand opening catered, check with the caterers to see if they provide utensils. Depending on where you are holding your business grand opening, you may also have to arrange for tables, chairs, etc.

Be sure to check that your grand opening is not violating any city codes or regulations. Unfortunately, these rules vary from state to state so there is no guideline I could set out.

Though it may not be required in your area, it is generally good custom that you make bathroom facilities available to your attendees. If you are throwing the grand opening somewhere that does not have access to restroom facilities, you may need to arrange with a company to provide sanitation services.

Make sure there is ample parking for your attendees. Your guests may leave if they cannot find parking. Having valet parking at your grand opening event helps prevent this problem.

Part III will be posted tomorrow…

Source – UPrinting

How to Plan a Business Grand Opening, Part 1: Time and Place

A grand opening event is a great way to introduce your new company or location. It is also an excellent reason to throw a party. This is not any regular party, though. Planning will be crucial. A corporation likely has a corporate event planner, but a small business owner may be doing the planning themselves. You should give yourself around a month’s preparation time to plan your business grand opening.

Regardless of who is planning the event, the days leading up to your grand opening may be especially stressful. Chances are that no matter what you do, there will be unavoidable pitfalls. For this reason, I have created this how-to article based on research and my own experience in order to make the road to your business grand opening as smooth as possible.

I found it easiest to work in this order, but you may feel more comfortable planning your event in a different order. Just make sure you cover all your bases.

Where is the Business Grand Opening Event Taking Place?

Grand openings typically take place at the business’s store, restaurant, factory, etc. However, in some instances the business may opt to throw a business or brand launch party rather than a traditional grand opening. In such a scenario, you will need to choose a location for the event. Make sure to get started early, as the closer it gets to your grand opening date, the harder, and possibly more expensive, it will be to book a venue. Plus, you need to know the venue before you can send out invitations and you ideally want to send out your invitations 6-8 weeks prior to your grand opening.

When is the Business Grand Opening Event?

The key thing to consider when picking a date is the list of attendees. If you are a restaurant, do you want to target employees who work during the week or are you trying to attract families who go out to eat?

As a general rule, it is recommended that your grand opening not be on a weekend or holiday. You may needlessly lose attendees. Locals often go on vacation during these times and employees may elect to skip the event rather than come in on their time off.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the best days to plan events. If the grand opening event is planned during the day, it is easier to take time off work in the middle of the week rather than on Mondays or Fridays which are usually the busiest days of the week.

Consider the weather. You may be planning your grand opening months in advance. Go on whether sites and look at weather trends for the date you are selecting. What will be the average temperature? What are the chances that it will rain?

Lastly, as always consider your business. Everything I have said deserves consideration, but in the end it is you who knows what you are doing and who you are trying to reach best. Maybe it is best that you throw your business grand opening event on a Friday or Saturday. If you are opening a camp, the best time to have your grand opening event would obviously be on a Saturday or Sunday, when kids don’t have to go to school.

What Time is the Business Grand Opening Event?

Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? The time the event is being held will greatly affect the theme of your grand opening. For example, if the event is at night there may be lighting concerns, or it may be too cold to have it take place outdoors. If you hold the event at around noon, how hot is it going to get?

Planning your grand opening at night is risky, especially if you’re planning a formal event. You do not want people to have to go home to change in order to attend your event. Even people who actually plan on attending may go home with the intent to change, but get complacent once they are home.  To prevent this needless loss of attendees, plan your event so that people can attend straight from work. If your heart is set on throwing a fancy grand opening, go ahead and throw it. However, keep in mind that whenever you are asking people to go out of their way to come to your event, there must be something to entice them to do so.

Remember to give a time frame of how long you expect the event to last. Invitees might need to adjust their plans in order to schedule your business grand opening into their calendar. For this reason, it is also important that invitees know well in advance about your event so that they have scheduled your event into their calendar before anything else comes up.  As a general rule, you do not want to have your grand opening event take place any earlier than 8 am or later than 10 pm.

Source – UPrinting