For two long years, nobody put on an in-person event. Organizers migrated everything to virtual
affairs or cancelled their plans outright. Now people are feeling safe enough to attend live events again. Sports teams are back to playing in front of their fans and entertainers are performing for audiences.
If you once had plans to host an open house at your printing company and never got the chance, it’s time to put that event back on the calendar.
Getting Back to In-Person Events
There’s no promotional investment that can make a bigger impression on customers and prospects than the personal interaction made possible with live events. Well-executed open houses are great ways for print service providers to achieve their goals for new business development, launching new product lines, or expanding business relationships.
Successful customer events and open houses don’t happen by accident. To realize tangible results, you will need alignment throughout your organization on event goals, strategies, and project planning responsibilities. Gimbel & Associates' free eBook, "Making Your Event a Success," is an end-to-end guide to help you plan, market, and execute events like an open house. There’s no need to start from scratch! Follow the advice in the guide and you’ll be able to leverage global best practices to market your event at the local level.
For those looking to market their event on the national stage, Gimbel & Associates has the experience to make your event the success it needs to be. For a free consultation click here:
Benefits Not Available Virtually
Customer events facilitate conversations with decision makers. Much better than a phone call or an email, your staff has an opportunity to engage with customers and uncover unmet needs or opportunities to expand customer relationships. It is difficult to control the conversation on a salesperson's visit to a customer’s office where they get distracted by incoming phone calls or other interruptions.
Getting customers and prospects into your environment also makes it easy to acquaint them with new services your company provides. Seeing print production in action is memorable. Sometimes even long-time customers aren’t aware when you’ve added new capabilities. They may be buying from someone else.
An open house can be a source of content. Capture pictures, videos, and testimonial quotes. You can use this content for promotional purposes long after your in-person event concludes.
11 Steps to Event Success
Our event planning guide includes eleven areas for print service providers to address.
- Event goals
- Content strategy
- External communication plan
- Internal communication plan
- Event budget
- Data requirements
- Event logistics
- Food, beverage, signage
- Samples, give-a-ways, raffles
- Networking strategy
- Clean sweep
A successful open house at your print facility takes thought, preparation, and work, but it will be worth the effort. Your customers are excited to mingle with real people again. Give them the chance to leave their offices and take the opportunity to show off your company by inviting them to a few hours of informative presentations and demonstrations at a live, in-person open house event.
Visit our resource library page to download “Making Your Event a Success” along with other helpful guides, eBooks, and reports. For additional suggestions visit Wide Format Impressions, " Making Open Houses an Experience Customer's Won't Forget."