Grand openings are an exciting time for any business. Whether it is a brand new business or a new location. They are a perfect opportunity to get customers just as excited about your business as you are. New things always bring a buzz in the air and get people talking.
Not only do grand openings increase brand awareness and create a customer buzz around your business, but they also allow you to build valuable relationships with other local businesses and representatives.
It is absolutely crucial to go big on your launch – get the word out and draw in as many customers as possible. There are numerous effective strategies to promote your launch – whether you’re opening up a new branch or launching your business from scratch altogether. In this blog post, we’ll talk about 5 strategies you need to incorporate in your launch to ensure you get your new business off to a good start.
Spread The Word & Get People In
To ensure you create a strong long-lasting impression, you need to strategize before you even think about opening the doors of your new business. You need to know what you aim to achieve from your grand opening ceremony. From there, you can create and promote an event that is sure to be solid, successful, and exciting.
The following things must be done in the initial planning stages to ensure the success of your grand opening:
- Set your budget
- Create a schedule
- Apply for necessary permits
- Create your promotional marketing material
- Plan opportunities to capture new lead information
- Recruit helpers, if needed.
- Promote extensively on social mediaAfter you’ve done your initial planning, utilize some of these potent strategies below to promote your grand opening and draw a large crowd.
Strategy #1 – Have A Grand Opening Party
Throwing a grand opening party is, of course, one of the most well-known and compelling strategies. Grand openings are a perfect time to throw a party and people love parties. Having a party isn’t just about laughter and good times, it is also a great way to promote your event; leading to greater visibility, brand awareness, and greater retention among existing customers.
There are tons of ways to organize and throw a great party. Follow these tips to knock it out of the park for your grand opening party:
- Create eye-catching, engaging marketing material with the help of professionally designed templates. You can distribute flyers all around your local vicinity, put up grand opening posters as decor and promote extensively on social media.
- Promote a local charity, alongside your business, with the opening ceremony
- Invite local celebrities
- Leverage two things everyone loves: food and music
AR Workshop, a hands-on wine & wood painting workshop, nailed the planning for their grand opening party of their Cleveland, TN location by utilizing almost all of the above!
Strategy #2 – Make Your Launch a week long event
Single-day grand openings are great, but turning it into a weeklong event is even better. This will quickly get people talking. It keeps the hype strong and allows you to introduce your products and services steadily in the market. You can have a different special, sale, or event each day of the week to keep customers engaged and draw in more at the same time.
Build a hype for each event and collection, by releasing small teasers on your social media pages with Free Coming Soon Instagram Story Templates like these:
Cabela’s, a nationwide leader in outdoor recreation merchandise, regularly promotes multi-day giveaways to the first 100 customers for grand openings of their new locations. For example, three-piece stainless steel BBQ tool sets on Friday, 1/2 -Watt LED Flashlights On Saturday, and a gift card valued between $5 and $20 on Sunday.
People’s schedules vary. Someone in your target audience may not be able to make a Tuesday afternoon event but they could make a Friday evening event.
Extending your launch events over a week long period allows patrons who couldn’t make it to one event to come and visit on a different day of your celebrations instead.
Strategy #3 – Offer A Free Workshop or Demo
Your grand opening could also include a demo or class to teach guests a skill relating to your business, especially if you are planning a multi-day event. This is the perfect opportunity to show why your product or service is valuable for customers and how to get the best results by using it. Use this appeal and make people want to try your products or services for free on the day of your grand opening or during your weeklong celebration.
For example, a restaurant can teach how to prepare a favorite dish of the chef’s or a florist can show guests how to make a perfect flower arrangement. Or if you sell services, you can demo your service. Like for a gym, you can demo what exactly is involved in a personal training session.
To maximize sales, prepare gift packs with everything your workshop or demo guests will need to recreate what they learned after they get home.
Strategy #4 – Partner With Related Businesses
If you are a brand new business in the area you may not have an established client base yet. Consider teaming up with those who already do. For example, if you offer surfing lessons, you may want to partner with a local surfboard shop. Great partnerships are those that organically happen between businesses that are non directly competing but have very similar customer bases.
You’ll get a much better crowd and you’ll both get more exposure if you can find a local business to co-host your opening events with you.
Strategy #5 – Have An Exclusive Sale
Consumers always perk up when they hear the word “sale”. In-store promotions can help support all of your grand opening events. Customers telling their friends and family that they’ve found a great deal in your shop will definitely drive in new customers.
Be selective in the products or services that you mark on “sale”. Do not mark everything on sale. You don’t want to give away all of the money you may make through your grand opening events in the form of deep discounts on everything. Also, the sale items should be enticing and useful for the customer.
Your grand opening sale will be popular if you’re promoting items people genuinely want and help you get on their radar. With enough promotion, you can generate a great level of excitement and bring in steady crowds. This will, in turn, draw passersby as well!
Conclusion
Grand openings provide the perfect opportunity to create a strong and long-lasting buzz around your brand. But, the key is in the planning and promotion. Take the time to plan out your events thoroughly and then, promote your events as much as possible.
By utilizing the strategies above, you can ensure a successful grand opening for your business that will have people talking for weeks to come, successful sales to match, and a new backing of regular customers on your side.
