Six Creative Ways to Make your Grand Opening a Success

When done right, grand openings (or re-openings) can be big attention-getters and can properly introduce your business to the community. A successful grand opening event can effectively launch your business and positively impact your bottom line. But it takes hard work, preparation and strategic promotions to make a grand opening work.  Here are some marketing activities and ideas to help you make that happen:

1. Spread the Word

Beginning a month prior to the event, send timely emails, fliers and personal invitations and use social media posts and ads (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) to announce the opening.  Be sure your website is ready to go and create a video for YouTube that acts as a teaser ad for the grand opening. 

2. Traffic Generating Incentives

In conjunction with the grand opening, offer special incentives for customers who shop during the grand opening or within a short time period. Create loyalty programs that will keep those customers coming back regularly.

3. Use the Media

  

Send a press release to the local media (Patch, community newspapers) to emphasize what your business will be bringing to the community in the form of jobs or a needed service or product, etc.  Also, issue a media alert inviting the  press to attend your grand opening and include a schedule of activities, key attendees and photo opportunities.

4. Chambers and Mayors Offices

Speaking of photo opportunities, invite your mayor or local officials to participate in a ribbon cutting ceremony or to make an appearance. Also involve your local Chamber of Commerce who will help you spread the word about the event.

 5. Form Partnerships    

 Team up with related or neighboring businesses so that you all can contribute to and benefit from the buzz of your opening.  Create reciprocal marketing partnerships such as flier or newsletter swaps.

6. Be Community-Minded

Is there a way that your event can be tied in with a greater cause? Can your grand opening or event help the local community in some way?  If it can, you're bound to get more attention and publicity.

What other marketing activities have you successfully  implemented for your business' grand opening? Please share your comments below.

Live Tweet Your Next Event to Kick It Up a Notch!

Whether your event is a small local business meeting or a large conference, live tweeting will help to publicize your event, extend your reach and get more followers. Live tweeting at an event is a way to convey minute-by-minute activities as they are happening. It's a great way to communicate what's going on and being said at an event as it unfolds. Live tweeting allows people at the event to really engage and those who aren't there to feel like they are.

Quite a bit of work goes into preparing for live tweeting. Here are a few tips to help you with your next live tweet experience:

Preparation

Create an event hashtag to help attendees and others track conversations and the event's activities. Do your research to be sure the hashtag you pick is not already being used! Then use the hashtag with every tweet, before, during and after the event. Use the hashtag on pre-event promotional materials and be sure to announce it at the event so people can follow along or post using it.

Pull together a list of the Twitter handles of all the key people associated with the event(speakers, presenters, journalists, influential attendees, etc.).  Save this list to a document that you can easily reference during the event.

Prepare tweets and branded visuals ahead of time. Based on your event schedule and planned content, create tweet drafts so that you aren't scrambling to create all your tweets from scratch during the event.

Make sure you have strong Wi-Fi access and a mobile hotspot to use as backup. Be sure your phone, laptop and all device are charged and bring your chargers.

Live-Tweeting

Provide a tweet narrative that keeps your audience interested in following the action!  Make your tweets concise. Each tweet should make sense out of context.  Focus on quotes, brief sound bites of information, calls for action, photos and videos.

Engage with people who are using your hashtag. Respond to their tweets and retweet them. Start conversations to enhance your event and to get other people interested. Tag the people in all the photos you post to bring even more attention to your tweets.

After the Event

Continue to monitor your hashtag. Days later, your audience could be posting images and feedback that you'll want to respond to or take note of!

What other ways has live tweeting enhanced your events?  Please share by commenting below!

Tips for Using Pinterest for Business

If your business hasn't jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon, now is the time. Pinterest is growing faster than another social media network according to a recent report from ShareThis.  Pinterest grew at 58% in 2013 outpacing Twitter and LinkedIn.

The ShareThis report states that Pinterest has surpassed email for online sharing. This means that consumers are now "pinning" things like articles, photos, recipes, etc. to share more than they're emailing links.

In addition to a growing user base and an increase in sharing, Pinterest can also give a boost to your SEO.

Check out these tips to help you get started on Pinterest or maximize your business' current efforts:

1. Create a Business Pinterest Page 
Unlike a personal Pinterest Page, a business Page offers valuable analytics to help you understand what's working and what's not.  Pinterest also offers educational information to help businesses build a community and drive traffic to their Page.

2. Complete your Business Profile
Use all of the 160 characters to describe your business and what you'll be posting on your Page. Include keywords to boost your Pinterest SEO. Under Account Settings you can set up connections with your other social media accounts to easily make your Pinterest posts visible on your other networks. And don't forget to verify your web site so that your Pinterest visitors can see your web address and click through to it.

3. Describe Your Pins
Use keywords and hashtags in each pin's description area to optimize them.  Use up the 500 characters allowed and make your text relatable, fun and relevant.

4. Link Every Pin
Add a link to your web site to every Pin you post. These "back links" can increase your Google rankings and they're a smart and easy way to drive traffic to your web site.

5. Fill your Boards
There's nothing worse than clicking on a Pinterest board with only one Pin! Before you make a board public, be sure to add lots of interesting images and links.

If you sell products, Pinterest is a great tool.  But consider Pinterest, even if you have a service based business.  Think of Pinterest as a way to post relevant web site links with interesting photos that entice people to click!

Pinterest shouldn't be used for the sole purpose of promotion. Use it to offer your audience useful information and to build your business' brand and the lifestyle associated with it.