The obvious purpose of a grand opening is to introduce your new business or product to the buying public. Other benefits of a successful Grand Opening are to generate immediate sales and stir up in your staff the energy and excitement that will provide long standing motivation.
A successful grand opening requires planning, promotion and publicity. After all you only really have a chance to do it once. Do it right and it will pay dividends in the long term.
Here are a few tips to help you get started.
1. Chose the Right Date and Time
This probably seems obvious, but it is critical that you get this right. Choose a date and time that is not only most convenient to your customers but is also a good time to get media attention. Typically, the best time for a ceremony is during the week, a day between Tuesday and Friday starting at a time between 10:00 am and 12:00 pm. Then, depending on your business, run the Grand Opening Event all week long.
Do not worry about running your Grand Opening on the actual day you open the doors. It's more important that you give yourself the time necessary to get the word out and get everything you need in place.
2. Send Specific Invitations
Do not just sit back and hope people will come, send out invitations to specific people (influencers) in your community.
Such community influencers include:
- Invite the officials and staff from your local Chambers of Commerce.
- Invite your local government leaders such as the mayor, county commissions, council and etc.
- Invite the people that had something to do with your new building including the building contractor, electrician, designers, realtor, and your banker.
- Invite the staff and director of your local business association.
- The newspaper, radio and television media.
- Do not forget to invite other community business owners too. You can usually get mailing labels from the Chamber of Commerce.
Snail mail your written invitations, about three weeks ahead of the grand opening day but no later than two weeks before the date. Make sure that you followup on those invitations by personally calling them within 3 days of the grand opening.
You should also take advantage of online methods of getting the word out. Send invitations to your email list, post on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Ask your friends, family and colleagues to share your message with their friends too. POWER TIP: Use these as an opportunity to build an email list of interested customers by providing a special offer to people that opt into your email list.
3. Planning your Grand Opening
Be sure to consider the following in your planning:
- When and where will the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony take place?
- Who will be the primary speaker or spokesperson? (Write out talking points but do not read from a script)
- Refreshments
- Determine and get your door prizes and prizes for the drawing? (Use these to get people on your email list)
Ideas for the Opening Day:
- Be sure to serve refreshments that people crave such as coffee, doughnuts, soda, juice and cookies, unless of course you have a health food store.
- Decorate your store facade with window graphics, vinyl banners and balloons. Be bold and have fun with it.
- Display your prize and drawing registration in a window or on a decorated table. Have registration for prizes displayed in the window, or on a special table. Once again use this as an opportunity to build an email and snail mailing list.
- Personally walk-in and invite all staff from your business neighbors. This is a great way to get to know your neighbors.
4. Get Some Major Attention
Make sure that everyone in your community will hear about your new business and its grand opening. Once again, be bold. The more attention you can get the more successful your grand opening will be.
Consider Outdoor Promotional Rentals:
- Giant cold air balloons – These giant attention getters can be placed on your building's roof or in the parking lot.
- Searchlights – If your store is open after dark, definitely consider a searchlight rental. New searchlight technology includes lights that use regular 110ac outlets and can be seen for miles.
- Flags – Multiple flags waving in the wind will draw traffic. These can be custom printed with your message or you can use standard messaging.
- And more.
Advertising
- Run a campaign that uses a number of small inexpensive ads to be teasers for the week ahead of the grand opening. Use larger ads for announcements the couple days before the grand opening ..
- Handout flyers in front of your store since people in the area are logical choices for new customers.
- Run radio ads in the three to four days prior to the grand opening event.
Publicity
Effective publicity will more than double your advertising's effectiveness. Go ahead stop into your local newspaper to personally deliver your news release and introduce yourself. Include in your news release a way that people can find your business. For example "Look for the 30 foot Godzilla on the corner of Main and 2nd."
5. Have Fun
The fact is people like to have fun. So show your confidence in the value your business offers by being bold and having fun with your Grand Opening and it will be a success.