When you as a business owner purchase a new piece of equipment to improve your products or services, there's no denying that it can come with mixed emotions. Perhaps a lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into making a decision, financing, training, troubleshooting as well other types of investments have been involved. If loss of sleep was an investment, that could very well be on the list, too. You are hoping you've made the right decision and want it to do more than just pay for itself!
What in the world does this have to do with hosting an event? A piece of equipment? A lot, actually. If this addition to your business is going to make you more marketable to your current customers and expand your clientele, you want them to know about your new toys! Think of it like a birth announcement. Tell people all of the wonderful things you are looking forward to doing with that new baby and how proud you are of it. Invite them to visit and let them know how this new addition is going to put a smile on their face and unlike real newborns, make your tasks easier by improving services for your clients. You can even give it a name and have some fun with it. Have a naming contest if that will draw attention to it. Some people name their cars, so why not? Enough with the baby stuff, but you get the point.
If this equipment or new product is going to save your clients time, they will love hearing about that! Create an event where they will get to see for themselves all the wonderful things that equipment offers them. Give people a reason to think of having a good time in connection with your business. That's where events come into the picture! Curiosity may have killed a cat, but never is that the case for your business. You want to build the curiosity and give your target market a chance to experience it first hand. In the case of a printing business and marketing your event, you could divulge that every hour you will be announcing a winner of a custom banner (with stipulations, if necessary).
Here's an example. Let's say that you offer printing services, and you've just added a machine that enables you to make banners. You're excited about it and you want to share your excitement and educate people on how you have one new way to serve them. People love to see how things work. It's like a mystery to them.
The more you can suggest that your clients can benefit from having banners the better! Whether it's a banner for a school event or activity, advertising a special businesses' sale, event or even special holiday hours. For special social events, you want people thinking of how you can make birthdays, anniversaries and reunions customized. People often love banners for weddings and some can serve a very useful purpose such as providing directions to an event and finally a grand entrance to an event. If you have an employee who has just had a baby, businesses have made those announcement for decades on their signs and A-Boards. I wouldn't recommend that the parents do this at their residence, but it is less of a danger if their employer does this.
Whatever your business is, use new equipment as an excuse to celebrate and to pay for itself!
People remember events much more than a brochure or even an online ad.
Here's a link to our waiting list for our workshop on "How to Host a Successful Event to Boost Your Business". It will eventually become a paid webinar, but if you are in Seattle or Tacoma, you can enjoy the workshops in person! Costs vary according to venue and food selections.
Just for the fun of it! Just to show you how strongly names are connected to equipment, do a Google search for Seattle and Bertha...after you've read this blog post. This will be an example of what you never want associated with equipment and your business.
Wishing you the greatest of days! Your business deserves them, too!
Greatest of Days, Event Planning and Design
