Suggestions Needed For Open House

I've found that a "product Show" is not near as effective as an informative seminar at which you display products.

I had a JP8000/TC II launch at a minor league ball park. I think the cost was $50 per person for food, tickets and the conference room.

We spent $2,000 and got our Duplicator DSM to cover half in co-op monies. Forty people were invited and about 30 showed. No sales that noght nor the next week, nor the next month, however by the time the quarter was done we had two extra TCII and JP8000 sales.

I concentrated with Print 4 Pay Accounts and Copy Shops.

Hope this helps.

Art

Greg,

i've been using the e-lead prgram to invite people to product or category specific Open house. I'm doing one focusing on high volume, but one of the customers is interested in color also. I'd be stupid not to show them both while he's in the showroom. I often have either our technical support consultant, and or my digital network specialist help me out with these. This way if I'm busy presenting the "showcased" systems, they can help me out with other products.Following up by phone on the eleads works pretty well. I'm finnally getting the purchasing director for one of my two HUGE

Here's the rest of it:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pete Maimone:
Greg,

i've been using the e-lead prgram to invite people to product or category specific Open house. I'm doing one focusing on high volume, but one of the customers is interested in color also. I'd be stupid not to show them both while he's in the showroom. I often have either our technical support consultant, and or my digital network specialist help me out with these. This way if I'm busy presenting the "showcased" systems, they can help me out with other products.Following up by phone on the eleads works pretty well. I'm finnally getting the purchasing director for one of my two HUGE target accounts coming as a result of the e-lead open house e-mail.

Good Luck

Pete M.

Make sure that once you have developed a list of attendees that have said they are going to attend on the first call to them you: Call them a day or two before the event and confirm their attendence. Tie in the fact that their lunch or plate for the event has been ordered and we were simply getting a final head count and looking forward to their participation. You are really going to feel the event was time well spent or something like that. Whatever it is CALL them the day or two before, it will make a difference. Consider Pete's 3 to 4 ratio. I'm not sure what the environment is like where he is, but 40 saying they are going to attend is impressive and 30 turning out is just down right exciting to have that many people as a captive audience for your dealership.
One real world example I was a part of about 3 years ago: We carry RISO and held a luncheon at a local high end country club/golf course. It was geared towards Executive Directors and Administrators of non-profit orgs. There were 6 tables of 6 to 7 people each. We invited 7 current users to the event and separated them, one per table that could offer testimonial to our presentation. This served all parties well as there was positive feedback. In addition to having a presentation geared to a specific product line, we did also have a mainstream workgroup document system present in order to address that capability of our dealership when it came up and it did.
Good Luck!

Gregory it wasn't mine that had the 30 of 40 show up. It was Art's. I believe a night at the ballpark (game included) helped alot. I wish I could 30out of 40. Calling the day before is a good idea that I also do. It's a double edged sword. That 's usually when you find out that about half of those who said they'd attend actually commit to coming and the other half cancel. But I know if I didn't make the calls there would be more no-shows.

I think the Ball Park/Game was the trick, the customers who attended felt obligated to "go through the motions'. Which I knew some where and there were a few who were really into the demo.

Come to think of it, one of the guys I invited was the biggest Image Runner Copy Shop @ The Shore. He just purchased his first 2105 and may pull the trigger on the second one this month.

Art

Thank all of you for the suggestions for marketing it. Here is another problem, my dealership has not been big in the color market in the past and we would like to change that. I think we will do a show for just color. Other than realestate, and car dealerships, what are some good vertical markets to invite? What applications do you reccommend showing for them?

All companies that have a marketing department and a good sales team (color sells).

See attached file

Greg,

When we launced the 1232, we held a show the day before the manufactures launch. We didn't go all with high end catering but we had food and drinks available. We probably sent out 1000 invitations. About 47 People attended through out the day.

Nobody signed the dotted line, but that was 47 Demos in one day/ In addition to the 1232, we also had dups' TCII's folders, a 60, and mini network. We also through in some smaller equipment.

I realized that it is not the number of people you get, but the quality of prospect or clientele that arrives. We had some very strong propsects that lead us to be involved in some very large deals. It was worth the planning, time and aggrivation..

Good Luck