blog 3One of the primary goals of advertising is to get people “into the store.” That’s an obvious benefit for a retail business, but it has application to non-retail as well. Think of it this way, any time you can get people from their turf to yours, it can give you a selling advantage. And that’s true whether you’re selling products or services or raising money for a good cause.

In general, we’re talking about event marketing, and for this post, the specific type of event is an open house, where you open up your store—or your warehouse, or your office, or your production facility—for some number of hours, and invite customers and/or prospects to visit you there. It’s not a by-appointment sort of thing, but something much more flexible.

A successful open house will develop through four stages: the planning stage, the invitation stage, the big day itself, and the follow-up stage. And there’s a very apt analogy to baseball here. The planning stage gets you to first base; the invitation stage gets you to second base; the big day itself takes you to third base; but it won’t be a home run unless you follow up to maximize the value of bringing your customers and prospects and your company together through an open house event.

We can obviously help you by printing and mailing invitations and follow-up materials. We might also be able to help you with your overall strategy. Give us a call!