So, you’ve decided to take the plunge and start your own small business. Once you have all the pieces in place, a grand opening event can be a great way to launch your new business. Planning a grand opening event can be daunting, but doing it well can help garner a surge of sales in the often-dry beginning month, get things off to a strong start, and make running your business easier in the long run.
The Grand Opening Checklist
Here is a grand opening checklist to help you make sure you’ve covered what you need to:
1. Covering the Basics
Before getting into a grand opening, it’s important to make sure you are covering the basics for your business, online and off.
- Take care of the business basics.
- Put up a website.
- Set up your social media profiles.
Take Care of the Business Basics
You probably already have this stuff done if you’re planning a grand opening, but if not, registering your business and related paperwork (EIN and sales tax license if they are required) are a must. Even if you’ve already done these things, it’s not a bad idea to give them another review just to make sure everything is correct and in order before you launch your business with an event.
Not checking things over beforehand is a product launch mistake to avoid. It also applies to your business and your grand opening event. You’ll want to make sure your time and energy are being used for running the event, connecting with potential customers, and managing your business; not working through problems that could have been avoided by taking the time to check over things beforehand.
Put Up a Website
Having a website is a necessity for a small business. Not only does it let the world wide web know that you exist and provide necessary context for what your business is, but it is also a major trust signal for potential customers.
People who don’t know you and aren’t familiar with your business will do their due diligence to make sure your business is legitimate and not a scam. Anything you can provide to help prove that you are real and deliver on your business promises can help you build trust with potential customers who are searching online. A good website can also help you set a good foundation for building and managing your online reputation.
At a minimum, your website should have information on your business, what you do, and a way to contact you. Other features may be necessary, depending on the type of business you have. As you build things out, you can also update your website to include reviews, testimonials, case studies, and other types of social proof.
Set Up Your Social Media Profiles
Having basic profiles up and running on the social media platforms that your potential customers use helps set your business up for success. A profile picture, cover photo, basic info, including links back to your website, and a few posts will get you off to the right start. It’s also not a bad idea to create a social media policy for your business. You can always add or adjust as needed, but having some guidelines for usage to start with can be a big help.
Social Profiles Are Brand Properties
Not only does having an active social media presence lend your business credibility, but each profile is also a brand property across the web that can help you boost your online visibility. Plus, social media is such an important part of the buyer’s journey. You want to make sure you are defining your target audience on social media and have a plan to be involved in conversations your potential customers are having on those platforms.
Focus on the Platforms Your Customers Use
Knowing who your target audience is can also help inform which social media platforms are right for your business and where you should spend more of your time for a better chance of connecting with customers.
It might make sense to have a profile on a platform for branding, but if your customers don’t spend a lot of time there, you don’t want to spend a lot of time and energy on that platform instead of one that your customers are actively using.
Connect With Potential Customers on Social Media
Additionally, social media gives you a way to retain any potential customers that attend your grand opening event. If they would rather not sign up for an email newsletter, connecting with your business on their social media platform(s) of choice can keep them engaged with you after the event.
As you plan out your social media posting strategy, make sure you are considering the specific platform you’re using. Not every social media space will be the same and respond to the same types of content on social media.
You want to make sure that you are engaging on those platforms in ways that help build community and work within what people expect to see from brands on those platforms. These are all things your business should be doing on social media.
2. Creating the Build-Up
With the basics covered, you can move on to planning the grand opening and creating a build-up for it:
- Set the date.
- Create a draw.
- Set up a social media schedule.
- Make a schedule for your website.
- Inform the media.
Set the Date
Choosing a date well ahead of time is important, especially if you are planning to have any special guests or news coverage. Make sure to check that the local calendar is clear; scheduling during holidays or large events can quickly kill your grand opening.
Depending on your local area, there is a chance that piggybacking on a holiday or around a local event can work in your favor, but this is something you will need to consider for your specific area and business, and determine whether it will help your event or hurt you.
Create a Draw
Why will people come to your grand opening? Aside from announcing your business, what else will you be providing to draw people in and make sure your event provides a good experience? Free food, entertainment, special deals, guest speakers; almost anything can bring in more people if you can find a way to tie it into your business.
Set Up a Social Media Schedule
Part of planning your grand opening event is planning how you will promote it and create a buzz about it. Setting up a social media schedule can keep you on track for promoting the event across your profiles and increasing reach there. You can also employ social listening to keep up with relevant conversations about the event and other local conversations where it would make sense to mention your event.
Start promoting your event a few weeks before it happens (months if you have the time) by posting to your social media. Start with just a post every week or two at first, and add more content as you get closer to the event. Make sure you include the important information as well as information about what you’ll have available to get people interested in attending.
Make sure you include time to respond to people via comments or messages if they reach out. This will help you build relationships and trust with potential customers and will help you set up a good foundation for using social media for customer service.
Make a Website Schedule
Similar to your social media, create content for your website well ahead of time too. Making sure that there is a way to contact you, information about your event, and directions on how to get there are all important things to have available on your site.
Inform the Media
Contact any media that you’d like at the event or might be interested in sharing information about your event well ahead of time. The more lead time you can give the media, the better. And the more media coverage you can get, especially online, the more citations across the web your brand has, which can help you reach more people for your grand opening event and boost visibility for your brand online.
Depending on the news outlet, some lead times will be longer than others. Print magazines tend to have long lead times, so you’ll want to give them a 3-6 month window. Local newspapers and weekly print publications usually have a 1-3 week lead time for non-breaking news. If you’re thinking about local TV or radio, lead times there tend to be 1-4 weeks for non-breaking news.
Online news outlets tend to move a bit quicker, but they’ll also vary, with some following a more standard 3-6 week lead time and others being able to accommodate 1-3 days, or even a few hours. Take the time well in advance to figure out which media sources might be a good fit for reporting about your event, identify their preferred lead times, and give them as much notice as you can.
3. Preparing For the Event
Once you know when you’re having your grand opening event and what you want to provide there, it’s time to prepare for it.
- Acquire all of your supplies.
- Set up your space.
- Check your website.
Acquire All of Your Supplies
Planning to have all of the necessary supplies for your grand opening, including the product that your business sells, at least a few weeks before opening will ensure that you don’t have a barren event. You can always do some last-minute adjustments for supplies or small items that you can easily pick up yourself, but anything that is important or needs to be shipped in should be acquired well in advance. This extra time helps to account for common opening issues like shipping errors.
Set Up Your Space
Get your space clean and in order. Make sure everything is well-stocked and well-organized. Take a lap around your business as if you were a customer.
- Is there enough room to move around?
- Is it easy to find things?
- Are things laid out in a way that makes sense for your ideal customer?
Your small business grand opening is one of the largest events for your business, so put your best foot forward!
Check Your Website
Whether you’ve had your website for a while or it’s brand new for your grand opening, make sure you take the time to check your website before the event. Just as you test your website before launch to make sure everything looks how you want it and is working as it should, you want to do the same before your grand opening event. People will likely be visiting your website before, during, or after the event, so you want to make sure it’s working and representing your brand well.
It’s also a good idea to check in with your website hosting provider to make sure that the server your website is hosted on has the bandwidth to handle whatever increase in traffic may come that day, or can seamlessly scale in order to handle it. There’s no guarantee that you’ll go viral and get a ton of attention, but the last thing you want is to get a lot of positive attention and have your website go down because your server can’t handle it.
Taking the time to plan, set up, and check everything properly is key to a successful product launch and also applies to launching your business and holding a grand opening event. Follow this grand opening checklist, and you’ll be closer to a kickoff event that goes off without a hitch!