Promoting Your New Business With a Community Meet and Greet

Promoting awareness of your product or service is arguably one of the most difficult aspects of running your own business, especially if you’re not already well known or filling a local niche that’s in dire need of attention. Without solid advertising and marketing it can be difficult to get potential customers to even look twice, much less remember who you are and make a conscious effort to come and find you. A great way to not only get your name out there but also drive awareness or what you have to offer to not only the average customer but also other local business is with a community “meet and greet” style presentation.

The premise is simple, find a space that you can rent or host your meet and greet, get the word out about when and where you’re holding it, and watch as tons of potential customers roll in to see what you’re all about. It can be that easy, but you should also make sure to put in plenty of effort on the back end to make sure things go smoothly. The first step you should take is to make sure you find an appropriate space to host your event.

Depending on the kind of business as well as how populated the area is, you’re going to want to choose a venue with the right amount of space to have all of your promotional materials. You should aim for something large enough to host one or two dozen people (or more if you’re expecting that many) as well as any staff who will be there. Make sure not to set up somewhere too cramped and uninviting or, on the other side, too spacious which can be costly and inefficient.

Next is all about getting the word out about your event. It doesn’t matter how hard you work on putting your event together if nobody shows up, right? There are several tools you have available at your disposal so make sure to use all of them effectively! Since it’s a community meet and greet for local customers, the most powerful tool is local advertising! Take an ad out in a local newspaper or publication advertising your event. Also don’t pass up the chance to post a flier up at community hotspots, many places like parks and grocery stores have places for advertising events. Last but not least, flex your social networking muscles and get the word out through Facebook, Twitter, and more. Try to reach as many people as possible to let them know you’re going to be there!

Once you have your venue picked out and you’ve gotten the word out about your event, the last step is to make it worthwhile to come by providing something worth coming to see. Remember that you’re trying to attract visitors, a good way to do that is to promise free food, drinks, or gifts for people that show up. Make sure that everything that you have available has some sort of contact information fro your business. A good choice is custom printed cups with your business name and logo and even contact information like a website/physical address, e-mail, and your business’ phone number on it. Community meet and greets can take a lot of effort to set up, but the potential impact it will have on new and future customers far outlasts the effort it took to put together.