How to Use Town Wide Events like the Upcoming Fireworks to Help your Business Boom

Town wide events like fairs, festivals, and the upcoming New Hope-Lambertville fireworks can be challenging for local businesses.  These events are designed to help towns to become a destination or magnet for new visitors, but can they also actually help your business? We’ve put together a few quick-tips and ways you can leverage these events to boost your own business.

Before the Event

Set Goals: Define what you want out of the event.  Set a realistic goal, for example, “I would like to generate 20-40 more fans on Facebook as a result of this event.”  This will of course vary depending on your business, its needs, and location.  Once you set the goal, creating a strategy to achieve it will be much less daunting.  Monitoring the results will also help you track ‘success’ and make adjustments for future events.

Create a Related Display: Display a large easily visible promo flyer relating to the event in your window before and during the event and let it do some of the work for you.  If you do decide closing during the event is right for your business, putting a promotional flyer in place that inspires passer-bys to interact can help to gain you new fans on social media who will be more likely to return to your business and are easier to stay in touch with. 

Consider using a QR code, website link, suggested #hashtag on or around your flyer.  If done           correctly, this can inspire visitors to snap and share a photo of your promo, visit your site or             social media pages, or sign up for your newsletter.  Consider using a coupon or giveaway as         motivation to get passer-bys to take action. This could be a great idea for restaurants during           the food truck event!

During the Event

Provide a Coupon: Hand out a ‘bounce-back’ coupon to customers who enter your shop if you are open during the event – i.e. “Boom Bucks” for the upcoming fireworks.  This inspires customers to come back, helps with brand loyalty, and best of all can be tracked.  This way you’ll have a better idea of whether or not the event helped your business to reach a new fan base. 

According to a Harvard Business School study, increasing customer retention rates by just 5             percent can increase profits by 25 to 95 percent.  Why not let town wide events and bounce back programs help you with this growth goal?

Create a Presence:  If your store is closed during the event, display a special promotion on social media, your web site and in your window display offering a day of event unique promotion. Leverage FourSquare Swarm, Facebook Checkins, or a QC code.  These tools can be utilized in various ways to allow visitors to take action and receive a special promotion given out as a fireworks or event-themed coupon.  This coupon can be redeemed within the next few weeks post event. 

After the Event

Follow Up: Did you hand out bounce-back “Boom Bucks” coupons during the event?  Send out friendly courtesy reminders on your social media pages to come and use your bounce back coupons while they can be redeemed. As for those that did not get their bounce-back coupon, maybe they will visit your store during the next event! It’s just another reason to interact with fans!

Review Results: Pay attention to your social media and web analytics to track success or to identify ways to improve your visibility.  How effectively were you able to leverage the event’s extra foot traffic?  Did you accomplish your realistic goals?  If not, what could you try to do differently for the next event?  There are many metrics to review and compare from before, day of and shortly after the towns event.

Want to learn about several other ways you can use town wide events to “Amplify Your Voice”, to boost sales for your business?  Contact us today for a free 45 minute in-person meeting.  We’ll provide you with actionable ideas and strategies personalized to your individual business at no obligation to you!