Engaging Customers With Open Houses

While any marketing strategy can generate customers’ and prospects’ interest in your offerings, there’s nothing quite like an in-person experience. Hosting open houses gives you the chance to demonstrate your capabilities to old, new, and future customers.

“It’s big for us even to bring in cold prospects as well, ones that aren’t partnering with us whatsoever, and allow them to see the different things that we can do,” says Zach Bouley, director of sales and marketing at

At United Business Systems' open house, attendees have the opportunity not only to learn about the solutions the company offers, but also to network with new and old connections alike.

Buffalo, New York-based United Business Systems. “It’s all about just trying to allow people to understand that we have a wide scope of services and solutions that we
can provide.”

Additionally, holding an open house shows attendees more of what you can do for them than if you’d gone to a broader venue such as a trade show.

“We can’t take everything to the shows all the time,” says Beatrice Drury, marketing and communications manager at Zünd America, which is headquartered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. “Given that we have a very extensive … customer experience center with 10 different machines, obviously we can’t bring 10 machines to a show, right? It would be incredibly expensive.”

Plus, Drury shares, inviting customers to your facility prevents them from being able to “wander off” to your competitors.

Tishaura Jones, mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, established Lawson Screen & Digital Products Day to recognize the company's impact on the community. From left, Ben Landesman, David Landesman, Lakesha Robinson, and Taylor Landesman stand with the official proclamation. | Credit: Lawson

David Landesman, president at Lawson Screen & Digital Products in St. Louis, Missouri, explains that another reason to host an open house is to “say thank you to the community in which you are embedded.”

The company recently did this by hosting an open house to celebrate its 75th anniversary.

“For Lawson’s recent 75th anniversary, the mayor of the City of St. Louis, Tishaura Jones, proclaimed it ‘Lawson Screen and Digital Products Day’ in honor of our 75-year history of being located in the City of St. Louis, providing employment for all these years to literally hundreds and hundreds of local residents.”

So Many Choices, Not Enough Space

As Drury mentioned, hosting an event at your homebase gives you the opportunity to share more of what you have to offer; what you showcase isn’t as budget-dependent since it doesn’t have to be transported anywhere.

While you don’t have to worry as much about the financial side in that aspect, you still need to consider the limitations that come with the space you plan to use.

“We have a giant showroom; it’s never big enough,” says Landesman. “I cannot put 150 pieces in my showroom.”

Thus, as much as you might want to show everything you have, you’ll still have to make choices about what to feature.

“You want to probably pick a few key areas that you feel you want to expand your outreach, your base, in those areas, and then really put a focus on that,” says Bouley.

Landesman agrees in principle, but he says that for the 75th anniversary open house, he commandeered part of Lawson’s factory floor space to squeeze in as much as possible.

“I think you can have too much because it can be confusing for some people — not all people,” he says. “That’s why I think it’s important to show a wide variety. Hence, I spilled over into additional space, but it’s also important to focus on what’s most important. Everything is important; we have to focus on what’s most important.”

Generating Interest

Adding unique features such as food trucks to your open house can make customers and prospects feel welcome and entice them to attend. | Credit: United Business Systems

Since so many companies host open houses, it’s crucial to make your event stand out. One way to do this is to offer a unique opportunity — and not just in the business sense.

“Milwaukee is kind of famous for Summerfest (musical festival),” Drury says. Since Zünd’s American headquarters is about 20 minutes from the city, “... we had tickets for people to go to that in the evening after the open house, after dinner. There has to be some kind of fun component to it, not just the demos and the sales pitch.”

On the other hand, Lawson takes a different approach.

“What some people believe, what makes a memorable open house is music or dancing or a New Orleans jazz band or an amazing display of food or free alcohol,” Landesman says. “I don’t believe any of that. I believe that’s a distraction. What I believe is memorable for our guests is if I help them make money, if I help their business grow, if I help their business survive. So, what I focus on is helping our clients do what they need to do to survive in this competitive landscape.”

United Business Systems lands somewhere in the middle. While offering fun or exciting opportunities such as door prizes and free lunches from food trucks can attract customers and encourage networking, it’s still important to have a structured and well-organized event to show people what they need and want, Bouley says.

One thing they all agree on is how to get people to attend your event in the first place. In addition to the standard marketing channels in this digital age — email, social media, and your website — leveraging the human element can be a great way to find attendees.

“The biggest piece for the promotion is the sales reps themselves,” Bouley explains. “So I’ll equip them with a physical RSVP, like a little postcard. I’ll give them a couple hundred of them, and when they’re out in the field, whether they’re out there at meetings or they’re out prospecting and in person, they’re always handing them out and talking about the event. I always put a QR code right on there so people can scan and register. And I’ll give them a digital version as well.”

Additional Challenges

Once you’ve planned and promoted your open house, you should be prepared to run into a dilemma or two as the big day gets closer. For Drury, one of the biggest issues is getting people who live far away
to attend.

“In the past — we didn’t do it so much [last] time — we took on the overnight cost, the hotel cost, for some of the people,” Drury explains. “The way we did it, we actually had a VIP event before the general open house started, the night before. But the hardest thing is usually just getting people to devote the time it takes to travel if they are coming in from out of town, across the country, or whatever.”

She also notes that even if people do RSVP for your event, it doesn’t mean they are guaranteed to come because, “people just get busy.”

To mitigate some of this, Landesman suggests limiting how many open houses you host.

“When you ask people to make a drive or to stay in a hotel overnight, that’s a big commitment,” he says. “I think if you do it too often, your attendance will fall. Also, the time and resources involved are substantial. So, for Lawson, we basically do an open house and technology showcase on big anniversary dates.”

On the flip side, when attendees show up, they may only pop in when it’s convenient for them.

“We run our event from 11 to 5, so we do definitely get an influx of people from like 12 to 2, in that true lunch period,” Bouley says. “So, if you haven’t actually done it before, it might get a little hectic and stressful with the amount of people there, and just making sure that everyone’s experiencing it in the best way they possibly can.”

Bouley adds that the equipment you want to showcase might get “stage fright” on the day of the event. Because of this, it’s important to be able to troubleshoot problems and have a backup plan in case something goes wrong.

Once the event closes, Bouley says, the job is not done yet.

Attendees at Lawson Screen & Digital Products' open house discuss the offerings on display. | Credit: Lawson

“We always do our open house in June, so from June until the end of the year, we pick up a lot of business based off of what we do at the open house,” he notes. “And a lot of that is the follow-up. People are going to come through the door and they’re going to grab some information and they’re going to learn a couple things, but you really need to follow up with them afterward and schedule the next move, which is, ‘Hey, let’s sit down and talk about this solution in more detail and see how it makes sense
for you.’”

When it comes down to it, hosting an open house can be a great way to foster your current customer relationships and build new ones. However, Landesman emphasizes that you must thoroughly evaluate whether an open house is the right fit for your organization.

“It’s a lot of work, so unless you’re prepared to give it the attention that it deserves, your open house will be a flop,” he says. “... So that’s the biggest challenge, it’s finding the time and deciding, ‘OK, this is a worthwhile activity,’ because not all business activities are worthwhile.”