Triumph of the not-so-grand opening
According to marketing industry insiders, grand openings are an overrated marketing tactic and push new businesses to spend their advertorial budget at the very time they should not.
“I believe soft openings are the best way to handle the start of any business,” said Valorie Luther, founder of Creative Concepts of Fairfield. “No business is 100 percent on target the day they open. It”™s best to get the kinks out before an official opening and PR campaign.”
Seth Godin, international marketing guru and author from Westchester County, N.Y., said grand openings are only a symptom of the real problem: marketers that become briefly focused on grand opening and then move on.
According to Godin, “grand opening syndrome” forces marketers to spend their time and money at exactly the wrong instance, and leads to a lack of endurance that harms the prospects of the product and services that are being launched.
“Dedicate most of the money to building a Web site that will attract new customers and a blog that will help your company rise in the search engine rankings and build loyal customers at the same time,” said Luther. “You can create online support that will build offline business. Once your business is up and running, you can now have your official opening. You can not only send out press about your new business, and offer details about the event, but you can invite and honor your first customers and your online community that you created through the Web site and blog.”
Godin said that nonprofits are also often guilty of spending months planning elaborate events that seem to promote a hotel and the caterer more than the organization.
Marketers across the board say that development is generally regarded as a sign of a business”™s success, but uncontrolled growth can and does kill companies.
“Building any business takes time and an opening is just one tool to get the word out,” said Luther. “Budget carefully, understand who your target audience is, and then put funds into the best ways that can reach your audience. An opening party may not even be in the picture once you do this analysis.”
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