PrintingNews.com

There are many ways to get prospects through the front door of your business but one of the easiest is by announcing that you are throwing a party complete with food, drinks and prizes. Otherwise known as an Open House, this party can bring together clients, prospects, vendors and local community members for an afternoon or evening of good, old fashioned face-to-face socializing.

Ocean Group, based in Ronkonkoma, on Long Island—with sales locations in New York City and East Hampton—hosted a successful and entertaining Open House last month at its 30,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility in Ronkonkoma.

Why was it successful in drawing 40 prospects and other community members through the door? According to Robert Wilner, vice president of the Print Digital Plus division of the Ocean Group, “We sweetened the pot for attendees by offering great food, nice giveaways (a 37-inch plasma TV and gift cards to local businesses), and extended our hours from afternoon into evening to make it convenient for people to come after work.”

The company specifically held its open house on a weekday, but stayed away from Friday (as that is a known Happy Hour night on Long Island). “Most of our attendees were from Long Island-based companies but we advertised the event in a newsletter we distribute to the entire Tri-state area,” explained Wilner.

The Ocean Group, which is a full-service offset and digital printing and graphic design facility, offers one to six-color offset work, a full creative art department and all related finishing services to its clients. After 32 years in business and employing 100 at its three locations, the company is in a strong position to move forward with digital services, and intends to market those services fully despite the rough economy.

Because this event was so rewarding for the company, Wilner said, “This is our first of many open houses.”

Panel discussions on topics such as digital printing and marketing were a highlight of the evening. Wilner, a marketing expert, is a partner with John Harkins in Print Digital Plus, also known as PDP. PDP provides personalized marketing, which allows the tailoring of promotions to an individual’s interests or needs, making them four to six times more likely to consider product being promoted.

In addition to Wilner, those participating in the discussions were:

John Mangione, owner of Johnny Sax Marketing & Design, is a small business marketing expert. His focus is on helping his clients grow their businesses. He accomplishes this through marketing consultations and leading business development seminars.

Hilary Topper is the president and CEO of HJMT Communications LLC, a full-service boutique public relations, social media, event planning and graphic design firm located in Westbury, Manhattan and Rochester. Her first book, “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Social Media but were afraid to ask...” is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com. In addition, Topper is an active blogger, getting 15,000 hits a day to her blog.

Rob Fishman is a partner with Rich Isaac at Sandler Training, a worldwide organization with more than 35 years of experience providing training, coaching and consulting in sales, sales management and negotiation skills. Business owners who turn to Sandler Training for help often do so because their salespeople aren’t getting in front of enough new potential clients; their salespeople create a lot of proposals, but don’t win enough; or they feel they lack a true sales and sales management process to guarantee results.

Wilner noted that many attendees asked questions of the panel and were interested in learning more about marketing. “The event we just sponsored addressed marketing strategies during difficult economic conditions. We also addressed maintaining proper etiquette while taking advantage of the new social/business networking opportunities,” he explained.

“All who attended were given a tour of our offset and digital printing plants, as well as our mailing house which also hosted the panel discussion. Our guests were exposed to the many new technologies we have added over the past few months,” he added. “During the tour, our guests also had the opportunity to ask some challenging questions of the many experts we staff.”

Of the 40 companies that attended the event, Wilner said, many have become clients and are taking advantage of the company’s services.
“We are planning our next event in the early spring. Each event will have a different theme,” he said.