This September, the Communiqué PR team had the privilege of attending an exceptional open house hosted by our client, Spaceflight Inc.
Open houses are an excellent opportunity for key partners, customers and stakeholders to celebrate a company’s milestones and showcase new facilities or products. These events provide an opportunity to network, bond as a team and exhibit notable results and accomplishments.
Below are four tips for planning and hosting a successful open house, as demonstrated by Spaceflight.
Curate your invite list. Consider which stakeholders should be included. Your open house is an opportunity to celebrate your internal team, express gratitude to vendors and partners, and network with local officials and media contacts.
You should also acknowledge your community. If your open house is in a new city or neighborhood, consider including public figures such as city council members and local government officials. This helps foster relationships that are important for the company’s continued success and growth.
Engage the media. By inviting high-priority media contacts to your event, you can connect one-on-one with reporters who are interested in your organization.
Your internal team should recognize attending media contacts when they enter. Consider developing briefing documents that note which reporters are attending, what outlet they write for and their relationship with the company. Be sure to assign a team member to welcome media contacts, perhaps offering individual product demonstrations or a facility tour.
Prepare the internal team to host. While this is an event to celebrate the company, your team are hosts and should be prepared to greet guests, answer questions and network. To ensure the staff is prepared, take the extra step of providing a high-level document outlining key messages, best practices and potential questions. This ensures that staff accurately represent the company and feel equipped to host while enjoying themselves.
Showcase your products and services. Get creative in presenting your accomplishments. By finding ways to demonstrate your company’s products and services, you can provide guests with a hands-on experience and description of your solutions. This can be in the form of posters, scaled models or videos.
In the case of Spaceflight, the company told its unique story by exhibiting a scale model of the Sherpa orbital transfer vehicle. In addition, staff members were prepared to explain the product and address questions from guests.
An open house requires hard work and coordination. These best practices can help you leverage your celebratory event to foster relationships with key stakeholders and commemorate the opening of new facilities.