Issue link: https://www.ascpskindeepdigital.com/i/637956
46 march/april 2016 STEP 1: CREATE YOUR GUEST LIST Hopefully, you already have a detailed list of existing and potential clients, friends, and family members. If not, then it's time to get organized and make a comprehensive contact list. Online booking and email platforms, such as Constant, Contact, MindBody (both of which offer discounts for ASCP members), Schedulicity, and Mail Chimp make compiling and emailing your guest list easy and convenient. The optimal number of guests depends on your business. Consider the amount of money you're willing and able to commit to the event, the size of your space, and the length of your client/potential client list. If you have ample space, trigger a bigger turnout by offering a gift to anyone who brings a friend (or two). Extending an invite to your clients' friends and family members is a great way to expose your beauty business to potential new customers. You may want to limit free gifts to the first 10 clients (or any number you decide) who bring a friend or while supplies last, to avoid any guest disappointment if you happen to run out. If your space is on the smaller side, try setting segmented time frames for guests. An example of this would be to invite your VIPs for an exclusive pre-event with added benefits from 4:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m., and invite all other guests from 5:15 p.m.–8:00 p.m. My experience has shown that about half of the invited guests will attend, so decide what your magic number would be, then invite twice as many. Also, if you make your event an annual happening, and you pay attention to what worked and what didn't, you can watch the number of attendees increase each year. STEP 2: PICK A DATE Starting about two months out gives you a good amount of time to plan accordingly. Once you know the date, you can reverse engineer the entire event. It's best to choose a party time that allows your clients to stop by on their way home from work. If you schedule the event too late in the evening, and your guests have the opportunity to go home first, they might not want to head back out. A proven strategy to ensure a robust turnout is to do some market research in advance. Even before picking a date and time, ask your clients what might work for their schedule if you were to plan an exciting event for them. This approach will plant a seed in their heads that you have something exciting in the works, and it will also give you the inside knowledge needed to move forward with a successful party structure. It is also wise to avoid crazy busy times such as holidays when people tend to travel, and when there are too many other community events that might keep your guests from attending. Do an Internet search of local event calendars in your city as a quick reference guide.