When it comes to selling high-ticket products and services, many companies will host a sales event. This tends to take the form of a conference in which a presentation is given to an audience of potential clients. These sales events can be effective if carried out correctly. Below are a few tips for putting on a winning sales event.

Market your event thoroughly

In order to attract attendees to your event, you need to market it. This could be done by personally inviting along individuals that you think are interested with targeted emails and flyers, or it could be done by publicly marketing event via social media, posters and PPC ads. It all depends on how niche your audience is. In all cases, you need to be prepared to thoroughly promote your event. This will ensure that people actually come. Make sure that there is a clear way of registering or buying tickets so that you know exactly how many people are coming. 

Know your audience

A good sales strategy involves having a clear understanding of who your audience are. Mega-rich individuals and large corporations will have different needs and expectations to everyday consumers and small companies. When trying to sell to the former group, you may have to go the extra mile to make your sales event convincing and memorable such as hiring a lavish location and hosting a champagne reception. The latter group may be happy with something less glamorous. 

Plan your presentation

Improving a sales presentation isn’t recommended. The best presentations involve thorough research and planning. By using facts and figures, you can generate trust in your company. It could also be worth telling a story to help engage your audience (this could be a story of a customer having their problems solved by your product or a story of how your company came to be). A visual accompaniment such as a PowerPoint display, video or even a live demo may be necessary. Make sure that you’ve planned and rehearsed this all so that it’s as powerful as possible. 

Hire a helping hand

Putting on a sales event single-handedly isn’t easy. In most cases, you’ll need to hire some help. This could be an event management company that is able to organize everything from venue hire to catering. Alternatively, you could hire individual services such as catering or graphic design. You can even hire a spokesperson to deliver your presentation if public speaking isn’t your strong point (or you could hire a speaking coach if you’d prefer to do it yourself). 

Follow up leads

You may not always be able to secure a sale at your event. Some attendees may require further time to think about the decision or may even have plans of attending other events. Make sure to chase up your attendees afterwards - you could find that this is where you make most of your sales. By this point, they’ll have gotten to know you and your product and they’ll have had enough time to ruminate. It’s the perfect time to work on securing that sale.