(Continued from Part 1)
3-Prepare Well Prior to the Event
Good preparation is key for any event, but really knowing your inventory and product lines are essential for a successful show. You will want to make sure that you have everything ready to go before the party.
Important items will include your product pictures, promotional materials and links to buy. You will also want to have activities for attendees that will enable them to participate and win prizes.
What can you do online in a chat room? You can play guessing games, or you can have a raffle and give away prizes. One fun game is to have people hunt for an object in the online product catalog. Give hints, and the first person to find the object wins that prize.
Since this is an online event, you will have to be prepared to mail out any winning items, so be sure that the things you plan to give away are light-weight and can be packaged easily with little concern for breakage or damage. Have supplies on hand for these mailings, including inexpensive cushioned envelopes, or the free Priority Mail flat rate envelopes and boxes. Have return address items printed up with your contact information and URL of your online direct sales storefront.
You might also consider creating handy sheets like make-up tips for women with various complexions, how to create certain eye make-up looks for various occasions (smoky eye, day time eye make-up, and so on) and perhaps a list of your top 10 bestsellers, with details, so they do not have to hunt so much online. Any chance you get to be in someone’s mailbox inexpensively is a great offline opportunity. Also encourage them to pass along the information to their friends (be sure your URL and contact info is on everything you send out) and to invite them to come to your next online event.
We recommend you schedule one per month for three months in a row to get people excited and also enable anyone who misses one to have a follow up chance to attend another one. Announce the second one at the end of the first event, and so on. One sales event is great, but continuity, that is, regular customers buying each month, will be crucial for creating a steady income from your direct sales business.
(Continued in Part 3)
