Inviting clients and their families events

Marketers have discovered that often the best way to make it into the client’s appointment book isn’t by planning the most extravagant event, but rather by planning activities that allow customers to spend quality time with their spouse and kids. So ditch that formal six-course dinner, and tone down the sales script. Here are four tips for creating a memorable family-friendly event:

1. Make an offer they can’t refuse. A family-friendly event is bound to be more successful if it’s something clients would want to do with the family, not just something they can do with them. So while a barbecue might be suitable for children, remember that clients can just as easily have their own backyard cookouts—without getting their business associates involved. If you really want to ensure attendance, invite them to enjoy an experience that would never make it onto a typical family outing itinerary.

Chrysler Financial, which is sponsoring Vickie Winans’ current tour, distributes up to 70 VIP invites per show to its field offices. The passes are primarily used for internal and dealer incentives, but invitees are allowed to bring a guest to the gospel performance. Hospitality includes a pre-show dinner and primo seats for the concert. The upshot: VIPs and their guests get an up-close look that wouldn’t have been available to them otherwise.

2. Remember the big kids, too. To take advantage of its Olympic sponsorship, Xerox invited clients to bring guests to the Games. With the travel and accommodations involved, some companies might have restricted the guest list to spouses only, but Xerox allowed its clients to bring any guest, as long as the invitee was 18 or older. Some brought husbands and wives, others took adult children or friends.

“I think if you’re going to ask someone to travel overseas, a lot of times a customer would like to bring their spouse,” says Carl Langsenkamp, manager-worldwide strategic p.r. for Xerox. “[But] if they’re going to be in a venue such as the Olympics, where they have an opportunity to see something a lot of people don’t get to experience, you would like to have a friend or a spouse or a family member involved in that.”

3. Keep ’em occupied. Even though kids and spouses might be excited just to be attending a unique event, it doesn’t hurt to give them some extra-special attention. At the Woodward Dream Cruise in August, presenting sponsor Eaton, an automotive industrial manufacturer, offered games and inflatable play areas just for clients’ kids who were attending the Detroit-area event.

4. Strike a balance. When spouses and children are thrown into the mix, determining how much of the event should be devoted to business can be an obstacle. Lay it on too thick, and spouses and children will feel like unwanted guests, and the client may regret coming to the event in the first place. But completely avoiding the opportunity to connect with clients just because the fam’s in tow would be a big mistake.

At the Olympics, Xerox tackled the problem by allowing sales reps to bring guests of their own. When it was time to talk business, there were always other people around for the client’s guests to hang out with.

“[The reps, clients, and guests] would go to an Olympic event together, and they would have dinner together,” says Langsenkamp. “It was always an activity that would engage some of the customer hospitality, but there was also the ability to talk business.”