3 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW to Drive More Holiday Bookings

By Nick Miller

September 23, 2014

Holiday bookings are already starting to roll in! What are you doing to bring in more large & private parties during high season for events?

Here are three easy things you can do to drive more business during the holiday season:

1) Call last year’s customers

Your best source of business this year is everyone who booked with you last year. Making sure you stay top-of-mind is easy:

1. Create a list of the primary contacts for last year’s bookings from your records or using your event management software
2. Call each contact. Once they’re on the phone and you’ve spent a few minutes catching up, all you have to say is: “I’m calling because we loved hosting your event last year, and I wanted to personally check in to see whether we can look forward to hosting you this year.”
3. Follow up via email with anyone who is interested.
4. Pro tip: If anyone has already planned their holiday festivities, make a note to follow up earlier next year.

Not only will this make sure your venue is on their radar this year, it’ll also provide a nice personal touch and establish/maintain your relationship for the future.

2) Email last year’s inquiries & leads

Your second best source of business this year is everyone who inquired about booking last year, but didn’t end up booking - i.e. your leads from last holiday season.

Here’s a quick recipe for staying top-of-mind with this group:

1. Create a list of the contacts for last year’s leads from your records or using your event management software.
2. Using your email marketing service (i.e. Mailchimp, Constant Contact) or your regular email service, create an email. This can be anything from a professionally-designed template to a plain-text email. Personally, I recommend keeping it short and sweet. (if you’d like me to send you the template I recommend to our clients, email me)
3. Send the email!
4. Pro tip: Follow up 1-2 weeks after with a second email, potentially with an offer or incentive for booking.

3) The Business Card Challenge

We hear about plenty of sales challenges, but one in particular sticks out in my mind. CBeyond, a telecommunications hardware company, requires salespeople to hit the streets and return with at least 100 business cards per week from companies in their region. That’s a lot of business cards!

While I don’t advocate this strategy for everyone year-round, there is a lot of value in visiting mid-size and large companies in your area in August, September, even October. Most of these companies are going to throw one, if not many, parties during the holidays - and you want to be top-of-mind while they’re planning.

Here’s a simple way to intelligently “hit the streets” this holiday season:

1. Google “Fortune 1000 [YOUR CITY NAME]” and look for companies with offices within ~10 minutes commute from your venue. Add them to your list.
2. Add any companies you know have 50+ employee offices nearby.
3. Rank order these companies by how promising they are. Mid-size offices are generally more promising because they will have one central reception (huge offices with multiple receptions have security and can be confusing).
4. Hit the streets! Take a morning or afternoon and walk in to each of these offices, introduce yourself, and leave a business card (you can also create a brochure and/or pricing sheet, but for now - keep it simple).
5. Pro tip: Ask the receptionist who is in charge of planning the holiday festivities, take down their name and number, and call them the next day.

Each of these projects takes 2-3 hours max, and will pay dividends for this holiday season and beyond.

What are you waiting for?