Four Business Invitation Ideas

Mailing out formal invitations is a great way to promote business events such as workshops, seminars, conferences or fundraisers. Printed invitations can communicate the level of credibility, authority and professionalism tied into your event and make guests feel special.

Use the four ideas below to create successful business invitations that also market and promote your company or service. 1. Introduce yourself To get the conversation started, try formally introducing yourself to potential guests and clients. Include a business card in each mailing, offering your name, title, website and any social networking links relative to your company or the event. This way, guests will know who the invite is coming from and can seek more information about you and your company. As long as you can respond to each message, include your telephone and/or e-mail address, allowing guests to contact you with questions. 2. Market the event as "exclusive" Events are always more appealing when they are billed as "exclusive" or "for ticket holders only." Printing up tickets or event passes, and inserting them into each invitation, can generate a feeling of exclusivity around your event. Remind guests to bring their tickets to the event. Print all the relevant event information on the ticket, including the date, time, event summary and URL, so that even if guests throw away the invite, they'll still hold on to the ticket as a reminder with all of the necessary details. 3. Collect information and register guests There are two ways to use a business event invitation to collect more information about guests. One is to set up a Web page with a digital registration form and direct people to the URL from the invitation. Another way is to include a response card in each invitation with a return, postage-paid envelope (or include a postage-paid postcard reply). Having guests fill out and return a response card or registration card, helps with head count and updates to your customer database. By including a few marketing questions, you can also learn more about the people on your mailing list. 4. Double your attendance levels The tell-a-friend tactic works hand-in-hand with business event marketing. If you are mailing to a list of 500 potential attendees, chances are those folks have at least one other interested friend or colleague who's not on your list. Try including a "Tell-A-Friend" postage-paid postcard in each invitation. All the guests need to do is drop that card in the mail to a friend, and you'll get two participants instead of one.