How to Get More ROI Out of Your Events

Lumberyards and specialty dealers are marketplaces for ideas as well as for products. That helps explain why LBM dealers put on so many events, bringing together experts, customers, and vendors. But hosting a good event isn’t easy. 

How to Get More ROI Out of Your Events

Here is advice from several veterans on how to produce an event that results in everyone feeling happy and fulfilled—and eager to come back to your store. 

Choose the impression you want to make, then execute accordingly. 

If you want to raise your profile against big boxes, use loss leaders. Leverage vendor relationships to “find products that just about anyone would want and sell them at a price that your customers will find hard to believe,” suggests Curtis Gillman, a former 20-year executive at Gillman Home Center and now head of Legacy Retail Advisors. 

If you want to be seen as a community supporter, invite local non-profits to use your site for a fund-raiser, providing labor and equipment (which also helps you show off the grills you have for sale). 

If your goal is to highlight vendors as well as provide education, think about how best to combine them. TW Perry has held a Contractor College & Product Expo for years. The education part did well, but vendors saw less value. So Marketing Director Hannah Kim redesigned the format to include 30-minute breaks between classes. 

“This has been very successful in encouraging interactions,” Kim says. “Interestingly, once attendees start those conversations, they usually realize the value right away—often learning about new products or solutions they wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.” 

A variation is employed by the regional LBM group BLD Connection, which holds its education and trade-show sessions at different times of the day. One advantage is that vendors can enjoy the education sessions, too, rather than being forced to stay in their booths. 

Prepare beforehand and then show off 

Make sure there’s lots of signage in your store leading up to the event. Then on event day, dress up the lot with banners, pennants, balloons, and tents. 

What about celebrities and unusual attractions? 

“We found this rarely translated to rings at the register,” Gillman said. Gillman Home Center used to have monster truck rallies. The trucks brought in crowds, but not buyers. 

On the other hand, if your goal is to help a non-profit, bringing in a celebrity can boost attendance and thus help the non-profit’s cause. 

Give vendors time and support 

Manufacturer’s reps need to be regarded as more than just a source of subsidizing the event through booth sales. Set up advance meetings to explain your goal for the event and what’s in it for them. Offer product category exclusivity. Help them tout the release of a new product. 

Scavenger hunts and bingo cards 

Along with extending time between sessions, Kim added a raffle incentive to get contractors to visit the booths during those breaks. BLD Connection introduced a scavenger hunt program at its winter business/trade shows. The hunt “excites the dealers and creates a FOMO effect for the exhibitors/suppliers, increasing network and interaction,” BLD Events Director Jodie Fleck says. 

Give away and move stuff 

Offer a gift to the first 100 people in the door that entitles them to something simple and practical, like a tape measure or a multipurpose tool. (“Bonus points for something with your name on it,” Gillman adds.) Have a raffle for a lawn mower or large tool set. Offer a bucket sale, giving a discount for everything in the bucket and sharing some of the revenue with the non-profit. Got a product you’re trying to move? Give a discount for that item. 

Examine your calendar 

TW Perry used to hold its Contractor College in the spring. Kim noticed that some attendees had to cancel if the weather was fair and they suddenly were needed on job sites. So she moved the event to late winter, when remodelers and contractors typically have a lighter workload. That boosted attendance and engagement. 

On the other hand, if your event is intended to attract DIYers, spring might be a great time to invite people to your yard. 

Speaking of time, Carter Lumber Marketing Director Mark Ely urges you to schedule downtime in which customers, dealer staff, and vendors can relax and chat. “It could be that the event is a day longer than it used to be so we can have larger gaps between our activities,” Ely says. “It could as simple as reserving the dinner room at an event for three hours when we know the meal will only take an hour. We know that if people know each other at a personal level the business part all flows much more smoothly when that time comes.” 

Expand your content 

It’s common for dealers to sell a booth to the vendor in combination with the vendor getting to make a sales pitch in an educational session. But Kim has concluded that her contractors also could use basic business advice or economic analysis—topics that vendors don’t usually cover. So she asks experts in those fields to speak as well. Contractors like those sessions, so they sign up to attend. And that, in turn, attracts more vendors. 

Learn, discuss, and improve 

“We make it a habit to make notes during the event on what went well and what we can improve on,” Ely said. “Then, after each event, we have a postmortem on what we can do better the next time. It’s always good to have those discussions when it is fresh in everyone’s mind and it allows us to have plenty of time to plan for adjustments.”