Glance Behind the Scenes of a Grand Opening

November 21, 2017 • Franchise News, Franchise Operations

10 Towns Nationwide Welcome HoneyBaked Ham

In our book, there’s not much that’s better than opening the doors of a brand new HoneyBaked Ham store. And these past few weeks have been jam-packed with new HoneyBaked Ham store openings! Since the start of the month, six new stores have celebrated their grand opening in the Midwest, the South and on the East Coast, with five of those events taking place on November 11. Four more HoneyBaked Ham stores are expected to open before the end of the year. We’ll give you the rundown of a typical grand opening event, focusing on the celebration in Dale City.

Dale City, Virginia’s October 28 Grand Opening Event was an exciting precursor to November’s absolute spree of grand openings, all just in time for the bustling holiday season. Here’s how it all played out:

1. The Lead-Up

In preparation for the event, we pulled out all the stops to make sure there was as much traffic as possible during the celebration. We sent the message out in emails, printed fliers, social media posts, radio spots and signs to let Dale City know when it was all happening, what to expect, and where to find us. We also used these channels to get the community excited about the grand opening raffle and product giveaways.

2. The Set-Up

Inside the store, we set up stations – sort of like conference booths – with team members to fill new customers in on all of our great products and services. The stations helped teach customers about putting our delicious retail products to good use when meal and party planning, our lunch and catering selections, our fundraising partnership program, and B2B gifting services.

Some of the stations included samples of our salads, sandwiches, turkey and, of course, a beautiful, bone-in HoneyBaked Ham. At each table, we invited customers to sign up for our HoneyBaked Ham Loyalty Program – and make reservations for their holiday meal pickup.

We also decked the store out with balloons, customized signage, tablecloths emblazoned with the HoneyBaked Ham logo, a prize wheel and a raffle drum.

3. The Event

At 11am, the celebration was officially underway. This was the grand opening of Franchisees Kim and Alan Borough’s third store – they’re seasoned HoneyBaked Ham owners who were thrilled to welcome a new community into their growing cluster of HoneyBaked Ham stores. Radio personality Kristin Nash with B101.5 FM did live radio chats with Kim, who’s a sort of unofficial mayor of their community, broadcasting the excitement throughout the celebration and bringing in a sizable crowd of customers.

Once the event kicked off, we made sure everyone entered for a chance to win a prize. We had set aside ham, turkeys, desserts, gift cards, sauces and soup mixes to be given away as prizes. Prize drawings were announced every 10-15 minutes, and the grand prize was free HoneyBaked Ham for a year!

Ultimately, a HoneyBaked Ham Grand Opening Event amounts to a fun, exciting way to engage and interact with the community. When so many customers come to taste our delicious products and enter to win our prizes, we get the opportunity to meet a big portion of the community we serve, and begin to form the lasting connections that will make the new store a success.