How to Host a Successful Online Vendor Event

Vendor events are a great way to grow your business and network. Online vendor events are becoming more and more popular, especially this year! I’ve had many successful online vendor events over the past few years. It can feel overwhelming to host an online vendor event but it’s really not! I’m going to breakdown how you can have a successful online vendor event.

Find Your Vendors

To have a successful online vendor event, you need vendors! I recommend keeping your vendor list to no more than 10 vendors, only 1 vendor per company, and 1 per category. This keeps your party running smoothly and less competitive. Think about the vendors that you already know, reach out to them first to see if they would like to be part of the event. I can guarantee if you post on your personal page that you are looking for vendors for an online vendor event, you will be flooded with others ready to join and grow their businesses. There are so many different small businesses out there looking for ways to grow their business. If you are networking on social media I’m sure you already have plenty of connections with other network marketers that would love to participate in your event! All you have to do is ask!

Schedule Your Event

Now that you have your vendors, schedule the event. You’ll need to have the event open for at least 2 days. Thursday-Friday events are the most successful. Most people are paid on Thursdays or Fridays, they’ll have a little extra spending money on those days, and are more willing to participate in a fun event. You’ll want to make sure you aren’t running your event on a Holiday or when many other events are being held. This ensures that you are not competing with other events.

Plan The Event

Set guidelines with the other vendors in the event. I require all vendors to invite people and agree to actively participate in all posts, not just theirs, in the event. In order to have a successful online vendor event, all vendors must give to the event not just take. It’s also a great idea to have some type of giveaway to increase participation and excitement. This can be done with one giant giveaway with each vendor contributing an item from their business, or each vendor doing their own giveaway. You will also want to create limits on posting. If someone is posting 20 times in a day, and another is posting 3, the group will get overloaded and the vendor who posted 3 times will get buried under the other posts. I recommend 5 a day per vendor. You’ll want your event to be a successful one full of vendors supporting vendors. When you create a sense of community, you are more likely to have a successful event.

Promote The Event

Create a Facebook group for this event at least a week prior to the event. This will help create excitement and give you time to promote the event. Have the other vendors invite people to the group. You create fun graphics (quick example pictured above) to share with all of the event details, date/time/vendors and share everywhere you can on social media. Make sure all vendors are promoting the event as well. Do not just post one time and expect a huge turnout. You’ll need to advertise daily. Every vendor should post an introduction post with their “why” and their business. This will create engagement in the group leading up to the event. Engagement in the group will help your group be seen more on Facebook.

During The Event

Party time! After you have created, promoted, and did intro’s in the group, its time to start sharing your products and services! You’ll want to make sure posts have an impact. I like to split my posts up into categories- Live Video Tutorials, Engagement Posts (example below), Product Posts, and Personal Photos with products or demonstrating products. Breaking the posts into categories can help you stay more organized throughout the event and ensure you showcase all of the products and categories you carry. Be sure to include your website or shopping link in every post. All vendors in the event should engage on each vendors posts. The more activity in the group, the more Facebook will show your group posts on the newsfeed of everyone invited to the party. When group members interact in the group, the posts will show up in their friend’s newsfeeds as well. The more people who see your event the more successful the online vendor event will be.

After The Event

Type a “thank you for attending” post along with an invitation to join your customer group or ‘like’ your business page. This will create connections and future sales. Connect with other vendors as well. Even though you are all business owners, chances are, you are all selling different products. Who says you can’t shop with another vendor? Follow up with everyone who expressed interest in your posts. You never know if they got busy and couldn’t order or they may be interested in joining your business. Do not send copy and paste messages to group attendees with “hey girl” offers. Be genuine! People will connect with you, people buy from people they like. Start planning your online vendor event and grow your business!