Imagine you’re getting married next month. Congratulations! You’ve invited over a hundred family members and friends to your big day. Your caterer wants to know your guest count so they can provide enough appetizers, drinks, and dinners for everyone, and your venue needs to know how many chairs to set up. How do you know what number to tell them?
Or maybe your little girl is turning 5 years old. Congratulations! You’ve invited everyone in her kindergarten class plus some other friends and family to her birthday party. You need to order enough pizza and juice for everyone, and you better not run out of favors for all those kids! How do you know how much to buy?
Of course, you already know how to get this info — you ask your invited guests to RSVP!
If you’re a direct sales consultant who holds home parties in your host’s living room, getting those RSVPs for your sales events is just as important as any other party. But what about if you party online, where you don’t need to provide food and refreshments, seating and favors? Is there a point to asking your invited guests to RSVP?
Yes! Those RSVPs to your online parties are still very valuable, for several reasons.
Parties with RSVPs get better attendance.
Direct sales consultants want to maximize the number of potential customers who attend their parties, and the interest and commitment level of those guests. The more guests who attend, the better the chances of strong party sales, resulting in more new customers, more free products for your host, and a greater income for you.
Think about it from a guest’s perspective. If you receive an invitation to a party, but you aren’t asked to RSVP to it (or simply need to click a generic “Going” button), what does that tell you about the party? You might feel that you’re just one name among many who received the same invitation, that no special arrangements are being made for you, and that you won’t be missed if you don’t attend.
Being asked to RSVP for an event makes it feel more exclusive, and makes you feel more important. You’ll put more thought into whether you want to invest the time and effort to attend that event. If you decide to submit that RSVP to confirm that you’re going to attend the event, you know that the host will be preparing for you to come. You’ll feel more committed to attending and less likely to be a no-show.
Learn more about your guests, and put that knowledge to good use.
A typical party RSVP asks for the invited guest’s name — and not much more. That’s okay, because if you’re doing the inviting, you most likely already know everything you need to know about that person!
When your host is inviting her friends to your virtual sales party, though, you probably don’t know a thing about your soon-to-be party guests. An RSVP gives you an opportunity to learn some important information about who will be attending your party — information that you can use to tailor the party to better meet the specific needs and interests of your guests!
To collect that information, think about attaching a few questions to your RSVP.
- If you sell cleaning products, ask what their biggest cleaning challenges are
- If you sell makeup and skin care products, ask about their problem areas, or favorite color palettes
- If you sell products for children, ask what ages their children are
- And regardless of what you sell, ask if they:
o Are familiar with your company
o Want to provide their phone number to receive texted reminders or offers
o Are interested in hosting their own party or joining your team
Use the responses you get from these questions to ensure that you’re spending your party time showcasing the products that your guests are most likely to buy, and forget about the products they are less interested in!
Collect contact info from your guests for reminders and future use.
The RSVP process is also a great time for you to establish a way to communicate with new customers! Emails, text messages, social media — these can all be great ways not only to improve attendance at your upcoming party, but to build a loyal customer base that you can benefit from well into the future.
Everyone is busy and has a lot going on in their lives, and it can be easy to forget to attend a virtual party. A friendly reminder or two can really help to keep your party on your guests’ minds. Consider sending one reminder a couple hours before the party starts, and another right when it starts.
After the party, if you notice that a few guests haven’t completed their purchases yet, you can send them a quick message to see if they need any advice or help, and remind them of the deadline for placing their orders.
If you’re having a slow month (or gunning for a really big month!) you can reach out to your past guests to invite them to an exclusive party for your previous customers only, or check in to see if they are interested in hosting their own party to earn some free products.
Do a better job coaching your hosts.
Host coaching is one of the biggest keys to party success.
On social media, it’s easy to simply add your whole address book to a party — and risk annoying the majority of them. Instead, encourage your hosts to reach out to each of their friends individually. Personally inviting every person may take more time, but a big boost in engagement makes this step well worth the effort!
By monitoring the number of party RSVPs received, you might discover that at current RSVP rates, there may not be enough guests to give your host the big rewards she (and you) are hoping for. You can use this information to encourage her to follow up with the people who haven’t responded yet, or expand her invite list to include more people.
If your host is really struggling to get RSVPs, maybe it’s because she picked a date when many of her friends aren’t available. You might ask her to consider rescheduling her party for a later date. Or, you could think about switching her party to a drop-in style event that might be easier for her friends to fit into their schedules.
How Sqweee can help with RSVPs and party attendance
While Sqweee is best known as a “virtual living room” for direct sales parties, it also provides a terrific way for you and your hosts to collect RSVPs from guests, learn more about who will be coming to the party, and even automatically provide a couple reminders as the party time draws near.
With Sqweee, guests can RSVP for an event simply by clicking a unique event link. First, they see a landing page where they can read a description of the event, see its scheduled date and time with a countdown to the start, and read welcome messages from the host and consultant.
Submitting an RSVP is as simple as entering a name. Guests also have the option of entering an email address to receive a couple reminders that are automatically emailed by Sqweee. You will also get their email addresses.
Immediately after the RSVP has been submitted, Sqweee will ask your guests to answer a series of survey questions that you have created. This is the perfect opportunity to ask your guests about their interests, needs and wants! You can also ask your guests to enter their phone numbers, if you’d like to be able to text them.
All information collected by Sqweee is immediately provided to you, so that you can see at a glance who’s coming to the party. You can view their survey responses in easy-to-read graphs that help you quickly gain an understanding of your audience. Use that knowledge to customize your party so that you’re showing the products that your guests are most interested in purchasing!
Even though there’s no need to purchase food or provide seating for guests in a virtual party, collecting RSVPs is still highly valuable as an opportunity to understand what your guests most want to see in the party, and start building a relationship before the party has even begun!
Want to dive deeper into Sqweee’s RSVP feature? Start your one month FREE trial now.
