The challenge for your creative people is to come up with ways to fill those chairs. How many people attend, and whether or not attendance at some point converts to sales appointments, depends on:

Who is the potential attendee: Is it your past customer or prospect? Is it someone who has never heard of your company? Is it the 45-to-60-year-old homeowner in a house worth $300,000 or more?

Your outreach efforts: Once you know who you want to reach, it’s a lot easier to figure out how. Public relations — a story on local TV or in the newspaper — is the absolute best way to generate interest and attendance. Local media love to cover an informational or entertainment event. This is the kind of marketing that doesn’t cost money so much as time and legwork. In addition, of course, you want to promote your event in all the ways you’re good at. You could do a direct-mail campaign, postcard mailings, or run ads in print or other media. Social media — your company’s Facebook page or fan page, especially — will help generate buzz immediately prior to any event.

Your level of preparedness: Make sure your showroom’s set up to handle the event. Do you have enough chairs? Are you serving food or at least beverages? Plan for an hour to an hour-and-a-half if your program is informational, slightly more if you’re offering some kind of entertainment.

Your ability to capture information: Make sure that you have some low-pressure, low-key way to gather contact information. A sign-in sheet is a good way to get started.

Many of those who attend will be prospects (or past customers) who already know your company. As you schedule more events, you’ll add more contacts to your database. You should have a clear idea what you want to get from each presentation in your series. For instance, if you sponsor a showroom presentation on home improvement financing, your goal might be to draw 100 people and generate 15 strong leads. The other 85 names go into your database. The idea is that, in time, you nurture these to the point where they become buyers. Start by sending a thank-you note via email. Ask for feedback on the event. Let attendees know that you look forward to seeing them again and that your company is available to help them with their home improvement needs. If you have an e-newsletter, include photos of each event along with a story. When they need siding, or roofing, windows, or a deck, a kitchen or a bathroom, attendees will remember the showroom, and the event, and they’ll call.

KISS OF DEATH One sure way to blow it is to turn your showroom event into a sales presentation. Generally speaking, let the event be the event, and have promotional or lead-setting come before or after. Salespeople who attend should be in the background — they’re for the pre-flow and the after-flow. The important thing is to have the events; what you do with those who attend them depends on how you set your leads.

Such restraint pays dividends later, when people are considering what company to buy their _______ (windows, siding, roofing, bath liner, etc.) from. Whoever comes, regardless of the topic, is expecting the sales pitch to begin any minute. They’ll be totally surprised when that never happens.

But if you turn your event into a one-hour infomercial for your company and its products, just watch as the people squirm in their seats. In my experience, if you or someone from your company stands up there telling attendees, “Don’t forget, we do …” or telling people that if they have you out to their home from today’s seminar, they get an additional X percent discount, they get totally turned off and you won’t be seeing them at any more of your events. The important thing is to get their contact information and, if that’s your goal, to set an appointment in the home.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT If you set up a schedule of events, promote them, and generate audiences close to your target, your marketing cost should be somewhere between 4% and 6%, depending on where (size, density, demographics) your business is located. That also assumes you get good at using public relations to generate free publicity, and that you can co-promote events with experts or other businesses in your area. We found many willing participants. Generally, all you have to do is ask.

I suggest you give showroom event marketing an 18-month trial period. Once you get started, study the analytics. You’ll have some events that are an overwhelming (even unexpected) success, and some that flop. If five of your 12 events were a big draw, tweak the other seven. Vary the types of events you offer or you’ll only draw the same types of people again and again.

One good thing about this form of marketing is that it’s scalable. If you put $1,000 into an ad and the phone doesn’t ring, you never really know why it didn’t work. If you spend $1,000 on an in-house event and no one shows up, the only one you can blame is you.

—After 25 years, Dennis Schaefer sold Creative Wood, his Michigan deck and sunroom company, to his employees, and became an author, speaker, and industry consultant. www.dennisschaefer.com.