Whether it’s 5 years or 100 years, a business anniversary is worth celebrating. Not only does it represent a success for the business, but it’s an effective way to re-engage your staff and your customers. A business anniversary can be the ideal time to refresh your approach, to introduce something new or simply to reflect and celebrate the achievement.
In this post, we’re going to go through all of the ingredients needed for a business anniversary to remember. We’ll be splitting this guide into three parts; who to celebrate with, how to celebrate and how to promote the anniversary.
1. Who to celebrate a business anniversary with
Your customers
There are two groups of people fundamental to a business reaching a milestone anniversary. One is your team, the other is your customers. Without customers you won’t reach your business anniversary, it’s that simple.
When it comes to planning how to celebrate your business anniversary, start with your customers in mind and plan something they will notice and appreciate.
Your team
Your team is the other core group of people without whom you wouldn’t be able to reach a business milestone. When considering how to celebrate your business anniversary, don’t fall into the trap of rewarding only your customers, ensure the celebration highlights the importance of your team as well.
Your team’s loved ones
Finally, don’t forget the often unseen presence behind your company’s success; the loved ones who support you and your team. Husbands, wives, partners, family, kids, whoever it happens to be, if the occasion allows it, try to involve your company’s extended network.
2. How to celebrate your business anniversary
Whether you decide to do one of these things or mix a few of them, there are a number of good ways to celebrate a business milestone.
Host an event
Hosting a business anniversary event is a great way to bring your team, their family and your customers together into one place. Some businesses focus purely on celebrating with their team; at The Great Barn, we host countless activity days for organisations celebrating with their teams, even if it’s simply an annual summer gathering.
If you want help planning an annual summer party for your team, we’ve written about that here.
More elaborate events can include formal presentations or dinner evenings followed by a less formal dance. Some of the events we’ve hosted over the past 30 years include:
Galas
Awards dinners
Banquets
It also doesn’t matter what time of year you’re looking to host the celebration. In the winter, we’ve hosted fabulous events complete with log fires in our 18th-century barns. In the summer, guests at events make use of the outside areas, taking in the views across our 250-acre countryside location.
Produce some branded merchandise
Beyond planning an event, another novel way to mark a business anniversary is to produce some branded merchandise.
What the merchandise is will depend very much on your area of business and you must be careful not to stray too close to producing a gimmick. We’ve seen some great sustainable merchandise ideas including bamboo coffee cups, reusable carry bags, herb seed packets and reusable drinking bottles.
The key is to gift items to your customers and team that they will appreciate and use. If there’s a direct link with your brand and product, all the better.
Put on an exclusive offer
A business milestone is also a nice time to provide an exclusive, time-limited offer. Offers catch people’s attention and if you can draw their attention to your company’s birthday, you’ll be able to communicate the pride you have in your success.
Perhaps your offer could be targetted at your existing customers who you can surprise with a discount or an upgrade - it could cost the same as some merchandise but have a much longer-lasting positive effect.
Launch a new product or service
Attaching a product or service launch to an anniversary is another effective way to draw attention to your business milestone. If you’ve had something in the pipeline for some time, working towards a launch in line with your anniversary can be an effective way to attract the attention of your target audience and engage them in the history and future of your brand.
Become a patron of a worthy cause
Reaching a business milestone is a sign of success, so if you’re in a good position, why not share that success with a worthy cause? Becoming a patron could be as simple as making a much-appreciated donation to your chosen good cause. Alternatively, you can offer your product or service to a charity or non-profit that will benefit from it.
If neither of those options works, we’ve seen some businesses opt to donate some of their team’s time to a charitable cause. Teams can go and spend a period of time working in the community for the good of the community. It’s a wonderful way to mark a special occasion and share your success with others.
3. Promote the anniversary
Press release
For any occasion of note, it’s well worth writing a press release that you can issue to local and industry publications. The press release needs to be clear on what the anniversary is and what you’re doing to mark the occasion.
If you are well targeted in who you issue the release to, you’ll find that editors and writers will be pleased to receive the tip and a successful press release will outline everything the publication needs to know.
Social media
Also, don’t miss the opportunity to engage your target audience on social media channels to promote the business anniversary. The networks you use will depend very much on your line of business, but if chosen correctly, it’s a great, light-touch way to remind people how long you’ve been around!
Update your brand
Another fun way to mark your business anniversary is to make a slight tweak to your brand image. Updating your logo to include something that denotes how many years you’ve been in business, for instance, is another effective, light-touch way to communicate trust and success with your target audience.
Summary
There you have it, some ideas to kick-off your business anniversary celebration. If you would like any help planning an event at our stunning country location, please get in touch with us now!
