How Should You Celebrate a Company Anniversary?

There are a myriad of ways to celebrate and leverage an anniversary, but it is first necessary to decide if a company should celebrate, and what the goals are. Perhaps you’re looking for increased visibility and can use your anniversary as a PR tool, perhaps you’re looking to increase your sales, or perhaps you’re looking to bring your team together.

What can you do? What should you do?

First and foremost, decide if celebrating an anniversary fits with your company’s overall marketing plan and how it will be carried forward after the anniversary. If the anniversary’s marketing/advertising/sales campaign does not fit with your usual campaign, then it won't work. Something different and special is called for, but it should still complement your current marketing plans.

Then, assemble the appropriate members of staff and discuss the pros and cons of celebrating your anniversary. Decide what can be done and what is just not a good fit.

Consider having:  

• Events
• An advertising campaign
• Promotions. For example, you can temporarily change your pricing to reflect the prices that were in effect when the company was founded. 
• Additions to the website

Events are great and can garner publicity. Cause-related events have an added bonus. For example, for-profit companies can partner with not-for-profits which have an anniversary the same year. Donating goods, in-kind services, or money can reap a multitude of benefits. Also consider having an event in a building in your area also celebrating an anniversary.

If having a special promotion such as prices from the past, make it more than a one day wonder and tie it in with other promotions, or add to it. For example, restaurants can recreate old menus, play music from that era, put up old photos, and ask regular patrons if they have photographs of gatherings in the restaurant and put them up, too, which is a great way to include customers.

As for websites, some companies have quite bit on their history, and others so little that there is not even a date for the founding of a company. If your company’s history isn’t included on your website, an anniversary is a great time to add information. There should be some basic information which can be useful for the media. Visuals, of course, add a lot; consider using both photos and videos, if possible. Then and now photo comparisons are fun to see. Quotes from long-time customers, combined with photos, are another possibility.