A company anniversary isn’t just about celebrating a milestone – it’s an opportunity to highlight your brand identity, engage in storytelling that showcases what makes your company unique and strengthen relationships with various audiences.
To maximize the impact of a company anniversary, taking an integrated communications and marketing approach is paramount. This strategic method will ensure every facet of the campaign, from messaging to execution, works cohesively to amplify your company’s story and achievements.
Let’s explore some essential steps and key considerations for creating a comprehensive and effective anniversary campaign.
Campaign Steps (AKA, The Non-Negotiables)
Get leadership involved. Getting your leadership involved in an anniversary campaign goes deeper than getting approval to spend the time and money on campaign efforts. How can leaders get involved to make this campaign successful? What do the comms and/or marketing teams need from leaders? This may involve multiple conversations throughout the campaign but it’s important to determine the most effective method for keeping leadership informed on plans, what’s being executed and when and how they can support the campaign to contribute to its overall success.
Form the anniversary campaign committee. Who internally will be integral to creating and executing this plan? Who will own which parts of the campaign? How will you communicate with each other to stay updated on progress and any roadblocks? Particularly if you have several team members who are involved in communications and marketing efforts, the goal is to avoid too many cooks in the kitchen. Example: If you have several people on a paid media team, bring in one representative who can then report out and delegate among the broader team.
Create the plan. Here are some important items to outline in your plan:
- Team and roles
- Timeline
- Goals and the campaign “why”
- Key messaging
- Audiences (plus audience-specific messaging)
- Objectives
- Tactics (paid, earned, shared, owned)
Campaign Considerations
I’ve learned a thing or two after recently being involved in creating and launching a company anniversary campaign. Here are some considerations and recommendations when starting this process:
Involve employees along the way. As elements of the campaign go live, share those internally and encourage your employees to share with their networks, whether that’s through personalized email outreach, during client/customer meetings and/or on their social media channels.
Work anniversary messaging into your sales and new business process. Add in those “why” storytelling elements – why should a prospective client or customer care that your company is X years in business? What does this mean for your potential relationship/partnership?
If you’ve taken the Spin Sucks PESO Model certification or read any PESO Model related content, you know the value of starting with owned media. Earned media should be part of your integrated comms strategy, but the anniversary itself may not be newsworthy enough from an earned media perspective. Pouring all your efforts into earned media (or any one channel) isn’t the most effective communications/marketing strategy. For owned media, consider incorporating the following into your anniversary campaign:
- Website landing page where you can curate various anniversary assets.
- Blog content tied together with an anniversary theme/tag/category. One example is content that features your current employees (why do they choose to work at your company?) and alumni (how did working at your company help them throughout their career?).
- E-newsletters – an anniversary section woven into your existing newsletter and/or special edition emails/newsletters with anniversary stories.
- If you have a podcast, work in anniversary related conversations with guests who are part of your history or current story.
An anniversary logo and swag for employees to wear and/or give out at events, career fairs, etc. You can extend this to anniversary-specific email signatures and social media profile/header images.
If having a big celebration event isn’t part of your strategy or budget, there are myriad other ways to take budget/resources you would have put toward a big event and stretch that out throughout the year, including:
- An anniversary highlight video that tells your company’s story. Then you can slice that video up for a variety of other uses – like social media videos you can sprinkle across your channels throughout the year.
- Digital advertising or event sponsorships/speaking opportunities at events.
For the earned media part of your strategy, find unique/interesting angles for a media pitch.
- Take a targeted pitch approach vs. sending the same press release to multiple media outlets announcing the anniversary.
- Consider offering an exclusive – is there a local business publication that will get your story in front of your key audiences? But to get an exclusive, be prepared to offer:
- Revenue growth
- Access to a CEO or another leader who can speak about company growth, talent retention/acquisition, tips for staying relevant over the course of several decades, evolving as your industry evolves, etc.
Get creative.
- Can you do something unique and fun, like a custom lipstick that’s the shade of one of your brand colors (perfect if you have a red or pink brand color and you’re women owned!).
- Design a digital magazine including photos throughout the years and key milestones.
- If you don’t already have a company history or timeline section on your website, add one to commemorate the anniversary milestone.
Write a case study and/or submit for an industry award if your anniversary campaign is successful.
As you embark on commemorating your company’s anniversary, remember that an integrated communications approach can transform a single milestone into a powerful narrative that resonates with your audiences and extends far beyond the initial anniversary announcement. By aligning each aspect of your campaign, leveraging multiple channels and maintaining consistency in messaging, you can not only celebrate the past but also lay the groundwork for future success. Whether it’s a decade in business or a century of innovation, your anniversary represents an opportunity to connect, inspire and set the stage for your next company milestone.
Nikki Little is Senior Vice President at Franco. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
