If you’re focused on your company’s immediate marketing needs—new releases, new services, annual conferences, monthly meetings, renewals, new memberships, etc.—it can get easy to get caught up in the future and forget to step back and recognize the past.
And if you do, you miss important opportunities for creating brand awareness and recognition, educating consumers and prospects about your relevance and significance, and encouraging relationships with new customers. Celebrating important company milestones also helps boost morale and provides a great opportunity for companies to reexamine their goals and purpose.
What should you celebrate? Think about historical events, including your company’s founding; its establishment at each location; or industry-changing and -recognized innovations, processes, or products it developed.
But consider measured growth achievements, too. They may include hitting a targeted number of subscribers, opening “X” number of offices, expanding operations out of state or even overseas, or significantly exceeding your revenue goals.
To start, make a list of your company’s significant events or achievements, noting which milestones will be popping up first. Then, keep it handy! Even if this information is included on your company’s website, post it somewhere you’ll actually see it (not buried in a file or tucked away in a drawer) and review it often. Big celebrations take time and planning, and you don’t want an opportunity to slip past you.
Then, decide how you’ll celebrate your wins. While most companies opt for press release announcements, corporate history books, and/or private or public parties, Michigan-based employee recognition expert, Terryberry—which celebrated its own 100 year anniversary in 2018—offers a few other fun suggestions to incorporate into your celebration:
Design a brand-compliant anniversary logo that can be used throughout your company's milestone year
Honor long-term employees with service awards
Take a group photo of the entire staff
Collect and display early company photos and artifacts from your company's history
Host a trivia game where contestants can compete to demonstrate knowledge of quirky company factoids
Plant a tree or install a work of art in honor of your company anniversary
Hold a CEO look-alike contest
Whatever you do, make sure you give yourself—and your company—adequate time to share and appreciate your good news.
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