Any anniversary is worth celebrating. It can be one of the best marketing opportunities a company will have, if handled well.
Several years ago, I was consulting with Dave Roberts, owner of Roberts Architecture and Construction, located in Evanston, Ill. The company was coming up on its 30th anniversary and I suggested to Dave that he and his team celebrate in a memorable way for two reasons:
Recently, Dave kindly, at my request, documented much of what he and his team did. Here is much of what he shared with another client of mine, with some of the content modified by me.
I'm sharing these photos from our 30th Anniversary Celebration that Paul mentioned. This offers only a glimpse of what this event, and the buildup to the event, meant for us and our community of clients, employees, team members, friends, and families. The ripple effect of the 30th on our marketing was felt for years. In fact, people still bring this up to me.
Looking back now, I understand it was actually a simple concept and very straightforward to implement.
Why do this:
Thank everyone that has been a part of our success and celebrate it!
PW: This is key—thank everybody! It's not just about you, the owner.
Catch line:
30-30-30 (30 days - 30 homes - 30 years)
We chose the anniversary party date.
Invited: Past, present, prospective clients; employees and families, present and past; trades; strategic partners; friends; special guests; local press
The plan:
We placed the yard signs, and as you can imagine we needed many more than 30 before we were done. Everybody wanted one.
PW: The yard signs, mentioning the 30th anniversary and that this home was remodeled by Roberts Architecture and Construction, made the general public aware of how many clients the company had over the years.
The beauty of this strategy is that the past client is touched three times: once to ask for permission for your company to place the sign, once when the sign is placed (knock on the door and say "Thanks") and once when the company takes the sign away (again saying "Thanks"). Simply doing these things gives the past clients a lot to tell their friends.
More on this later in the column.
On several blocks in Evanston, there were a number of houses that had Roberts' anniversary signs in front of them. These neighbors were often surprised to find out they were all clients of Roberts, giving them yet another story to tell their friends!
We took snapshots of all the houses with the sign in front and posted one online everyday (30 days) leading up to the party.
We asked trades and partners to bring door prize gifts to the party (pulled guest names out of a hard hat).
They offered some meaningful stuff and services.
We had a few grand prizes, including various show tickets.
We hired a local jazz band I knew.
We hired a caterer (client) and bartender (friend). Doing this made it so we Roberts folks could enjoy the party.
I MC'd the event.
Local press attended.
Our carpenters cut out small house-shaped blocks of hand selected hardwoods and we had our local millwork shop partner etch our logo and some key words into it. Out team hand-sanded and finished each one. Our team signed the backside of each block. We included this block and some other stuff in a goodie bag for every guest.
PW: By including all these different team members, such as trade partners, suppliers, local entertainers, the caterer, the bartender, and the Roberts' in-house employees, Dave made this a celebration of the community, not just of Roberts' longevity. All who participated would be telling their friends and associates about this event for a long time, resulting in more interest in Roberts' services.
Impact:
Placing all the THANK YOU signs in front of the homes had an enormous and powerful impact for those 30 days, and it echoed for long after.
Lessons learned:
Including our entire team in the planning and prep helped build a stronger bond. We discovered talents in each other. And it was fun to do something as a team other than the usual design-build project.
Our wonderful clients loved sharing their design-build stories and experiences with us and each other. Talking with them more often and getting them together with each other is very powerful.
Marketing in this personal way is energizing and profitable for our company.
My DISC style is High D - Small C, so reaching out with this personal approach is not an easy thing for me to do, but this is rewarding in every way when I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and did this.
In the long run, it's less about the stuff we built and much more about the effect we had on people's lives and our relationship with them.
PW: Dave nailed it. A good remodeling company builds relationships so they can provide their clients with an experience that incidentally produces a product. The more your company focuses on building a long-lasting relationship and creating an experience that your clients love to tell their friends about, the more successful your company will be.
Remember, clients always tell their friends the story of working with their remodeler. What story do you want them to tell? Teach them that story.
For me:
I personally reached back out to all our wonderful clients of the past 30 years and asked if we could place the Thank You 30th anniversary yard sign in front of their homes for 30 days leading up to the party. This was mostly a face-to-face meeting. This was the most fun and meaningful part of the entire event. It took time, much more than I imagined, because of the wonderful conversations that occurred. Clients all had stories about the design-build process, their favorite team members, all sorts of things I had forgotten, or never knew about, AND they talked about how much our work has impacted their lives and families in wonderful ways for years.
PW: As Dave noted earlier, casual chit-chatting is not his cup of tea. Many business owners who feel that way often spend marketing dollars mailing post cards to people or the like, tactics that don't involve a personal touch.
By getting out of his comfort zone, Dave gave his valued clients the greatest gift of all—his attention.
I hope you are inspired to do something like Dave and his team did when your company hits a significant anniversary!
