This weekend marks the annual celebration of the birthday for The United States of America. It is Independence Day on July 4th. Everyone knows this day as the 4th of July. Employees in almost every business sector 'get-the-day-off' and usually they get paid! It is a big day for celebration. Fireworks, camping, vacationing, barbeque's, backyard parties, television specials, flags, billboards, road signs, display windows, veterans events, Harley Davidson rides, t-shirts, clothing, special restaurant dishes and just about anything else you can think of has been arranged to 'mark' this day as a big celebration. Every year it is a big thing. As it should be. It is a very big birthday.
Do you celebrate the birthday of your business? If you do not, why not? Look at the amount of 'extra' revenue that can be generated as a part of your annual birthday celebration. Do you not think your customers care about you anymore than that? Get serious. You should and do have customers who care about your business birthday. Where is the cake? Where are the streamers? Where are the special offers? Where is the community program you select each year to benefit from the proceeds you generate during your annual birthday celebration event? Why do you not promote this type of big deal? Look how the market has responded to such a celebration. Look at the huge energy consumers put forth to celebrate the 4th of July. They like to celebrate big birthdays. By all means, give them an excuse to celebrate yours. It is good business if it is done correctly. Learn how to manifest your annual celebration into something the consumer can enjoy and expect to honor. Learn how to make it a very big thing. Consumers like that kind of event. Consumers want that kind of excuse to celebrate for fun.
When I was managing my furniture store our annual birthday for the store fell on the same month that a competitor used to celebrate their birthday. To avoid market confusion, I made sure our birthday celebration fell three weeks before the competition celebrated their own birthday. This means we had to run our annual promotion and celebration almost one month ahead of the competition, one month prior to its actual date of recognition. Only we knew the truth. When we established that pattern it almost always looked like the competition was trying to copy our annual birthday celebration. It was as if we got to enjoy another day of recognition without the event occuring. We never called it an Anniversary Sale, either. They did, but we did not elect that terminology in our promotions. We called it our Birthday! We always used the terminology, "It's Our Birthday, Let's Celebrate!" Our celebration looked like a fun event. Their celebration looked like a sale. This is a big difference in marketing.
This kind of approach had more market appeal and made a less commercial approach. Using the birthday terms might sound less like the excuse to run a sale as opposed to being a celebration the consumer could participate in and enjoy. Some business models sound too much like trying to do business. It may be beneficial to do a celebration that does not sound like an excuse to generate more business. Consumer do not need a new excuse to spend more money. They need an excuse to have more fun. They spend more money when they are having more fun. That is one of the reasons why the 4th of July works so well for business. The consumer is trying to have more fun. They tend to spend more money when they are having fun. That is what we call a clue. Give them more fun to enjoy.
Birthday celebrations are completely understood by the consumer. They like them and comprehend what they mean. They recognize how much fun a birthday celebration can carry. Make sure you do your business birthday with this understanding in mind. Too many business models celebrate their annual anniversaries as if they need to tell the customer who they are and how long they have been in business. The customer does not really care about that stuff. Stop trying to feed them what they do not want to eat. This very mistake could be the reason why a recent business associate told me they do not do very well with their annual anniversary sale. They may be presenting the annual event in the wrong consumer format. Customers do not care about what you feel about your own birthday, unless of course, they can benefit from the celebration stuff. They want the birthday celebration to be their own. Make sure you do a good job projecting that desire.
The 4th of July is adopted by the consumer as being their own personal holiday. They have taken full possession of the annual event. This is a major marketing tip. Pay close attention to how this kind of effect happens. Consumers want control. Consumers love to have fun. Consumers want to believe what they want to believe. Consumers will spend when you give them a beautiful excuse to spend. Consumers also like to know that when they spend, someone who needs help benefits from their spending. Consumers like to help out those who need help. Learn how to dovetail this process into your annual birthday celebrations.
Managing your approach to any type of promotional effort should always include the process for allowing the consumer to have more fun than they usually do when they trade with you. Annual celebrations should provide more reasons for the consumer to want to be a part of why you are celebrating. The following list of considerations should be offered during your annual celebration. You should try to include food, treats, music, specials, giveaways, prizes, new product promotional introductions, seminars about helpful consumer tips, guests, local celebrities, media visits, cake, customer birthday sign-up sheets to send them a gift on their birthday, a charity selected for partial contributions from the daily sales during the event, representatives from the selected charity as guest during the event, employee special recognition opportunities and sales representatives of key vendor products. These are elements that help make an annual event become a special part of your consumers memory patterns. You want your consumer to remember the annual events they attended. These items help to make that happen.
Giveaways can include 'cross-promotions' of gift certificates collected from other business partners you find appropriate to win in a drawing. If you are an auto mechanic shop you can invite a local auto detail shop to help participate with your celebration. Tey can come to your annual celebration and show how they detail automobiles. They can detail one that was pre-selected in your repair shop as an example on display. They can offer gift certificates to some of the drawings and gifts you hand out. Learn how to draw this kind of attention to help your customers have more fun. If you are a farm supply store you might be able to link up with a local veterinary office and have them provide a series of animal care seminars. With every animal care seminar participant an offer can be designed to issue a certificate that encourages them to consider using some animal care products the veterinary office supports which is stocked by your farm store. This is a quality way to endorse the products you offer. Get creative in how you include 'cross-promotions' in your annual celebrations. You want these events to become more than plastering posters on the display windows of your retail outfit. Help your annual events to become just that, big annual events. Work them.
Treat your annual events as if they need some fireworks splashing all around. Make sure all of the customers in your market region know you are holding a special annual event. Make sure the customer knows they will be missing something big, fun and worthwhile if they do not attend. Make sure the event lives up to its hype. Make sure the customers who attended will share how much they enjoyed and how much they learned at the event when they meet casually with others who missed out. You want to develop a great format for providing the word of mouth to become very strong. This will help your annual event to create residual consumer support and sales well after the event was held. These are great marketing tools. Be sure you do not under-estimate how much they can do for the success of your business model.
Above all, quit worrying about how much work an event like this demands. If the work to succeed is too much for you to handle, try not succeeding.
Get real. Success is a lot of work. Quit looking for success in small little efforts. It will not happen. You will not get lucky and succeed well if you do very little to ensure big success. I meet business owners all of the time who actually believe this process is possible. They do very little and expect great results. It sickens me. It is so not true, yet so much desired. Grow up, it will not happen that way. Put in the effort. Put in the planning. Put in the time and make sure it is organized well. Go get the business your model deserves.
Until next time...Happy Birthday, America!
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