A while back we looked at a bunch of ideas for celebrating your blog’s birthday. If you’re a business owner, you may want to take a different approach, so here are some of the ideas we’ve used or thought about ourselves for celebrating Lyrical Host’s birthdays!
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01. Run a cake contest
Back in 2021, we decided to treat some lucky winners to their favorite cake to celebrate our birthday. It was one of the most popular giveaways we’ve done – all people had to do to enter was to share their ideal cake, and we picked winners at random using random.org.
We ended up buying cake for people all over the world, from Wales to India to Canada, supporting lots of small independent cake companies along the way! Several of the winners shared photos with us, which made it even more fun.
In 2022, we asked customers to come up with ideas for cupcakes that reminded them of us, and we made them!
If you have the time and budget, a variation on this could be to send customers “mug cakes” for them to make at home. (You may want people to apply for this though, to cater for allergies and lifestyle choices).
02. Create a limited edition birthday bundle
Integrating your birthday into your business is a great way to get more sales…even more so if you’re creating something that’s only available for a short amount of time. This doesn’t have to be a lot of work; you can package together things you already have in new and creative ways and add an exclusive on top.
If you have a digital business, it could be in the form of an exclusive download, a one-to-one session on a specific topic or for a longer time than usual. You may find better results going down this route than simply offering a discount, especially if you’re a client-based business and people need ways to spend more money with you.
If you have a physical business this could include sending little cards, putting themed birthday stickers on parcels you send, decorating your store or similar, or packaging a set of your products into a birthday bundle.
03. Publish a memory lane roundup
If you have a blog, creating a roundup post of what you’ve achieved in the year/in your business so far can be an interesting trip down memory lane. If you often forget to celebrate milestones or achievements, here’s your chance to revisit them! It may be you’ve already written about some of these milestones in the past; if so, that means you have good linking opportunities from your other blog posts too.
Struggling to write a intro? Think about which three words would sum up your business’s past year. How did things unfold? What internal and external forces were at play? What have you learned?
04. Share your future goals
Outlining your plans and what you have coming up over the next year is a really good way to build excitement for your customer base and give your own motivation a kickstart too.
If you have something coming up very soon, this is also a good chance to tease it (and even provide preorder or “register your interest” mailing list options where relevant).
It’s up to you how specific you want to get with your goals. Some people may want to share projected numbers, whereas for others it would be way too personal. Some people may be wanting to hide their ideas from competitors, or not wanting to put pressure on completing things within a certain timeframe, or simply want to keep some things a surprise. If this sounds like your situation, you could focus more on the benefits of what you have planned – how many people you want to help, for example, or what you’re planning to do once you’ve achieved your goals.
05. Treat your team
This could be a bonus, meal, a day trip, a small gift, or even a vacation. Just make sure that everyone likes what you have planned!
If it’s some kind of event, make sure your team is comfortable with you sharing photos and information about them, especially for things that may be real time, like Instagram Stories.
06. Do an eco-friendly balloon photoshoot
This could be a fun tradition to start! Having a different theme every year, or basing it around the idea of your “baby/toddler” growing up could be good starting points. If you prefer to keep it simple, a numbered balloon will do the job.
07. Get a branded cake, cupcakes or cookies
There are lots of small local businesses who will put your name or logo on a cake or cookies. If you don’t know of a place near you, you can always order online from somewhere like Etsy (this can also be a good way to check in advance that what you’re ordering will be photogenic!).
Ordering a lot? Why not make it into a party – don’t forget to take photos for social media!
08. Now and then photos
The “how it started…how it’s going” trend is a strong one, and there’s nothing like looking back at photos of the early days to realise how far you’ve come. This idea may be better suited to older businesses, but if something has changed significantly, it can still work for newer ones.
This could be your initial rough sketch or to do list tasks vs your shiny new computer, your old desk setup vs your new office, your old name/branding vs your new, old and new photos of you yourself, your team’s growth.
09. Ask your customers to help create a photo wall
Ask your customers to share photos – this could be of what they’ve purchased from you, a memory, a real or virtual birthday card, or similar. If they regularly share photos, collect a bunch together (with their permission) and use an app to create a collage for social media or your blog.
10. Self-care
If you don’t want to do anything publicly, planning some self-care is a great way to go. This one is just for you (and any team members you have, if you want to involve them too!). It can be good to reflect on what you’ve achieved, in a calmer setting of rest and relaxation. This could look like a spa trip, a trip to the beach, a massage, beauty therapy, a shopping trip, or something on a bigger scale. The most important thing is you’re taking time for you.
We hope you found some inspiration among these suggestions, and we’d love to hear about how you celebrate(d) your business birthday – drop us a comment below!
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