Autographed book donated to an animal rescue organization

Autographed book donated to an animal rescue organization

Many companies celebrate milestone business anniversaries – those ending in 0 or 5 – yet ignore the in-between years. That’s a big mistake.

Each business anniversary is an opportunity to showcase products and services, engage customers and prospects and drive sales and revenue, a strategy that we at Bartel Communications call “sell”-abrating. So I pose this question: Do you want to promote your products or services every five or ten years or do you want to “sell”-abrate your offerings every year?

For the 19th business anniversary of Bartel Communications, we chose to remind customers and prospects of our staying power through community service. We used the symbol of the 19th business anniversary – “Flora and Fauna” (according to “The Bartel Years™) – as inspiration for our business anniversary theme: “Generosity is in Our Nature.” All of our community service initiatives related to plants and animals and flowed from our theme. Here’s some of what we did:

Flora:

  • Contributed to Saratoga PLAN (www.saratogaplan.org) for its “Feast of the Fields” gala. Proceeds from the event helped “to conserve the rural character, natural habitats and scenic beauty of Saratoga County.”
  • Sent “Give-a-Tree” cards from the Arbor Day Foundation (www.arborday.org) to colleagues providing business referrals to Bartel Communications during the year. Each card was a corporate thank-you gift, signifying that in the recipient’s honor a tree would be planted in one of our nation’s forests.

Fauna:

  • Contributed to the ASPCA (https://www.aspca.org) to support the organization’s work in preventing animal cruelty.
  • Donated an inscribed copy of my book Amazing Animal Actors (Taylor Trade Publishing) to the Animal Protective Foundation (www.animalprotective.org), an animal rescue organization, as a silent auction item for its annual fundraising gala. More than 325 influential business professionals and community leaders attend the gala each year. Our donation informed the attendees about a mutual love of animals and a belief that every animal deserves a home.

Our 19th business anniversary initiatives allowed us to do good, honor our beliefs in environmental conservation and animal rights and herald our creativity with business anniversary promotional campaigns. That’s a winning combination.

Blogger Bio: Pauline Bartel, M.A., is President and Chief Creative Officer of Bartel Communications, Inc., an award-winning corporate communications consultancy. One of the company’s specialties is business anniversary marketing.

Bartel Communications created “The Bartel Years™” and “The Bartel Years 200™,” rosters of business anniversary symbols to inspire two centuries of business anniversary “sell”-abrations.

Through The Bartel Way™, an integrated marketing and public relations strategy, Bartel Communications uses business anniversaries as showcases for a company’s products and services. This engages customers, drives sales and transforms the anniversary into a “sell”-abration. For further information, visit www.paulinebartel.com/services/corporate-services/business-anniversary-consulting