How to have your (birthday) cake and eat it

Guess what?
It’s my birthday!
The reason I mention this isn’t a desperate cry for attention honest, it’s because it has to be one of the most common questions I get asked by people when they’re looking for press coverage and I’m talking about their business birthdays or anniversaries of course as we should call them.

“Hey Greg” they’ll say “it’s our first year in business shall we do a story maybe or we’ve been open two years now does that make a better angle?”

It’s all right but it needs work.

“Oh it’s four years now since we started surely that’s got to be good news Greg”.

Well yes it is for you, but not really for your audience and that’s always the key. It’s our 10th or 21st or 25th or 50th or 100th it’s better, it’s stronger.

You need to think like a Hallmark Card.

Nobody gets special cards their fourth birthday or their 12th, you could maybe push it at 13 if you played that lucky for some angle or 18 as a pinch but really needs to be offering two things here – interest and usefulness.

The very top thing to keep in mind is ‘so what’.

Now that might sound harsh but if all you’re doing is tooting your own trumpet, you aren’t really adding any value and if you aren’t adding any value you may as well just buy an advert as the editorial team will probably ignore you.

Honestly, have something in the pipeline to say such as as part of our celebrations we are launching a new or limited or exclusive product service whatever or we’re moving or expanding or we’re hiring or pledging to support a charity.

Ideally you’d make a point of showing you mean business that you’re growing and you can offer some value be it in terms of information or straight up offers lucky punters or loyal fans.

So if you have a business birthday, considering how you can leverage it by all means but have something to say other than merely flipping the calendar over.

That way you can have your cake and eat it

Cheers

 

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