How to use a corporate move to your marketing advantage

Moving is never fun. Moving your residence is bad enough - moving your company is even worse!

But there are some marketing benefits to moving your company to a new location. Here are a few tips for reaping rewards from your company's move:

a) first step, get into the new space and get settled. Don't hold an open house / housewarming in the first few weeks. You won't be ready and it will show.

b) do send out an annoucement to your customers and network about your move. Highlight the benefits of the new space - state of the art facility, growing to meet increasing demand, better location, etc. Use the opportunity to profile all that is great about your new location and get some positive PR from it.

c) chose whether an open house will work for you. If your customer base is local and if your location is the place that customers do business with you (eg retail), absolutely do an open house! You need to get customers to your new location, so enticing them with a party or a free offer is critical. If your business is manufacturing and your customers are international, an open house isn't likely to work. Better to offer individualized tours of the new facility at times that are convenient for customers (when they're planning a trip to your city, for example).

d) send out photos of the new space and include it on your website. It's an opportunity for customers and prospects to get to know your business better.

This won't make the move any easier, but it will ensure you leverage the opportunies available to you.