Hosting a Launch Party! Creative Ways to Celebrate a Website Launch

Well, you did it—congratulations! You’ve made it through your utility website redesign, and the launch date is within reach. Or perhaps, you’re just beginning the journey of a website redesign and trying to figure out when and how to launch the new site. Either way, we’ve got some tips to help make it an event to remember.

Selecting a Launch Date to Coincide with Another Event

If you’ve got an Annual Meeting on your calendar, aligning your website launch with the meeting is an excellent way to bring freshness to the event. It’s also a good opportunity to give attendees a quick walkthrough of some new features or updates. Even if your Annual Meeting is a virtual one, it may be the perfect chance to prepare a snippet to share on-screen by either navigating through the new website or sharing your design mockups if the site launch is in the future.

A monthly Board Meeting is also a great place to showcase your new website. Even if the site has launched earlier that month, it can be an exercise in transparency and trust-building to talk about the project and how you’ve improved the experience for members or customers.

Regardless of whether it’s an Annual Meeting or Board Meeting, or whether the site is still in production or is newly launched, all allow for an “unveiling” opportunity. After all of the work you’ve put in to make your new website a great one, it’s fun to share the excitement with the people you serve.

Drip Campaign via Social or Email

Another great way to share news of your newly designed website is by creating a drip campaign. Over the course of weeks or months, release snippets of your new website design or talk about areas of focus through the redesign. Let your customers or members know that you had them in mind when:

• Implementing a new home page Payment Portal, so that account management could be made easy.
• Choosing to convert most PDF content into web content, making the site more searchable and easy to translate into nearly 100 languages.
• Maintaining a focus on Web Accessibility to ensure that more people than ever can use and interact with the website.
• Choosing recognizable landscapes and landmarks for your Illustrated Footer so that the new website “feels like home.”
• Selecting a website design that works well on many devices so they aren’t left frustrated with difficult to find information whether at home or on the go.

These are just a few examples of messages that you can release to your members or customers over time, before or after launch, so they know the process was handled with thoughtfulness and care.

Send a Blast on Launch Day

If you want to keep it simple, you can stick to a single social media post or an email blast. Whether done the night before launch or on the day of your launch, it is an easy way to give customers or members a “heads up” of any new changes. Give helpful hints on where to find regularly sought-after items and mention any new upgrades that might make their experience a better one.

Feature an image of your new home page so that they will know they’re in the right place when they visit the new website. Take a moment to mention some of the highlights of the project experience or the ways you seek to serve them better than ever with a well-done website.

Conclusion

Announcing your new website helps maintain trust and prepares visitors for a new experience. It shows a thoughtful approach to communication and sends the message that you had them in mind through the entire process, all the way up to and through launch.