Relocating your business is a vastly different kind of move than simply
relocating your family to a new city or even a new state. When you relocate, you
will typically let those closest to you know about the move, meaning family
members, friends, employers and close neighbors. You certainly aren't expected
to put out a press release announcing to the public that you're moving. However,
when you own a business and you are planning on moving it, you have to keep the
interests of a lot of people in mind, specifically people involved with your
company.
When you relocate your business, the move will affect many
people that are connected with your business, therefore it's considered to be
common courtesy to send a relocation letter to all those who may be affected by
the relocation of your business, including employees, clients, customers,
vendors, and others.
The point of crafting a relocation letter for your
business associates and customers is to inform them of your move and the
reasoning behind it, as well as using the opportunity to strengthen the
communication between your company and its associates and reinforce your
connections with the customer base and clientele. This guide will show you a few
tips and tricks to writing the ideal business relocation, as well as what you
need to know before you write it and before you send it out.
Who will be affected by your move?
The first step in writing
your business relocation letter happens before you even lay pen to paper,
figuratively speaking. It requires figuring out all of the people and fellow
businesses that will be affected by the relocation and organizing them in a list
so you can have a good idea of who you need to reach out to with the letter and
what approach you'll take in writing it.
First, make a list of all the
people that will be affected in some way by the relocation of your business.
Make sure to include everyone, from your customers, vendors, and banks, to your
credit card companies, utility companies, advertisers, and all other local state
and federal agencies and any other organizations that you may regularly do
business with. Also don't forget to include any partner companies, and make sure
that you don't leave anyone out. Running through your list and double- and
triple-checking it will ensure that you have touched on everyone that you need
to reach with your relocation letter.
Once you have sorted all that out,
the next step is to organize this list into different categories, based on your
relationship with them and how you wish to tailor your relocation letter to best
suit the audience that you are writing for. For example, you should break down
your list into categories that cover your customer base, your vendors,
advertisers and any other businesses that you regularly interact with and any
government agencies or financial institutions like tax agencies, credit card
companies and banks. Since these organizations tend to fall into similar
categories, you can tailor your letters to cater specifically to each of their
interests.
Writing the letter
The next step involves actually writing your
business relocation letters. Since you're most likely going to write multiple
versions of the letter for the different categories on your list, you should
draft up a template for each and outline the important points that you wish to
cover in each letter. Of course all of the letters will have some overlapping
information that you will need to include no matter who the audience is, so that
can be included in the template.
Once you have outlined the most
important points that you want to include in each letter and come up with a
functional template for the different relocation letters you'll be drafting, you
should decide on how you want to convey your message to each particular
audience. For example, in your letter to your customer base, you should inform
them of your relocation, the reasoning behind it, and give them some information
about how you plan on continuing to serve them moving forward. Also, make sure
to let them know that your commitment to maintaining their business will not
change despite the move and you look forward to a prosperous future in a new
location.
For your letters that will be going to government agencies and
financial institutions, you should craft your message a little more carefully
and the overall tone of the letter should be more formal. The letter you write
for your business associates, vendors, advertisers and other companies that you
do business should be somewhere in between the two previous examples, as far as
the tone of the letter is concerned. You'll want to stay somewhat formal, while
also managing to connect with them and let them know that their partnership
means a lot to your business and that you hope it will continue to thrive in the
future.
Sending the letter
When you've finished the letters, your final step is
disseminating them and making sure that they reach their intended audience the
way they're supposed to. Whether that means mailing them out to their
recipients, including them in an email blast or company newsletter, posting it
as a blog on your website, turning it into a press release, or even all of the
above, it's important to have a plan made in advance on how to distribute your
message.
- First, you should make sure that you include all necessary information about
your company's new location in the letter so that the recipients know how and
where they can contact you in the future. You should include your name or the
company's name, telephone number, the address of your new location, directions
or a map to your new location and also any pertinent links to your website or
any other site containing helpful information.
- Next, you should post a copy of the letter on your company's website. If for
any reason the letters that you send by mail or email don't reach your
recipients, the letter on the website should work as a suitable fall-back
option, since it is likely to be in a place that is highly visible both to your
clients and customers, as well as your business associates.
- The timing of when you send the letter to your customers and business
associates is also important. You don't want to wait until after you've already
relocated to notify people of the move because it may already be too late. The
best window of time for letting people know of your planned relocation is around
three weeks before your move. This will allow everyone to make the adjustments
that they need to make and will allow your move and your company's transition to
go as smoothly as possible, without threatening to interrupt your
business.