The title of this blog post is from my email conversation yesterday, with a growing software company CEO who has been trying to figure out several unknowns about their first user-conference, and their annual budget is a big driver of that decision. My recommendation was to think creatively beyond user-conferences, to give the company the flexibility of programs that help them stay on their customer engagement goals.

Once your company has paying customers, there is no better scenario than your biggest customer inviting you to the industry’s biggest tradeshow and asking you to walk the aisles with him/her. The closest feeling that I can describe from that tradeshow stride, is walking the red carpet at an entertainment awards ceremony. I have had the good fortune of enjoying both but that’s a story for a different blog.

Besides an outstanding product delivered flawlessly, it takes some investment of thought, time and energy on the part of a vendor, in nurturing a customer relationship before that vendor can expect to earn such red-carpet treatment from a premier customer.

First you must learn how to celebrate every customer as if they are your biggest and only customer.

There is no need to wait for the big budget to create a user-conference when you are a startup, or a new product line in a large corporation with a limited budget allocation.

Think of various forms of celebrating your customers, especially if they have no policies against appearing jointly under a banner of a vendor’s branding. Some Fortune 100 corporations have strict policies against the mere allusion of endorsement of their vendors, even if you are their favorite vendor.

When presenting a budget proposal to your CFO, think of creative ways to celebrate your customers.

Each form of such ‘Customer Celebration’ can be part of a continuum, so that you have an a la carte menu of celebratory programs to pick from, based on your CFO’s budget-appetite, without loss of effectiveness in the ultimate outcome for your business goals.

Here are three first principles of Customer Celebration:

The form does not matter. Programs such as user-conferences     and other forms of customer celebration that you pick must deliver on a     stand-alone basis, yet, work well as a continuum, if it gets bolted on to     become part of a bigger annual strategy.

Shared success stories beget new     success stories.

It’s all about the timing. Get the message right, getting     it out, and do it in a timely manner. Technology is merely an enabler of     customer celebration. You can even shout from your office roof-top if that     gets heard. But do it before it becomes old news.

Let your budget blues not bog you down. Customer celebration can begin with even the simple and human act of a pat on the back of a client staffer who has figured out how to use your software. Don’t wait for that big budget production to celebrate your customers. Sometimes even a hug goes a long way.