After a long and grueling few months, we should be closing on our first deal within the next two weeks. I'm looking for some guidance from the community on how we should approach the Day 1 external announcement of the transaction (internal handled separately)? Where should we focus our energy & money, how to approach customers & vendors to announce the deal, etc?

Additional detail: a rebranding is tentatively scheduled 3-6 months out, so we envision this effort as a public announcement of the deal, introducing ourselves to the community, and to start generating excitement about the future of the company (and of course to drive the sales pipeline). We have an opportunity to announce the signing of a major partnership as well (the prior owner never announced it due to the pending sale).