First off, Happy Birthday! (whenever your b-day is).
Birthdays are great opportunity to mix up your messaging to an email subscriber and give a non-sale oriented, warm and fuzzy to build trust and enthusiasm with your brand and email program. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to sell and covert though! Let’s take a look at how to set this up, automate, and also a few content ideas to get you thinking.
Setting up a Birthday Email
First off, your going to have to know their birthday. The best practice here is to capture that data at the opt-in. You can always get this information later through progressive profiling, but I would recommend adding it to the initial email capture so you can automate the email trigger from day one. Making this a required field is also a good idea if you are serious about birthday emails.
Remember, you don’t need the year they were born, unless you plan on sending different content based on their age. It will also make the opt-in process faster.
Triggering the Birthday Email
Your ESP should have the ability built in to capture this in your form generator. In emailROI, one requirement is to choose the format of the date:
Once you have chosen the format, you will have a consistent format in your database to work with. Then, you can assign that birthday event trigger to a specific email message in your email app. This email will either reside independently or within a list or group.
This email should allow for personalization of name and or creative elements and coupon codes or offers. This also gives you flexibility to contiunally edit the message with out changing your opt-in code.
Birthday Email Ideas
Restaurants & Retail are going to have the most flexiblity here, as they can allow for free items or discounts. Let’s take a look at few that provide these:
Here was an email I recieved from Wendy herself. Along with a birthday greeting, it gives me a link to $1 off coupon I can use at any location. This is effective and trackable outside the online channel. They use Coupons Inc. to facilitate barcodes and personalized online printing. They also make good use of the preheader space with “Get Coupon” to tease the present. 
Here is an email from Adidas that does a technqiue here that is noteworthy. Aside from the 15% off coupon, they give a secondary call-to-action to join the Addidas Insiders club. This takes advantage of the Birthday message to cross promote their club. I would be intrested to know how this element performs. Lesson here is that the email doesn’t have to include only 1 item.
El Gaucho, a fabulous NW steakshouse, doesn’t waste their birthday email opportunity with a small discount. They come right out with a $25.00 off discount that is sure to drive visitors. Every business is different, but to me, if your going to give someone a birthday gift, give them something they will remember. A halo effect will be placed on future campaigns to that subscriber, both online and offline.
Before you Implement Your Birthday Email Campaign – Some Things to Consider
Make your subject line very clear! Include both Happy Birthday and your offer.
You don’t have to give them a present, the gesture alone is important.
If you are going to give a discount or coupon, make sure you have protected yourself. Make sure the coupon/disocunt code is personalized and is only able to be used once. You don’t need this offer getting placed on coupon sites or spread virally through email or social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
Constantly be testing this email. Nothing is worse than getting a birthday card addressed to a stranger, or even worse, getting a card when it is not your birthday.
Keep it positive. Stay away from jokes that make light of their age and what not. Your relationship with you customer might be rock solid, but I doubt it is to the point where you can get away with something like that.
Have you Seen Other Great Ideas?
If you have other examples or advice for our readers, we would love to hear about them! Please tell us in a comment below.
Here it is, your March Email Marketing Calendar.
For the last Tip Jar Podcast of 2009, I had the pleasure of talking with Dave Delaney, Social Media Coordinator of Griffin Technology (the company that makes those killer gadgets your iPhone, iPod, Blackberry, Stereo, etc…).
, you are directed to this page at Facebook, which creates a preview with optional image selections from the page URL provided, which in this case is the link to the post on the site, which is identical to the content from the email.
