Partner Content
Everyone loves moments when a family member or friend remembers something about you and shares that with you, like a birthday, anniversary, or memory. Those moments are meaningful ways to connect authentically, inspire, and create positive energy.
For a marketer, it isn’t any different. Sending messages on birthdays, anniversaries, and other recurring dates or milestones are powerful tactics to keep customers engaged and inspired throughout their journey with your brand. These campaigns typically outperform other tactics, with 481% higher transaction rates, 342% higher revenue per email, 179% higher unique click-through rates, and 53% higher open rates.
Top 7 things you can do to celebrate your customers
- Apply triggers. The first step is to identify those moments through data and applying triggers. While triggered marketing messages are not a new concept, research shows they deliver a 46% open rate and 11% click-through rate. To roll-out a triggered approach, you first need to analyze if you have the correct data and the ability to time or trigger emails using the data.
- Create value exchange. Consider creating a value exchange where your brand offers promotions and discounts. In return, customers share personal information such as birthdays, preferences, and other attributes useful for personalization. Research shows 70% of customers are willing to share, if there is a meaningful value exchange with a brand.
- Understand where a customer is in the customer journey. Birthday or anniversary emails can strengthen engagement and help build loyalty. This goal can also be pursued with emails that celebrate other occasions. It is also essential to go beyond the celebratory messages to get attention and recognize milestones throughout the year, such as the number of purchases, reviews, or recommendations.
- Incorporate loyalty programs. A way to tie in milestones is through loyalty program data, where punch card activity, tier achievement, or other milestones can be celebrated. A great opportunity to gather relevant data is the moment a customer joins your loyalty program. That is the right time to ask for a birthday, or other data points that can be used to trigger events throughout the customer journey.
- Go cross-channel. Go beyond email and tie in SMS, shoutouts on social media, or even creative direct mail. To go further, automate workflows to invoke subsequent actions, such as if your email is not opened, you can send a mobile message through SMS or push as a reminder.
- Send a gift, offer or discount. You will want to surprise your customers with well-timed messages, as well as delight them. Consider including targeted offers in the messaging, including discounts, coupons, or free shipping.
- Keep the content short, sweet, and visual. The messages and content should put the customer first, not your brand, and clearly celebrate the birthday or milestone. Incorporate fun and interactive content, that makes the reason for the occasion worth celebrating.
Birthday, anniversary, or milestone campaigns are about making a personal connection with customers. These tactics strengthen relationships with customers and a tactic that applies to all customers, not just a single segment or group of customers.
If you’d like to learn more about enhancing customer journeys, check out our Journey Companion Guides.