Today is my birthday, and as many others have grown accustomed to doing, I will be going through my email inbox to check what birthday perks await me. After all, I’ve joined a number of loyalty programs for my favorite stores and restaurants over the years. As you might expect, most of these messages with be from large, national chains. However, with the somewhat recent explosion of affordable CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems and targeted email marketing solutions, even small- to medium-sized businesses can join the birthday perks fray.
Email marketing solutions such as MailChimp, Contact Contact, and Mad Mimi will allow you to capture customer data (including birthdays) by way of a form on your website, segment your customers, create targeted email campaigns, and analyze results so you can improve your marketing strategy. CRM systems like HubSpot, Zoho CRM, and Agile CRM will allow you to capture and organize just about every piece of information imaginable related to your customers—again, including birthdays—during every stage of the sales pipeline. Most of them will also allow you to create targeted email marketing campaigns similar to the solutions mentioned above.
So, once you have implemented a CRM system or an email marketing solution, you’re all set to send out birthday greetings. And then you can sit back and wait for the onslaught of elated customers eager to spend money with you on their birthdays! Right? Well… not necessarily. Don’t forget that each of those customers has also received similar birthday greetings from many other companies. How do you set yourself apart and grab their attention?
- One thing you could do is to make sure that whatever offer you are sending doesn’t expire for a while, if ever. After all, it can be quite a challenge to collect all of those free appetizers and desserts in a week’s time!
- You could also be different and send out your birthday perks on your customers’ half-birthdays. In doing this, you can avoid getting lost in the barrage of other birthday messages and get your customers’ attention when they are not expecting it.
- If your product offerings are not the typical birthday fare, perhaps you could partner with another local business and send one of its gift cards to your customers on their birthdays. Gift cards do not generally expire, and your customers will be delighted that you thought of them on their special day.
And never underestimate the value of a snail-mailed, hand-signed, physical birthday card. If you want to do something more than just a simple card, be creative, and send out a gift that captures the uniqueness of your business. Sometimes customers just like to know that their business is appreciated!
