77% of retailers forgot my birthday

Last week was my birthday. Only 23% of retailers who knew I was celebrating acknowledged it.

3 weeks ago I signed up to receive emails from 200 retailers. 20% asked for my birthday. I love treats so with one coming up I gladly obliged. 77% of them missed an opportunity to talk to me - an opportunity to get more cash in their tills.

Of the 9 retailers who went to the effort of sending me an email on my special day a few disappointed. The Arcadia group all seemed to send me an email with either 15 or 20% off depending on the brand. I can't remember the last time I bought from them with only 15-20% off as every other week they seem to be offering stronger discounts than this. That said they didn't forget.

Hobbs offered me a free gift if I go in store to collect. No purchase necessary. Thank you!

Boden offered me a £10 voucher as did Hotter Shoes. No minimum spend advertised although on trying to use the voucher I realised Hotter Shoes had low value products excluded and therefore it wasn't as good a deal as I had originally thought. Boden's voucher could be used on top of existing discounts and therefore I bought myself a lovely top for just £10 extra.

Surprising and delighting your customers can make such a difference to their future spend with you. I've seen the results of emails across clients sending birthday emails and open rates tend to be 2-4 times more than a business as usual marketing email. I've witnessed revenue per email 5-8 times that of a standard email.

It doesn't have to have an offer however as with most marketing activities these tend to drive higher responses. If you are leading with an offer make sure it is more compelling than anything else they will have received over the last month or so from you. The more it feels like a true gift the more impact it will have.

Make sure it is personalised. You wouldn't miss your friends name off their birthday card so make sure you don't here. At the very least personalise the subject line however try and personalise the content too. There may also be an opportunity to go a step further with personalisation. I've seen the Manchester City email used a lot in the past but it really is a great example of using other data to enhance the experience.

You may want to send more than one email depending on your brand and the message. For example if you are offering £10 off for 14 days then remind them just before it is about to expire. If you sell products they would like to receive as gifts consider promoting a wishlist they can send to friends and family a few weeks before. ASOS email their customers a couple of weeks before giving them discount off a birthday outfit.

Don't forget to consider what other messages you have going out on the same day. Most Email Service Providers will allow you to apply a hierarchy to ensure customers don't receive multiple emails on the same day. Others just make sure birthday emails are sent at a different time to standard campaigns so they don't fight for attention in the inbox.

If you don't capture birthday for your customers and it could be relevant then why not ask for it? Send an email to your customers asking for their birthday. Many Email Providers offer form builders to capture this information and update your data to then use for automation.

With most providers it is easy to set up an automated program to email customers around their birthday. If you have birthday captured but don't have a program in place set one up today. They don't take much effort to maintain and if executed correctly will drive incremental revenue.

It doesn't just stop at birthdays. Some retailers have started to offer half birthday promotions now. Anniversary of purchase can also work well too contacting the customer a year after they first purchased from you.

The restaurant industry is great at sending birthday emails. I have another inbox with enough main meal or wine vouchers to see me eat out most days this month. I will see you in April!!