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Happy Birthday Gets Your Attention

According to a blog by Optimove, posted on 21 September 2017 by Omer LIss, with Contributor Maya Shaanan, birthday email is one of the best-performing personalized marketing campaigns, and has been for years. On that special day, “all we want is just to be remembered,” says the blog. According to recent research by Optimove, new data shows that birthday email performs better than ever. Direct emails tied to birthdays get the highest response rates, compared to many other customer-related communications.

The report says that the data for this research consists of over 1 million birthday campaigns sent by businesses since mid-2016. Regardless of whether the consumers received coupons, free delivery, a gift or any other incentive as a part of their birthday campaign, they all turned out to be highly effective.

When compared to a control group (customers who did not receive a birthday campaign, even though eligible), birthday campaigns were found to be highly effective, says the report. The difference in response rates between the test and control groups were statistically significant, meaning that the campaign significantly affected those who have received it.

Birthday Campaign Response Rate, E-Commerce vs. Gaming

 

E-Commerce

185%

 

Gaming

259%

 

Control

100%

Source: Optimove, October 2017

After concluding that birthday campaigns have a powerful impact on customer behavior, the study drilled down to examine how different sub-groups react to these campaigns. When implementing gender segmentation, in both gaming and e-commerce, men exhibit higher levels of activity on their birthday, in comparison to women.

Activity on Birthday, According to Gender, By Sectors

 

Female (E-Commerce)

100%

 

Male (E-Commerce)

172%

 

 

 

 

Female (Gaming)

100%

 

Male (Gaming)

157%

Source: Optimove, October 2017

Men are 57% more active than women, and in e-commerce their activity level is 72% higher than those exhibited by the women.

Segmenting according to age groups, the report shows differences in performance between gaming and e-commerce. As seen in the charts, there is a clear trend in gaming; the older the campaign subject, the higher levels of activity on their birthday. In e-commerce, however, the groups with the highest levels of activity are the youngest, and then activity levels drop to the lowest and raises again slightly as age increases.

In gaming, the trend is consistent. Men order more than women in all age groups, and the trend stays the same. In e-commerce, the trend is similar, but in some age groups, women order more than men.

Activity Rate on Birthday By Age and Sector (Rounded)

 

Age

E-Commerce

Gaming

 

16-25

1.2%

2%

 

25-35

0.6%

3%

 

35-45

0.7%

4%

 

45-55

0.8%

5%

 

55+

0.81%

5.5%

Source: Optimove, October 2017

Young people tend to engage in birthday festivities more than the elder, and therefore, are less likely to play online casino games.

Overall, says the report, it's clear to see how different groups of people react differently on their birthdays, and sometimes it will be wise to put the efforts on one group rather than the other, in order to make them come to celebrate their birthday with your company. It's not supposed to be a hard task, as it's obvious from our research that people respond very well to birthday campaigns - they expect to be acknowledged on their special day, concludes the report.

In a world where consumers are ever-evolving and marketers fiercely fight over wallet-share, says the report, marketers must be agile and adapt quickly. It’s important to cater to your customers' expectations, otherwise they'll leave and go somewhere else, where they will get pampered on their birthdays, where their expectations are met, concludes the report.

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2 comments about "Happy Birthday Gets Your Attention".
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  1. Stewart Wills from stewartwills.com, November 2, 2017 at 6:13 p.m.

    Interesting data. Here's another data point. My own birth date has just recently passed, and on that date I found myself increasingly exasperated by the assault of "today's your special day" robo-mails I found myself getting -- from the blood bank, several car dealerships (one of which I haven't done business with in many years), and a variety of other parties that, I suspect, don't *really* much care ...

    Ultimately, the only effect these mails had was making me wish that fewer organizations had my birth date in their sweaty little digital paws.

    Some of this may just reflect the fact that I'm at an age at which I'd prefer not to be reminded. But I do wonder if, more generally, these campaigns are going to become increasingly less effective as more and more organizations use them.

  2. Jack Loechner from Mediapost Communications replied, November 7, 2017 at 3:20 p.m.

    all good points, Paula... best approach to answers would be to contact SocialStrike directly... thanks for response, jack


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