It’s always nice to receive “happy birthday“ calls, e-mails etc…
Some of the businesses “remember” to send their birthday greetings and some of them even attach some gifts in different versions.
I have received this one from a business where I bought a suitcase online: they send their greetings and attached a 5 EURO coupo:
click on the image to enlarge
From Lufthansa I received the greetings that included an “online game”
Step 1 – the greeting
Click on the image to enlarge
Step 2 – the game – the 3 cakes rotate and you need to get the same 3 cakes in one line (sort of a slot machine)
Step 3 – the present - after you manage to get the cackes in the right order...
I won 1,49 EURO KUPON that I can use if I buy/download an online song from their business B2B partners…
My opinion about those birthday greetings / gifts is as follows:
1. I think that it is nice to send out birthdays greetings. However, I don’t think that the birthday gift should be a part of the birthday greeting card. In other words, the birthday greeting card should stay as a greeting card and not include any presents. See here plain birthday greeting cards (with no gifts).
2. Birthday gifts should be unconditioned gifts. This means that if you decide to give a gift to your customers, then: give them a gift and don’t condition receiving the gift with any additional purchases. Otherwise, it isn’t a gift but a sales attempt that includes a certain discount.
3. If you still want to connect the birthday gifts with a coupon, make the coupon attractive in a way that the value of the coupon will be at least 25% of the purchase value. Otherwise it isn’t attractive and it isn’t anything special as a “birthday gift” should be, but, IT TURNS TO BE “another sales attempt”.
We have created the Dr.Baumann Money to be used especially in such occasions as BIRTHDAYS etc…
We start with a 10 dollar / euro bill up to a 100 dollar / euro bill, in other words, a relative valuable gift.
OR
You can also insert the Dr.Baumann Money into your “happy birthday greeting e-mails” (that you send out to your customers).
All together- everything that you do receives a meaning (by the receive/the customer). Businesses that send out “birthday greetings” do it in order to send out a message of:” I remember you” and “warm up” the relationship with their customers…
Sending out “happy birthday coupons” valued at 5 EURO on purchasing a suitcase of 200EURO is meaningless and creates the opposite effect of having a happy customer.
Sending out “happy birthday coupons” valued at 1,5 EURO when your annual flights purchases are valued at thousands of EUROS (as Lufthansa does) is meaningless and creates the opposite effect of having a happy customer.(However, the birthday “cake game” is nice…)
I suggest that if you really mean it and if you really want to have a “warm” relationship with your customers, then: send them a real gift and don’t condition the receipt of the gift to any further purchases. Simply, decide on your gift budget, allocate it and give the customers their gifts (Gift budget - should be about 5% of the customers past purchases).
Application:
1. Send out the greeting cards separately.
2. Send out the gift separately immediately after sending the greeting cards.
3. Try to avoid using meaningless coupons as the customers might give it a negative meaning while thinking: “those guys try to use my birthday as a sales opportunity to sell me something instead of just to say hello and happy birthday”.
Think as a customer and ask yourself: “what realistically would you expect as a birthday gift”? Thinking in this way will direct you to better conclusions in regard to how you should treat your best customers during their birthdays and other occasions / celebrations.
PS – Thanks to all of you for your birthday greetings…it was nice to have those…
