Customer Milestone Campaigns: Why Birthday Emails Are Not Enough

In this ongoing sequence, we’ll be “unboxing” must-have digital advertising and marketing campaigns and applications very important to success. In this installment, we’ll check out buyer milestone campaigns.

It’s a well-documented fact: Brands that ship personalised birthday and anniversary emails generate extra income than manufacturers that solely give attention to mass-produced mailings.

However, this comes with a caveat: The analysis is over ten years previous.

Ten years in the past, there wasn’t the personalization expertise that we’ve right this moment. In 2020, customers count on extra—which means manufacturers should do greater than ship a celebratory message annually to get the eye, income and loyalty they’re searching for.

That’s why for this version of Unboxing Must-Have Marketing Campaigns, we’re going to dive into a subject that model entrepreneurs may use a brand new perspective on: buyer milestones.

Read on to grasp why buyer milestones must transcend birthdays and anniversaries, and study the three important substances it’s good to construct a stellar milestone marketing campaign.

Download the whole information to realize entry to much more superior, cross-channel techniques to offer your messaging further oomph.

Why Brands Need to Do More Than Send a Birthday Message

Before we dive in, we wish to outline how we take into consideration buyer milestones at Iterable.

A buyer milestone is an occasion that celebrates the shopper’s progress in direction of a purpose they’ve set for themselves.

So birthdays have fun a buyer’s progress in direction of dwelling one other yr.

And anniversaries have fun a further yr of a buyer’s patronage with a model.

However, birthdays and anniversaries solely occur annually. If entrepreneurs are solely interacting with prospects on their birthday or anniversary with out another personalised communications within the remaining 364 days, they in all probability aren’t getting the ROI they’re searching for.

In truth, manufacturers can go additional with milestones to get a buyer’s consideration. But how?

How Identity Relates to Customer Milestones

If manufacturers wish to get the ROI they want with a milestone marketing campaign, they’ve to grasp the fundamentals of how people kind their id.

Identity, according to psychologist Shahram Heshmat, “relates to [an individual’s] basic values that dictate the choices we make […] these choices reflect who we are and what we value.”

An id adjustments all through a person’s lifetime, so whereas it would seem to be an important thought to blast your record with a once-a-year birthday message, the person might need already moved on out of your model, which may ship your milestone email straight into the trash.

However, there’s a chance right here. In addition to birthdays and anniversaries, there are two kinds of buyer milestones that may be celebrated.

1. Through a loyalty or rewards program

One approach manufacturers can have fun buyer milestones is thru a loyalty or rewards program

For occasion, resort chain Marriott already gives a loyalty program to frequent vacationers. “Levels” are assigned primarily based on a person buyer’s spending exercise and the “milestone” is when a brand new stage is reached.

Celebrating this milestone accomplishes a couple of issues:

• Affirms a buyer’s elite standing because it pertains to Marriott
• Makes the shopper be ok with their achievement
• Informs them of the brand new perks they obtain because of their loyalty

2. Activity monitoring

Another approach manufacturers can have fun buyer milestones is by compiling what a buyer did over the course of a yr.

So, for instance, music streaming utility Spotify analyzes every particular person profile’s listening habits for developments over the course of the yr and creates new playlists for them.

The sort of music somebody listens to is extremely private, so this milestone email affirms the listener’s style in music, alerts the listener that there are personalized playlists of their library, and (hopefully) will get them to proceed streaming music.

Now that we’ve a couple of extra examples of how manufacturers can have fun buyer milestones past the birthday and anniversary, let’s break down the three important substances a marketer must have earlier than they construct a milestone marketing campaign.

3 Essential Ingredients You Need to Build a Milestone Campaign

1. A milestone to have fun

To construct a milestone marketing campaign, manufacturers must know precisely what prospects prefer to have fun.

Luckily, you could have plenty of choices to select from.

Most individuals get pleasure from their birthday, so it’s not an excessive amount of of a stretch to ship them a suggestion as a birthday present, like this email from a Seattle-based improv comedy group.

But it doesn’t even should be the shopper’s birthday. It could possibly be {that a} enterprise milestone was reached, like this 5-year firm “birthday” email from short-term tattoo retailer Tattly.

But in case your model chooses to trace an exercise, like software app Zapier does for their partner program, you’ll have to ascertain what the “levels” appear like—and determine what info so as to add or omit in your milestone email.

Once you select the milestone your model needs to give attention to, it’s good to be sure you have the appropriate knowledge in place to help it.

2. Data to help that milestone

Next, manufacturers want knowledge to help celebrating that milestone.

While it might be sufficient for a person to make use of Facebook or Google Calendar to handle their contact’s birthdays, manufacturers can have as much as tons of of hundreds of thousands of contacts of their databases.

Meaning? They should get actually good at automating a few of their messaging; in any other case, email groups could be swamped with sending birthday playing cards on a regular basis.

To do that, manufacturers have to gather and retailer related buyer knowledge. They can do it by way of one in every of two methods: voluntarily or by way of monitoring consumer conduct.

An instance of voluntary knowledge is when manufacturers provide birthday presents in trade for buyer info, like this pop-up kind and birthday email utilized by retailer Madewell.

Alternatively, manufacturers can accumulate knowledge on a buyer by taking a look at what they bought or did on an internet site or app and generate a milestone that approach.

For instance, the New York Times collects knowledge on what subscribers learn and click on with the intention to generate the next anniversary email.

Brands can’t run a milestone marketing campaign like Madewell’s or the New York Times’s with out correct knowledge. If you’re a marketer contemplating one in your model, take the time to grasp what sources of information you could have entry to earlier than embarking on the email design course of.

3. A related provide

Wishing somebody nicely on a milestone is a pleasant contact, however the very best manufacturers at all times embrace a present for the shopper on their big day.

However, this may backfire if the provide isn’t personalised for the person’s preferences.

Luckily, psychology researcher Robert Cialdini has the solution. For most affect, presents must be:

1. Meaningful and surprising—as in, there must be a component of shock. A great instance is when a waiter at a restaurant brings out free dessert after dinner. It’s a pleasant gesture to the shopper (and most definitely will lead to the next tip for the waiter).
2. Customized—as in, the profit is predicated on their setting, likes and dislikes. So as an illustration, if somebody buys their worker a Starbucks present card and that worker doesn’t drink espresso, the present instantly loses its which means.

One model that meets these two standards is BarkBox, who celebrates their canine prospects’ birthday or adoption day with a enjoyable email (and a suggestion so as to add a particular deal with to the often scheduled subscription field).

Another model that provides a related provide is cosmetics retailer Sephora. If prospects are a part of their Beauty Insider loyalty program, they get so as to add a free birthday present to their subsequent buy and obtain suggestions for added merchandise primarily based on their astrology signal.

Sephora is well-known within the magnificence trade for its generous return policy, so providing a cosmetics mini-set as a birthday present helps Sephora promote new merchandise—and permits its loyal clientele to strive new merchandise earlier than they buy bigger variations.

Once you’ve chosen a milestone, collected the info and nailed down the provide, you’re all set to construct a buyer milestone marketing campaign!

A Quick Recap on Customer Milestone Campaigns

Regardless of what your model chooses for a milestone, keep in mind these two issues: 

1. It’s vital to have fun your prospects’ victories all year long—not simply throughout a birthday or anniversary.
2. The only milestones are those that affirm a buyer’s id

If you’re simply getting began with milestone campaigns, keep in mind that you want these three important substances for the very best outcomes: 

• A milestone to have fun
• Data to help that milestone
• A related provide

Download our full information to grasp these necessities and get artistic with superior cross-channel techniques. Inside, you’ll discover ways to use SMS, cellular push notifications, in-app messaging and social retargeting to boost your marketing campaign.

Now that you simply’re an skilled on learn how to construct a buyer milestone marketing campaign, what are you going to do to face out from the group?