Best Practice: Birthday Programmes

Transcription

1 Best Practice: Birthday Programmes Best practice and strategy for designing birthday s Birthday s

2 CONTENTS The birthday What... Aim... Why... How... Collect data... Create a filter... Decide on a single or multiple s... Outline content (keeping it fresh and relevant)... Decide on the campaign hierarchy... Decide on the frequency capping rules relative to other campaigns... Decide on a test programme... Assign schedule... Set up the programme and automate... Other considerations... 8 Best in class... 9 Checklist... 9 Summary... 9 Birthday s Contents

3 THE BIRTHDAY WHAT? Birthday s are defined as marketing messages that acknowledge the subscribers date of birth with a positive, personalised and celebratory tone. AIM They aim at strengthening engagement, increasing loyalty and conversion. WHY? Marketers are becoming increasingly fond of this practice as it allows them to send one to one communications that cuts through the marketing noise. Extremely relevant and targeted birthday campaigns have a very high return on investment (ROI), especially when triggered. They are one of the best ways for brands to differentiate themselves with minimal effort and build a more personal relationship with the customer. The table opposite shows the value of birthday messages versus those of standard promotional s. More effective in certain countries, their ROI is nevertheless globally evident. In addition to generating higher open, click and conversion rates, birthday campaigns are a great brand building opportunity, driving online traffic and drive in-store footfall. HOW? Creating a birthday campaign is simple. Marketers need to follow 9 steps: 1. Collect data 2. Create a filter 3. Decide on a single or multiple s 4. Outline content (keeping it fresh and relevant) 5. Decide on the campaign hierarchy 6. Decide on the frequency capping rules relative to other campaigns 7. Decide on a test programme 8. Assign schedule 9. Set up the programme and automate Experian Marketing Services International holiday performance study, a look back at global trends (Oct. 1, 2012 Dec. 31, 2012) Birthday s 1

4 COLLECT DATA In order to be able to carry out effective birthday messaging to your customers, you need to collect data. Date of birth can be requested at point of sign-up, and if not, the first welcome can direct the customer to a data capture form by asking for further preference details. The benefit of the staggered, preference updates method is that it is less likely to overwhelm the new subscriber. It is often for this reason that we see a preference update button in day-to-day promotional s. This way, subscribers can share their personal information in their own time once they have built trust in the brand. If a brand has failed to request this information over time or has received poor quality thirdparty data, marketers can be left with thousands of addresses without any personal information. We want to surprise you on your birthday campaigns are often deployed to fill those gaps and can be a good way to collect date of birth information for existing customers. Some customers may be reluctant to give their year of birth so it s at times better to simply ask for day and month of birth. Finally, don t forget to inform customers of the reason for asking their birth date such as giving them a treat on their birthday. This is likely to increase the number of birth dates collected. Birthday s 2

5 CREATE THE FILTER/SEGMENT Creating the filter or segment is straightforward. Marketers need to build a query for birth date, such as Any subscriber who has birth day today or for a birthday reminder birth day is 7 days ago. If birth date is unavailable and the aim of the programme is to collect more accurate data, then create a segment based on anyone who has not got a birth date registered with their address. OPPOSITE IS AN EXAMPLE OF BIRTHDAY WORKFLOW WILL BUSINESS AS USUAL HAVE PRIORITY OVER BIRTHDAY? PRE-BIRTHDAY Send an (days/month) before someones birthday Segment: Birthday is (days/month) from now Scheduling: Approved for recurring daily This is the perfect stage to check the accuracy of your data. We advise running a count to look for strange figures such as a high number of subscribers under the age of 10 (very unlikely), or for example a high count for people born on January 1st (default drop down value when using lists). These subscribers should be sent a we want to suspire you on your birthday campaign to confirm their date of birth. BIRTHDAY Send an to someone on their birthday Segment: Birthday is today Scheduling: Approved for recurring daily THANKS, HAVE A GREAT BIRTHDAY! Send an (days/month) after someone s birthday if they have purchased from the birthday Segment: Birthday is (days/month) ago, and transaction mailing is one of (Birthday Mailing Name) and INCLUDE transaction equal or greater than 1. Scheduling: Approved for recurring daily REMINDER Send an (days/month) after someone s birthday if they have not made a purchase. Segment: Birthday is (days/month) ago, and mailing is one of (Birthday Mailing Name) and EXCLUDE transaction equal or greater than 1. Scheduling: Approved for recurring daily Birthday s 3

6 DECIDE ON A SINGLE OR MULTIPLE S The most common and easiest strategy is to send one single birthday . However, sending a series of two or three s can be much more effective, especially with time limited offers. This extra step will drive sales where the offer has not been used. The initial might be sent a couple of days or weeks ahead of the recipient s birthday, promoting an offer to use within a specific time period. The first allows marketers to take advantage of excitement leading up to the birthday and spark interest. On the subscribers birthday, a second might deliver birthday wishes with a gentle offer reminder to encourage conversion (if no interaction occurred in the first ). This would be filled with emotive words to improve loyalty and increase engagement. Marketers should carefully test copy and CTA wording as the likelihood of conversion is at its highest. In the event of no conversion, a third could be sent as the last reminder, 24 hours before the end of the offer. Very quick to design and little effort necessary to maintain, this can make the difference! Finally, some brands may choose to resend a birthday campaign after the birthday, particularly if the offer hasn t been used. Certain demographics receive money as a gift and are likely to spend it after the actual date. We should also mention that all other sends should be frequency capped on the same day, to avoid multiple s being received. As for any automated campaigns, best results will arise from testing. We advise marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of their current programme, or of the first birthday , and to build from it, while carefully reviewing results. It will become very easy to spot which of the series leads to achieving the brands goal. We have drafted an example of birthday series with content ideas days before birthday 22% off for your 22nd birthday, 15% off on Friday, 10% on Saturday. It is your birthday next week! Display browsing/cart history Countdown timer before official birthday 2 Birthday! Birthday Greetings Remind users of incentive Fun things to do on your birthday ideas Use real people content: celebrities celebrating their birthday today 3 Offer expires in 24h (could be sent after the date) Subject line: Stress urgency of offer Countdown timer Social media: Share your birthday memories Birthday s 4

7 OUTLINE CONTENT This section focuses on all the essential aspects of a birthday campaign. SUBJECT LINE AND PRE-HEADER Whether the brand is using an incentive or not, the subject line must reflect the expectations right away. Giving false hopes will only damage the subscribers perception of your brand. Remember to use the pre-header text to your advantage. If including offers, the incentive should be put at the forefront of the subject line. Making it clear will increase your conversions. When you are not sending a discount offer, then add value to the relationship by using emotive words. Marketers have more margins for creativity in this instance. Words such as care, love, feel, need are recommended. GREETINGS Be human, add a personal touch. Try to think outside the box. Customers are feeling happy making them laugh or generating a positive emotional response on the day will help build brand advocacy with the customer and may lead to them sharing the content. Below are the top five subject lines based on unique open rates (Experian Marketing Services, 2011): 1. A special gift for your Birthday 2. Happy Birthday %%FIRSTNAME%% 3. Happy Birthday From [Company] 4. Your Special Birthday Bonus 5. A special gift of 20% off for your Birthday SOCIAL SHARING What better way to gain traffic and fans on your social sites than on your subscribers birthday. Ask them to share their favourite moment or to post a picture of them with your offer to get more presents. PERSONALISATION Use what you know and make the personalised and relevant. This cannot be stressed enough - the only way to make an impact is to use data a lot of data. 73% of companies have already leveraged data to increase revenue. Of those companies that have already increased revenue, 57% used data to increase an existing revenue stream Source: Econsultancy Big Data Trends Report, 2013 Birthday s 5

8 The following information could be used to display targeted content: First name in the subject line, copy of , or in dynamic images to display someone s first name (make sure the data is accurate!) Gender for a different creative Nearest store: Address to populate a local map with near-by stores or relevant content based on city (store opens/closes) Purchase history for up and cross-sell Browse data or clicks from to display products or categories on website Subscriber engagement: High engagement (clicks and purchases): customers could receive smaller discount as they are already engaged. It might be worth looking at incentivising with free deliveries. Low engagement: This group of users are more likely to need a big incentive to break their systematic behaviour of non-purchase. Below is a list of the most used offers - % or Off Buy one get one free Free delivery Gift with purchase/no purchase Loyalty points Special, limited time offers However, consider the overuse of spammy words, which could initiate spam traps The Experian Benchmark report, concluded that off and 20% off were the most popular. DECIDE ON THE CAMPAIGN HIERARCHY The hierarchy rule should be based upon the most profitable offer in terms of your goals. If the aim is to increase conversion, make sure the with the biggest offer is sent rather than the birthday . If it is the case of improving data quality or loyalty, ensure to keep the birthday at the top of your list. DECIDE ON THE FREQUENCY CAPPING RULES RELATIVE TO OTHER CAMPAIGNS Once the hierarchy is set, you must consider applying suppression or exclusion rules in order to avoid ing subscribers twice in this short period of time. For example exclude anyone receiving business as usual mailings in the last [x] days, or exclude anyone who might receive a birthday campaign in the last/next [x] days in your business as usual segment. The same process applies for a cross channel approach. Management of exclusions will help reduce over messaging to the customer. Incentives / offers if applicable Whether brands wish to use coupons, discounts, freebies, money off, percentage reductions etc. there is no right or wrong answer. Marketers should, without a doubt, be testing which works best. Birthday s 6

9 DECIDE ON A TEST PROGRAMME Planning a test programme around your birthday campaign is the best way to continuously gain better results. It is time to put to the test your assumptions and internal battles around subject lines, timings, creative, offers etc, to test! Ensure to test one aspect of your mailing at a time, while keeping everything else constant. For example, you wish to test using a question in your subject line, versus not using a question. Ensure that your from address is the same, as well as the time and day of send. ASSIGN A SCHEDULE There is unfortunately no right or wrong answer in terms of scheduling! Birthday s can be sent on the day, a week or month before, and in some cases a couple of days after a birthday. The timing, as well as the number of s in a birthday campaign can be defined by the objective of the birthday campaign. Firstly, marketers should consider the value of the offering. Then, based upon its value, it becomes possible to define the content of the . From there, a marketer can then identify when is the best time to send this message to ensure that the message is interacted with. BELOW ARE A FEW EXAMPLES OF THIS PROCESS IN ACTION Experian Research shows that 55% of birthday s are delivered on the actual birthday, whereas 19% are sent 3 weeks before, 10% are delivered 1 week prior, and 2% 2 weeks later. Ultimately, this will change for each brand not only based upon the factors above, but also by continuously measuring performance of these messages and optimising. AIM WHAT WHEN EXAMPLE CONVERSION IMPROVE LOYALTY Low value On the day Free coffee Medium value Couple of days prior Discounted clothes High value Couple of weeks prior Discounted holiday Low value On the day Free Kit Kat Medium value On the day 20 off next High value On the day SET UP THE PROGRAMME AND AUTOMATE Scheduling the programme is also straightforward. 10,000 Points on your Amex Gold When going through the approval process, ensure that each is set to deploy daily, monthly, or every Monday, to match your scheduling strategy. Make sure that it is set for recurring send, and include a start and end date. Birthday s 7

10 OTHER CONSIDERATIONS Slowly but surely, brands are considering the power of mobile and social to help achieve their goals. SMS or Social can be used to reach your customers at the right time, in the right place, and on the right device. Sending a text to a user using their location tracking ID can allow brands to send a relevant targeted message saying Come into our store in the next 2h and get 50% off any purchase. Social can be an excellent post-purchase channel to interact with customers, asking them to post related content online. Below is an example of a cross channel approach to birthday messages DAYS PRIOR TO BIRTHDAY SMS 1 - BETWEEN 7 AND 2 PRIOR TO BIRTHDAY ON BIRTHDAY 3-7 DAYS AFTER BIRTHDAY GEO-LOCATION PUSH NOTIFICATION TO DRIVE FOOTFALL IT S IMPORTANT TO MAKE SURE THE CROSS-CHANNEL LOOK AND FEEL AND THE OER IS CONSISTENT. Birthday s 8

11 BEST IN CLASS CROSS-CHANNEL OERS All offers, incentives or discounts should be redeemable in-store, online or over the phone. We strongly advise giving customers the option. IMAGES O Best practice states that an opened without turning on the images should look as well as it could to represent its true design when switching on the images. ANNIVERSARY S Some brands like to celebrate years of membership. The aim is to get the user to post more on their blog. Very simple. Very effective. PERSUASIVE COPY Use text within the to specify, recognise and reinforce the relationship that you have with your customers. Birthday s that help the recipient better identify and acknowledge the relationship with your brand only add to the strength of that relationship and promote a positive response. POSITIVE CONTENT Almost everyone loves to celebrate birthdays. Use this opportunity to have your products be part of their festivities, and you ll enhance the chance of creating a winning situation for all. The creative should invoke the festive, celebratory emotions associated with birthdays, which can be accomplished with engaging photography, festive colours, animated gifs, videos and other visual assets. HUMOUR Be playful, make a joke. HALF BIRTHDAYS Half birthdays are also a nice touch! CONTEXTUAL CONTENT Be creative and include fun facts, year-to-date events such as celebrities birthdays, sporting events, etc. CHECKLIST What is the goal? Are the subject line and pre-header effective? Is the chosen schedule appropriate to meet the goal? Are you testing this? Do the incentives match the brand s style? Are you testing these? Are the coupons or offers redeemable in any channel? Is personalisation being used effectively? Images off how is the rendering? Can you improve it? Is there a cross-channel opportunity? SUMMARY Birthday s are simple to set up and very cheap to maintain. The main question to ask yourself is whether you have accurate data to run this campaign, and if not, how you can design your campaign to gain more knowledge. Don t forget that the key to outstanding campaigns is testing! If you would like Experian to help you create a birthday campaign then please get in touch with us at ccmdigicons@experian.com. If you would like Experian Marketing Services s Expert Digital Consultancy team to help you on anything that has been highlighted in this document, please contact us on marketing.services@uk.experian. com Birthday s 9

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