Show customers how much you value them by reaching out on special occasions such as a birthday or anniversary. Here, we guide you on how to install and activate our Birthday/Anniversary/Milestone Workflow Template to strengthen relationships while driving conversions.
What to Know Before You Get Started:
- If you’re using the legacy Birthday/Anniversary Workflow and Rule, disable both the Workflow and Rule before activating this new template.
- This will cancel any scheduled birthday emails from going out, and prevent sending multiple birthday emails.
- Date-based trigger with custom fields
- This workflow relies on a Date-Based Trigger to dynamically add people to the workflow based on a specific ISO-formatted (YYYY-MM-DD) date saved as a custom field.
- Follow the instructions here to convert your non-ISO dates into an ISO format
- ISO dates
- Dates must be written in ISO format to be recognized as a date-type field. Only fields with the correct formatting will populate the dropdown list.
Activate the Workflow
Install our pre-built Workflow, or build your own. Our pre-built Workflow includes a Date-Based Trigger, recommended Delay and Decision steps, and Email actions complete with best practice tips to help create email content.
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E-commerce: Birthday/ Anniversary/ Milestone Workflow
- Contains email copy with a focus on purchasing products.
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Events & Entertainment: Birthday/ Anniversary/ Milestone Workflow
- Contains email copy focused on promoting additional events.
Set up your Workflow
Step one: Edit the Date-Based Trigger based on the Custom Field
The Trigger is configured with “birthday” as the Custom Field containing the ISO date. Be sure to edit this if you have the ISO date stored as a different Custom Field name.
By default, anybody with that Custom Field set will trigger the Workflow based on that date. Add a Trigger Filter if the group of people with that field needs to be more specific.
For example: If you have a special list of VIP people who get their own Anniversary Workflow, you could add a Trigger Filter for people tagged with “VIP”.
Step two: Edit your Delays
The template is set up to add people to the Workflow 7 days before their birthday, send a warm-up email, and then enter them into a 7-day delay to release them on their actual birthday/anniversary date.
Any changes to the “Occurs in > 7 days” setting in the Trigger must match the timing of the first Delay. To maintain accuracy, it is important to make sure these two numbers are the same for the birthday/anniversary email to be sent on the correct date.
Step three: Edit the Email Content
Celebrating milestones with your customers is a great way to build brand loyalty. By sending a series of emails around the date, you’ll improve engagement rates and, more importantly, drive conversions.
Email 1: Pre-Birthday/Anniversary Warm-up
Build up excitement by letting customers know something special is coming their way. By offering this teaser, you can increase the likelihood of them engaging with the next emails to come.
Email 2: Happy Birthday/Anniversary!
Time for celebration! In this email, your main focus is to congratulate your customer while also highlighting the special offer. Use this space to showcase what top-selling items they can purchase with their exclusive milestone offer.
Email 3: Post-Birthday/Anniversary Upsell
Keep the connection going by checking in with your customer whether a purchase has been made or not. If they made a purchase, you can thank them for celebrating their milestone with you! If not, remind them they have an exclusive offer waiting for them that they should take advantage of.
Measure Workflow Performance
As your emails are released on the designated delays, check back on their performance using the Workflow Dashboard.
Here is where you:
- Evaluate the conversions you’re seeing from this Workflow such as any revenue from upsell emails.
- Keep in mind: Revenue reporting is only available to Shopify, Woocommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Fareharbor, or our Shopper Activity API connected accounts
- Look at the open and click-through rates of the emails to see what attendees are engaging in.
This information tells you if you need to change it up or if your strategy is working.