Why You Should Send Automated Birthday Cards

When you own or manage a business, you understand the importance of your customer base. Chances are, you also appreciate the value of touchpoints — influential actions or contacts, like logos or ads, that keep your customers engaged and actively form their experience with your brand. Sending automated birthday cards to customers or clients serves a similar function with auxiliary benefits. Think of them as subtle, less superficial advertisements. 

That said, trying to find the time to buy and write out cards for so many individual people is enough to discourage you from doing it altogether. Not to mention remembering when to send them all! The beauty of an automated birthday card service is that it can do almost all of that work for you. Allowing you to design, buy, and schedule card delivery for as many contacts as you want, often up to a year in advance, automation tools make the whole process exponentially less stressful. 

The following is a list of tips and ways your business is sure to benefit from automated birthday cards. 

Why Automated Birthday Cards Are Good for Business

No matter how long you’ve been in business, creating and maintaining real connections with your clients is integral to its success. Your customers are typically inundated with digital messages and advertisements, most of which are never opened. Business birthday cards can add a personal touch to your business relationships, and really move your company forward. Even the shortest personal message instantly makes your company more memorable. 

1. Standing Out Among the Rest

Sending a birthday email is a nice gesture, however, while personalized emails have a higher open rate than bot email, there’s still a high likelihood your email will end up unopened. These days, even most of our snail mail consists of bills and advertisements. Writing and mailing letters, buying the perfect cards, adding personal messages, and mailing them has become something of a lost art. There’s a sincerity about it that will make your brand stand out from the rest. Sending a physical card helps you stay at the forefront of your customers’ minds. 

2. Customer Retention

One of the best, and possibly easiest,  ways to build customer loyalty is to make them feel special. A personalized birthday card will remind them not only that you value their patronage, but also that you’re thinking of them, and care enough to invest time and resources. The most important thing to remember here is to make your automated cards feel as personal as possible. Something as simple as using your client’s first name on a card will make it feel exponentially more personal than a card with a generic greeting. 

3. Digital Business, Brought to Life

As we’ve touched on already, the personal aspect of client relationships is an essential component. For e-commerce companies, the majority of their customer interaction is digital, making this key element often absent altogether. If you run an online business — even a successful one — you’re missing out on the benefits face-to-face client interaction provides. Automated birthday cards can help to fill in these gaps, allowing you to connect with your customers on a new level. 

4. Increased Referrals

In addition to building customer loyalty, sending cards your clients can physically hold will help increase your referral rate. Chances are, a customer won’t feel compelled to share a birthday email they received with friends, or on social media. Getting an actual birthday card in the mail, on the other hand, is almost guaranteed to be a surprise — one they’ll want to take a picture of and post, or show to a friend. Tags on social media, and word-of-mouth praise are priceless mechanisms for generating new business. 

5. Improved Employee Morale

Business birthday cards shouldn’t be limited to clients and customers! Employees are often the first and final points of contact for your business, and it’s important that they feel valued and encouraged in the workplace. Personalized birthday cards are an opportunity to not only make your employees feel appreciated for their efforts, but also to show that you’re interested in their well-being. By sparking communication among colleagues and encouraging it between employees and their employers, sending employee cards can help to cultivate a more compassionate work environment. 

6. Building Your Brand

Marketing, at the root, is all about branding, and automated birthday cards are a great way to get your brand out and in front of your customers. Aside from putting your logo on your cards, you can use the card imagery and personalized message to really show off your brand persona. The way you approach your customer base and what the company stands for are extremely important, and can be expressed through something as fun (and easy) as a birthday card. It’s important to avoid any call to actions here —keep your message brief, genuine, and personal. Save the sales language for digital advertising. 

Things to Remember When Sending Automated Birthday Cards

• Current client information. Before you start sending cards out, make sure all of your information for each customer is up to date. Double check the spelling of their name, their address, and of course their birth date. There’s nothing wrong with receiving a birthday card early — in fact, many of your clients will likely be impressed by your forethought. The last thing you want is for your card to reach them after their birthday has passed. 
• Get personal. At the risk of overstating this, the more personalized each card is, the more lasting its impact will be. Of course, the relationship you have with each customer is unique, and you might not know much about the personal lives of some. However, the card should read as though it’s coming from a friend — casual, yet professional. You don’t want it to feel like an advertisement. 
• Streamline the process. Writing and mailing customized cards can be time-consuming, and again, using a greeting card service will enable you to automate the entire process. Select a card, compose a message, and choose when to send — it’s that easy. With multiple styles to choose from, you don’t even have to worry about your handwriting.

While you can’t track a handwritten card the way you can an email, include a clickable call to action, or even guarantee they’ve opened and liked it, your customers will remember the gesture. Setting yourself apart from the competition is always a good investment.

Learn more about our automated birthday card service here.