Birthdays are a blast to celebrate with friends and family. Who doesn’t love a good slice of cake, right?
Sending out a birthday email gives brands a unique opportunity to engage with their target audience on a more personal level. And there are numerous birthday email examples out there to spark creativity.
You won’t believe this, but a study suggests that this is something people are insanely drawn to, with birthday emails having 179% higher click-through rates than promotional emails.
Additionally, these emails generate more revenue (342%) and transaction rates (481%). Therefore, it’d be a mistake not to send birthday emails and get a piece of that birthday cake.
So, have a look at what birthday emails are, the benefits of sending one to your customers, and 9 birthday email examples to get you inspired.
What Are Happy Birthday Emails?
Happy birthday emails are marketing emails sent out on a customer’s birthday. While they are known to give a special offer to sweeten your customer's day, they are actually designed for customer retention and to drive up sales.
What’s Good About Birthday Emails?
Birthday emails benefit your business exponentially. Here are some of the benefits of sending out a birthday wishes email:
Making your customers feel special.
Staying on top of their mind.
Showing loyalty to existing subscribers.
Earning goodwill that will lead to word-of-mouth marketing.
Driving up sales.
Boosting retention rate.
Improving customer engagement.
Creating a sense of community.
9 Birthday Email Examples That Spark Joy
Now that you know what birthday emails are and their benefits, you might be googling cute and witty birthday email examples to create a perfect message for your audience. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with the 9 best examples to inspire your own email marketing campaigns.
1. Make it personal
This email from Sephora is ultra-personalized and addresses their recipient by name with “Happy Birthday, Mary!” Personalization is essential because personalized emails deliver 6 times higher transaction rates than non-personalized ones.
Sephora also features an enticing offer, where a subscriber can receive a free makeup mini-set for their birthday. Many brands offer discounts, but not all offer a gift for free. So, that’s also something you can do (along with personalization) to capture the attention of your subscribers.
2. Keep it simple
The above birthday email from Loomi perfectly captures the essence of a birthday. It creates excitement with its simple email design that focuses on its recipient's birthday offer: a $15 discount on everything.
They’ve also mentioned when the offer expires to prompt a sense of urgency to direct their customers towards buying their clothes for active outdoor living.
So, it’s important to decide how long you want an offer to last and let your customer know how long they have to redeem it.
3. Stay true to your brand
Fitbit has done an excellent job of staying true to its brand with its happy birthday email by suggesting that the subscriber should celebrate their birthday in a healthy way. It has included a clear Call-To-Action (CTA) button for the birthday person to see party tips.
It is the perfect way to get subscribers active on their special day. The simple headline and the birthday cake make it a fun email that doesn’t need a discount to appear engaging.
4. Celebrate your customers' birthday with a coupon
Discounts are fantastic, but coupon codes take it a step further. They provide a strong incentive for customers to buy, and Mud Pie has played around that well. The birthday person must use the code “BDAY20” to cash in on the offer.
This piques the recipient's interest and provides them with a convenient path for saving. There are also other things we love about this email. Its visuals are stunning; the teal background and colorful cupcake in the foreground immediately capture their readers’ attention.
5. Surprise them with a birthday gift
There’s always something you can surprise your readers with. It might be a free gift that comes with their next purchase, either in-store or online.
You can either tell your customers what to expect or keep the gift mysterious, so they’ll have to head over to your store to find out. And Chipotle has something special for its customers. It lets them celebrate their birthday with free guac and chips during their entire birthday month.
6. Remind them about their birthday treats
After you are done sending a birthday email coupon or gift, remind your customer to redeem their birthday offer and get their hands on the birthday treats waiting for them.
This is precisely what Subway has done in the above birthday email example. They’ve put a fun spin to remind the birthday person with a catchy headline and email design.
7. Offer free shipping
What’s more fun than getting free shipping on your birthday, right? This email from Nike brings in the combination of free shipping and a birthday offer for their price-savvy customers.
The visuals of the email are perfectly aligned with the birthday theme to create a warm and personal connection, with a generous discount for the readers on their special day.
8. Use fun images and GIFs
Why not add a GIF to your birthday email? After all, using dynamic images and GIFs can be a powerful tool for telling a visual story and catching readers’ attention.
They’re fun and light-hearted that sit well with the overall celebratory theme of the birthday. For taking some inspiration, look at how Hulu did it in the above email.
Embedding images and GIFs in emails can be a daunting task, but Unlayer’s user-friendly drag and drop editor allows you to do that with much ease.
9. Include product recommendations
Offering a discount is one thing but helping your subscribers by including best-selling products takes it a step ahead. In the above birthday email example, Timex offers a $15 discount and shows different best-selling watches at the bottom of the email.
You can take inspiration from this example and provide personalized product recommendations to your customers based on their browsing history.
How to Create Birthday Email Campaigns That Get Results? 4 Tips
Now that you’ve gone through all the above birthday email examples, it’s time for you to get your very own birthday email campaigns up and running.
Here are a few actionable tips to kick off your birthday email campaigns.
1. Set up a triggered email campaign
A triggered email campaign is a series of automated emails sent to recipients when they take a specific action like signing up for the newsletter, adding items to the cart, etc.
Therefore, to send birthday emails, you need to get your subscriber’s birth date at some point so you can easily set up a triggered email campaign. And the sign-up process is an excellent place to ask for this sort of information.
Pro tip
You can couple the whole asking process with a unique birthday gift.
2. Use unique birthday email templates
People have a keen eye for better visual content. If your emails aren’t visually appealing, the audience will not take your content seriously. So, to boost sales and make your customers happy, you can use unique birthday email templates.
These can serve as game-changers for your birthday email marketing campaigns, as using email templates save time and increase customer engagement and satisfaction.
This is where Unlayer comes in to ease the process of sending more targeted email campaigns to different segments of your customers. Plus, all templates are easily editable with a responsive format to create beautiful-looking birthday emails.
3. Personalize with merge tags
To create personalized emails, you can use your customer’s first name within the birthday email copy. For instance, you can use the subject line “Happy birthday, Lorain!” instead of a generic message, “Happy birthday!”
To save you from manual labor, various email builders like Unlayer allow you to insert merge tags to create personalized birthday emails.
4. Send birthday emails more than once
If birthday discounts and gifts are part of your email strategy, consider sending birthday emails more than once. Your birthday campaign can consist of 3 emails with each of them containing a coupon code with an expiry date.
You can send birthday emails at the following cadence:
1 week before your customer’s birthday.
On the day of their birthday.
3 days after their birthday.
Sending a follow-up birthday email reminds your subscribers to use the code before it expires and emphasizes that they should treat themselves on their special day.
Bonus - 10 Subject Lines up for Grabs
The right birthday email subject lines can pique your customer’s interest. Here are a few to consider, and feel free to copy them.
Happy birthday, (name)! 🎉We’ve got something for you.
🎈Today’s your day!🎈
Happy Birthday - here’s 20% off just for you🎊
Your birthday gift awaits!
Treat yourself today!🎂
Don’t miss your birthday present!😉
😌(Name), redeem your birthday gift!😌
Your birthday offer expires soon - Don’t miss it!
Hip hip hooray, it’s time to celebrate your birthday!
Your birthday gift is READY!!!🎁
Wrap Up
Sending happy birthday emails is a great way to help your customers celebrate their birthdays and build a stronger relationship with them.
Hopefully, we’ve walked you through some of the best birthday email examples to help you maximize your click-through rates, boost sales and create a long-lasting relationship with your subscribers.
