Birthday email campaigns are highly effective as they have a 481% higher transaction rate and 342% higher revenue than regular promotional emails. If you are inexperienced with running such a campaign, you can start using free HTML email templates. Once you get positive results, you can customize the birthday emails according to your brand guidelines. In the meanwhile, here are some birthday email templates to inspire you.
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Birthday Email Template Examples
● Hulu’s Pre-Birthday Email
There is tough competition between the brands to stand out in the inbox of their subscriber on their birthday. To avoid this, Hulu took a preemptive measure and sent out an ‘almost birthday’ email. This email contains a funny GIF from the famous TV sitcom Seinfeld. They have offered one month of free trial to their customer, which they can redeem easily by clicking on the green CTA button. However, there is a twist. This birthday email is only valid for new subscribers and customers that had previously canceled their Hulu subscription.
● Mint’s Wholesome Email
There is no solid rule that purports that all birthday emails should contain a discount offer. Mint sends out a very wholesome email to their subscribers on their birthdays. First, they tell the importance of their app in their customer’s life. Following this, they implore their customer to not compare their self-worth to their spending habits. Mint also uses a series of illustrations along with their email copy.
● Fitbit’s Data-Driven Birthday Wish
Fitbit starts its birthday email with a celebratory cheer along with a minimalistic illustration of a cake. The opening few lines of their email copy are straightforward. They wish their customers and encourage them to keep doing physical activities with high spirits. The next part of Fitbit’s email sets them apart from their competitors.
They have included the average readings of the top viewed stats from the same age group as the birthday person. The CTA button included in the stats leads them to the Fitbit app, where the customer can compare their personal stats with the average stats. This multi-purpose email wishes their customers, engages them with interesting infographics, and, finally, redirects them to their app to increase their traffic.
● St. Ives’ birthday-cum-engagement email
St. Ives uses the birthday email as a tool to redirect their customers to their website to increase engagement. They have used a few lines to wish their customers and have asked them to pamper themselves by buying a gift.
The hero image shows the exchange of a gift basket filled with their products. The strategic inclusion of this image nudges the customers to specifically think about these products while they are browsing St. Ives’ webpage. Moreover, the CTA does not directly show the birthday discount offer. The CTA button uses a curiosity-inducing statement to push the customers to click on it.
● FitOn’s birthday cake suggestion
FitOn has included a two-frame animation on the cupcake to make it slightly more interactive than a static cupcake. You will also notice that the entire background of the first half of their email has animated confetti. Following the best practices for creating a birthday email, they have used a short birthday wish.
Furthermore, FitOn has included the recipe for a healthy rainbow birthday cake that can be prepared within 5 minutes. Finally, they incentivize their customer to work out on their birthday using their app by offering them a special one-off birthday badge.
● Chipotle’s birthday cake alternative
Chipotle uses an attractive email template to wish their customers on their birthdays. They have superimposed illustrations on top of their product image to make it more engaging. In addition to that, they have animated the illustrations to add an extra layer of interactiveness. Like all the other birthday email templates, Chipotle has kept the email body short and to the point.
Chipotle’s birthday gift for their customers is also tempting. They promise free chips and guac, not just for a single day, but for the entire birthday month of the subscribers. The customer only has to make a minimum purchase of $5 to avail of this offer. The birthday email acts as a promotional email as it increases the minimum basket value of the customer.
● Outdoor Voices half-birthday celebration
While birthday emails are a common occurrence, half-birthday emails are rare. When it comes to birthday emails, Outdoor Voices is significantly ahead of their competitors as they are running their campaigns six months earlier than the rest. The half-birthday emails wish their customer and offer them a unique coupon code for a discount. The email also features a GIF animation of a half-eaten cake.
Such birthday campaigns are unique and are rarely run by brands. Some subscribers might find this interesting and engaging, but the majority will find it to be gimmicky. They might even consider this to be a desperate move from the brand to increase their sales. However, if your A/B tests are giving positive results for such campaigns, you should go for it.
Conclusion
Free HTML email templates are an excellent way to experiment and test the perfect birthday template for your brand. With birthday email being so effective, there is no reason why you shouldn’t start an automated birthday email campaign.
Author: Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, that specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Mailchimp Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on email marketing blog.