Would like Birthday emails

[JanetF69010]

Can you please add a way where we can enter contacts' birthdays and have a birthday email automatically go out to them on their birthdays? Or at least create a way where we can send out birthday messages simply without having to create a custom list for each day?

[Selansky]

Hi all,

I am wondering, how to add and track birthday's and anniversaries in my contacts - and then pull monthly report of upcoming events. I though is: send a monthly group acknowledgement of clients who might be celebrating a birthday or anniversary from my business. i.e. all March birthday's send a special email just to them.

Does anyone know how to do it?

I would like to make more use of my contact list other than just sending out monthly notices.

If anyone can help, I would really appreciate!

Thanks,
Sarasota-Sarah

[DadBlaze]

Check out this thread: http://community.constantcontact.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=1592
Or this one: http://community.constantcontact.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=2091

[rlowery98]

how do you send a email to only one customer when it is there birthday
i see the birthday template but you have to send it to the whole list
how can you select a individual email
thanks
robert
www.coletinn.com

[DadBlaze]

You would need to create a birthday list.

Create the card, select that list.

Populate the list with the person(s) to send it to. And send to that list.

Then you would copy the campaign to use it over, and update the list as necessary.

Now, personally, I would probably send it once a month to everyone in a birthday for the month -- but that's me.

[KenInSydney]

I'm just exploring the new Gift Reminder service - that looks like the best way to automate your Birthday reminders. People opt in with their DOB and the reminder is sent automatically. Find it at Gift Reminders under Website Settings - looks good...

Ken
http://www.ProfitableHospitality.com

[bdenglish]

Although this thread appears to be several months old, i thought i would try it, since this is exactly what I need. In reguards to DadBlaze's comment, how would I create the monthly list? I added a custom field to my registration (Birthdate), now I need to figure out how to get all Feb birthdates, all March birthdates, and so on... Thanks in advance!

[bdenglish]

Although this thread appears to be several months old, i thought i would try it, since this is exactly what I need. In reguards to DadBlaze's comment, how would I create the monthly list? I added a custom field to my registration (Birthdate), now I need to figure out how to get all Feb birthdates, all March birthdates, and so on... Thanks in advance!

[Cardinals]

Is there a way to "police" or monitor an email promotion?  Even when there is an expiration date, how do you know that multiple copies weren't made --

[Deepdish]

Cardinals, I'd sure love to know if there is. We get obvious photo copies all the time! Most of the time we end up taking them unless the promotion/coupon was too costly on our end to extend past expiration. Does this happen to you a lot? Do you take them?

[Cardinals]

We have not sent a Birthday promotion out yet, but had noticed several copies coming in from the same people on a coupon sale, which we did honor. We would like to offer something a bit more special with a Birthday or Anniversary notice, but are hesitant unless it can be controlled. Am looking for any suggestions.

[paulsacehardware]

I kind of understand your dilema, but think of it another way - your business is 'top of mind' to them. They have taken the time to print your coupon, albeit maybe again, but they are doing it deliberately to do business with you. Unless your coupon offer is obscene, don't sweat it, take the business and enjoy it. Nothing worse than upsetting a customer because you won't take a coupon - trust me - I will never shop at Ulta ever again.

[giftventure]

All, I was just told by Customer Support phone help that this is not possible. BUT I'm sure there is a creative way to do it.

We are collecting birthdate as a field from the user. We'd like to create an email that goes out 30 days and 14 days before a contact's birthday. The autoresponder will only work from date joined in the group. So, any suggestions how to code a birthday reminder service? 

If this has already been posted, I apologize for not finding it. Thank you in advance for your help.

[DanHoran]

What you are looking to do is not possible at this time because it is dependent on functionality that is not currently in our API. Our REST API currently supports the creation/modification/deletion of contacts and lists, as well as the ability to access reporting data from email campaigns. While you can use our API to locate the contacts with upcoming birthdays you would not be able to create an email dynamically using the API.

The functionality that you require is something that people have requested and may be implemented in a future update to our API.

[deejay]

When do you think you will add this feature?

[Clique_Marketing]

It would be an outstanding add !!!!

[Dog_Trainer]

Is it possible to create an email, select a list, then have the email sent out individually to list members on seperate, specific dates, such as an anniversary or birthday?

[bowlingandwings]

I would love to see this too!

[ourtime]

Agree! Please advise!

[Stepfamily Coach]

I am looking to use the autoresponders where I can have people sign up for weekly tips and / or e-courses. 
It is really important for my list to be able to choose which ones they would like to receive and to be able receive them.
Also, I do not want to be removing or deleting previous autoresponders in order to make room for new ones.
Will you be upgrading the capabilites of the autoresponders anytime soon (similar to aweber or icontact)?  This is really important for my business is at this moment the only thing that I feel I am missing.

Looking forward to a quick response.

[Jarrad_M]

Hi Claudette, Thanks for the feedback. I looked into this and this feature is currently under review. I have passed on your request to engineering. Thanks, Jarrad

[Clique_Marketing]

Jarrad, That's been the answer for over a year. Why not create a poll asking the users to stack rank the improvements we would like to see? Let your users create a Call to Action for your developers. "We're looking into it" is getting kind of stale. When dozens of folks ask for this over the course of more than a year its would seem to be pretty important to us. A date when its going to be implemented would be better than the continual "we're looking into it" I sure its been scoped at this point. Just say you're not going to make any changes so we can stop asking.

[Clique_Marketing]

p.s. I'm guessing the business or engineering reasons for not having it done at this point are significant but here's a thought. Enhanced auto responder $5. With a user base of 350,000 and a modest 15% penetration that might generate an additional $500,000+ in annual revenue which would more than likely fund the project and make a lot of customers happy. More than half of the customers I manage would sign up for it. "We're looking into it" after a year gets very discouraging to hear. What's the phrase from that Jack Johnson song? "Maybe, pretty much always means no". Happy New Year, Tony

[mikephillips]

yeah...i will have to go back to my old system if the autoresponder is not expanded. i just signed up for cc and wevereything else is pretty good. but i need multiple autoresponders and separate "join my list" forms for each responder.

[Stepfamily Coach]

I sense that I am not the only one and when I spoke to other coaches what they used, they said they like CC for the ability to create nice looking newsletter but seriously lacked on autoresponders. If you don't plan on doing anything within the next month or so, it would be great to know so that I (we) could take other measures. So far, I've had really great customer service, I'd hate to see it go south based on not being able to let customers know where you are in the process of making changes.

[monroe]

I would also like to have an answer about a more robust autoresponder capability -- so I can make a decision about using a service that meets the needs of my business. PS -- why the runaround on this issue? CC customers like myself, problably prefer to get all the marketing functions under one umbrella. It's a competitive edge for CC. It would be nice to know whether it is being developed and what's the time frame for delivery.

[exoticplants]

Can you add this feature? When? Super Great idea !!!

[Marissa_R]

Hi everyone! I agree! This is a great idea. I just checked our features request area and having Birthday/Anniversary Auto Responders is a feature that is currently under Review. Hopefully, this will be something that we implement in the future! Keep those great ideas coming! Marissa W. Community & Social Media Support Representative

[magicMark]

I am brand new here, and I have to admit I am puzzled by this. It would seem that this type of timed mailing would be at the top of the list, not a secondary thought that is "under review." This is the main reason I am looking for a contact management service. If I cannot contact my customer base at times that are useful for THEM, the entire thing seems a bit pointless. Birthdays, anniversaries, renewal times, and so on are the IMPORTANT times for people; the time they happen to sign up with me is irrelevant. I guess I will keep looking. On the bright side, it's fortunate that I was able to discover this during a free trial.

[magicMark]

It seems this would be the prime reason someone would use a contact service,. Constant Contact appears to have lost sight of the fact that contacts should meet the needs of the RECIPIENT of emails and be timed to them, not the sender of emails.

[SveaK]

Any updates for this? The links in the reply do not exist any more.

Thanks.

[Marissa_R]

Hi Svea,

We don't have a feature that would enable you to send out to Birthdays/Anniversaries.  However, what I do offer as a workaround is the following:

Create a list for each month

Put appropriate contacts in according to their birthday/anniversary

Create a standard birthday/anniversary email that could possibly include a custom field that is for the birthday/anniversary date

Then make 11 copies of that email

Then you can take each email, attach the appropriate month list, and schedule them to go out on whatever date you want for the month

This way, you can send out one mailing a month, that would possibly look like this:

Dear Contact First Name,

A little message to celebrate your birthday/anniversary on "insert date here".

Then whatever else you want it to say.

I hope that makes sense!

Thanks for participating in the Community!
Marissa W.

[JamieC6]

I must admit,  your "work around" is so poor it is almost laughable.  Cannot believe something as simple as getting a date of a user ans sending them an email to correspond with it is so far distant for you guys to sort out. 

[Jarrad_M]

Hi Jamie,

Thank you for your feedback and sorry for the inconvenience. I'm going to pass on your suggestions to our product development team to see if we could add this as a new feature.

I did find a helpful FAQ which will show you how to segment your lists based on the data you have for them,. The FAQ uses US States as its criteria, but you could substitute to this for a custom field that lists Birthdays. You can find the FAQ here

Thanks,

[HughM1]

Jarrad,

I'm a new CC solutions provider and I can tell you that this is one feature that many many businesses and non profits could make great use of. 

Think about a restaurant, for example, that might want to send out an email to all of its contacts who have an anniversary or birthday in a particular month.

Or a non profit that wants to encourage its contacts to create a birthday wish using Facebook Causes a few days before their birthday or anniversary?

The potential use cases are many.

I'm glad to hear CC is taking a serious look at this suggestion.

Sincerely,

Hugh Macken

President

VMR Communications, LLC

[HughM1]

I appreciate CC's willingness to address this but I definitely agree with Jamiec6 that the workaround is unnecessarily complicated and time-consuming.

[Jarrad_M]

Hi Hugh,

Congratulations on becoming a Solution Provider. I wanted to let you know that I have added your feedback to the original request. I don't have any new information on this other than that it is under review.

Thanks,

[JNGAssociates]

i have a customer who wants to send out an email to each of his subscribers on the subscriber's birthday.

His list is about 1500 subscribers.

How can i do this for him?

[bsoder]

Hello,

Currently we do not have a way in our system to automatically send an email out based on a birthday.  You could probably create something on your end where it automatically puts a contact in a "birthday" list, on their birthday, and then schedule an email to go out.  Then once the email is sent, remove them from the list.  However, this is definitely a complex work around.

I can say that our engineers are aware that many customers want this feature, and it is something that they are looking into very seriously.  I am going to add your name to the list of customers who have requested this, so that our engineers see that more and more people are interested in it.

If you have any questions please let me know.

[JNGAssociates]

I did T2 support for CTCT for 6 years.  IN the first couple years there  was a function called Birthday Reminder which did exactly what I want.  They eliminated that function  and I now wish they didn't.

[bsoder]

Hello,

While we do not currently have this implemented, I can definitely send a message to our engineers that this is something that would be helpful to our customers.

If you have any questions let me know.

[DaveBerard]

There is an option that could be done using our API features (some of our partners and customers have done this already).  Using our Email Campaigns API and our Email Scheduling API (limited access, please DM for more information), you can create an integration that provides this functionality.  The flow would end up being something like this:

1. Create a custom HTML/XHTML "birthday" template using your favorite HTML design tool (make sure to test it out through the Email product to see how it looks in various email clients)

2. Use the API to create a "birthday" list - most of our customers do a monthly birthday email and not daily to keep reporting and flow simple, but that's up to you and your customer

3. Create a campaign using the HTML/XHTML you used in step one and associate it with the list you created in step 2 using the API

4. Schedule the email to be sent out on the correct date for your birthday emails (limited access API, DM me for more information)

This flow would emmulate a birthday auto-responder type feature.  This flow assumes you have the ability to filter your customers contacts based on a birthday that is stored somewhere.  Hope this helps.

[RobinA30]

I really need the ability to create multiple autoresponders for different lists. There is another service that does this and I am seriously thinking of switching just for that feature!

[CC_MikeK]

Thanks for the questions and feedback on Autoresponder! A number of autoresponder improvements have been high on our backlog of feature changes for quite some time but have been deferred in favor of features that benefit a larger set of our customers.  Features like social sharing, our new color picker, contacts enhancements, and insert video.  

The good news is that we are always listening to our customers and your feedback and input in this forum, as well as all other input channels, will have a direct impact on determining which feature enhancements will be worked on next.  

So, keep the input coming!  What other enhancements would you like to see besides the ability to have multiple series? 

Thanks, 

Mike Karampalas

Product Manager

[BillT7]

Hope ya'll figure out this auto-birthday thing...I have over 600 customer birthdays and growing monthly.

I believe Facebook is working on it as well.   Their quick success could negatively impact yours.

Thanks!

[Marissa_R]

Hi Bill,

I've added your feedback to our system that our company watches for new features for our customers.  I'm also trying to get more information on this. It still shows as "Under Review".

Thanks for letting us know people are still interested in this feature! Hopefully, I'll have more information to share soon.

[Marissa_R]

Hi Bill,

As Mike mentions above, this is definitely something that is under review and high on our backlog of features.  We appreciate your feedback on this and your voice is being heard. We are always looking for ways to improve our product and hope you can continue to provide us with features you find important.

Thanks again!

[American_Experience]

It has been more than 6 month since CC said that this feature is under review. anything new?

[Jarrad_M]

Hi,

I wish I had more information as to when this will be available. Currently it is high on our backlog of features we would like to add. As soon we hear anything regarding Birthday/Anniversary emails we'll be sure to let the Community know.

Thanks,

[Clique_Marketing]

Six months.  Ha, a rookie suggestion.   Some of the best improvement suggestions have been on the list for a few years.

I had a request to do this from my car club client and decided to manage this myself off line with a custom signup form.  Not fun but manageable.

I have had to make some concessions though, like sending out a " Happy Birthday month" greeting. We collect the signups to a separate database first then sort the birthday month, upload,  then merge to a collection of 12 different lists.  Managing this on a day  to day basis is far too difficult with out programmatic control.

We get about a 60% open rate with these personalized mailings so the job is worth it.

Great request but history says its going be around a while. :smileysad:

[BabyRobot]

Has this feature been implemented yet? If not I'll try DaveBerard's method.