If you want to make your Email marketing strategy as personalized as possible and help your customers and subscribers feel your sincere attention to them and know how much you appreciate them, be sure to include Anniversary emails in your email marketing campaigns.
In this article, we have collected tips and inspirational examples for you.
What is an anniversary email?
Email marketing usually involves regular promotional emails, newsletters, and triggered emails. But there is one type of email that is always a pleasure for subscribers to receive, so engagement rates for such emails are as high as possible.
These are Anniversary Emails in which you congratulate the subscriber on one of the significant dates — a customer's first purchase, a subscriber's sign-up anniversary, a company's founding, or even the subscriber's birthday. And as a rule, brands accompany such congratulations with a free gift or discount. This type of email may differ from all other emails included in your customer journey. And they are always as personal as possible.
They can look like a short email where you express gratitude and write “thank you for being with us” or include:
- feedback request or survey invitation;
- special offers;
- special promotions;
- personal discount code with a limited period of validity.
Typically, email marketers plan to release anniversary emails regularly or in response to events, such as one year after the first purchase.
Are anniversary emails useful in email marketing?
Why should businesses send anniversary emails? Let's see what benefits you get if you start using this type of email in your marketing campaigns.
Anniversary emails are part of email personalization and automation strategies for brands that want to connect with their customers as often as possible. They demonstrate that each member of the community (customer or subscriber) is vital to the brand, so when sending anniversary emails, the brand:
- expresses gratitude for the constant support of the client;
- builds stronger relationships with subscribers and increases customer loyalty;
- inspire new interactions or purchases on especially favorable terms;
- support a dialogue between the company and its customers, showing that the brand values the opinion of the user;
- benefit customers because these emails contain something pleasant for them.
Email personalization is one of the biggest email marketing trends. Even just including the subscriber's name in the email's subject line significantly impacts the growth of open rates and increases engagement. And when a subscriber sees a personal greeting, it makes transaction rates and results of email marketing campaigns even better.
Top-3 ideas for anniversary emails
First, we offer to collect ideas about what you can congratulate your subscribers and customers with.
1. Create a purchase anniversary emails
Purchase anniversary emails are emails that are sent automatically a year after the initial purchase. And then, again and again, every year while your client stays with you.
Use the purchase anniversary email to contact the client and remind them of your brand. Such a reminder will help stimulate additional sales and strengthen the loyalty of the client, who will be pleased that the brand remembers this event. In this email, you can congratulate the client on their anniversary and offer new products or services, bonuses, and discounts.
(Source: Milled)
2. Celebrate customer birthday
The subscriber's birthday email campaign is an excellent example of a personalized marketing email. As a rule, people are happy to indicate their date of birth during registration on the site or by answering some survey, so it will not be difficult for you to learn this information and use it to surprise your subscriber on their birthday.
Everyone is waiting for gifts and congratulations on their birthday and joyfully opens emails. Use this moment. You will not forget to offer special discounts, promotions, or other rewards on this day. Birthday email campaigns work to increase loyalty and stimulate sales.
(Source: MailCarts)
3. Celebrate your company's anniversaries
This email type will allow you to celebrate the company's birthday and share the achievement numbers with your followers. The brand's own anniversary is just as good a reason to remind of yourself, remember your achievements over the past year, and offer gifts to subscribers.
Make interesting emails dedicated to the memorable dates of your company:
- add company's history;
- use brand storytelling to share your mission and values;
- highlight key moments from the past year.
For example, the Care/of in its first-year anniversary email offers an exciting selection of the company's accomplishments and gives away a promotional discount. And, of course, thanks to everyone for the customer support.
(Source: ReallyGoodEmails)
Best practice tips for anniversary emails
The best practices for sending anniversary emails to your subscribers will help you consider all the features of this type when creating emails and make them as effective as possible.
Collect the anniversary date data
We made this tip the first step because properly collected data about subscribers and their interaction with your brand allows you to send personalized messages on time and fill them with relevant content.
Make the most of your email marketing platform to collect:
- customer data — subscriber's birthday;
- actual anniversary date — day of subscription, registration, and first purchase;
- memorable dates in the life of your company — its creation, the release of key products.
Pay special attention to the anniversary email design
It's great if you have templates for all emails in the same brand style with corporate fonts and colors. But even if your emails are usually understated, when designing anniversary emails, you can experiment a bit and make them more colorful and memorable.
Adding images to the body of the email, original banners, and eye-catching inscriptions will help you with this. Also, remember the button with a call to action or a noticeable promotional code design.
(Source: MailCharts)
Consider the time of sending
In anniversary emails, the right time to send them is critical. When setting up the system, consider the difference in time zones, and your email will not arrive a day earlier or later. In addition, it is crucial to choose the time when your audience opens emails most often. To do this, use time zone management and email list segmentation based on the information collected during the registration process.
Combine congratulations and benefits for the subscriber
Whether it's a client's or your company's birthday, an anniversary is a great time for gifts, giveaways, and special offers. Therefore, feel free to include promotions and discounts in your anniversary emails, and most importantly, make them as individual as possible. See how Prep Sportswear is offering a 20th-anniversary discount.
(Source: Milled)
Collect client achievements for the year with you
It's a good idea for SaaS companies to collect in purchase anniversary emails the customer's achievements in using your product to show their progress.
See how Uber implemented this idea. They collected information in the email for the last three years that the subscriber spent with them and included in the email the first comment their client received and the date of their first trip.
(Source: ReallyGoodEmails)
Spend more time on subject lines
A weak email subject line can ruin even the effect of anniversary emails and reduce email open rates. Three short key tips for the subject lines are personalization, puns, and A/B testing.
Great subject line examples:
- Happy 1st PlayStationversary! 🎉 — PlayStation.
- Happy Twitterversary! — Twitter.
- Happy Anniversary to the Ultimate Eye Cream ✨ — SkinBetter Science.
- Anniversary Sale, Final Call! Celebrate our 20th year! — Prep Sportswear.
- Walter, last chance to celebrate your birthday! — Bath & Body Works.
- Happy CleanMyMac-versary! Grab your discount 🎁 — MacPaw.
- It’s your 3 year Uberversary! — Uber.
- It’s your Busuuversary 🥳 Open for a treat 🍬 — Busuu.
- EXCLUSIVE: Embarrassing photos of Duo inside 😈 — Duolingo.
- Exclusive gift for your 1-year anniversary — Wemo.
Add CTA
Drive conversions and customer engagement with a strong CTA. Every email needs a clear call to action, and anniversary emails are no exception. Include a prominent CTA button in your email design to show the reader their next steps. Even better, if it is a special promotion or gift, such as a free product trial or a small souvenir with a purchase of a certain amount.
Make sure your clear call to action:
- is not lower than the middle of the page;
- the button is easy to hit on mobile devices;
- wording grabs attention.
See how Bath & Body Works offers to take advantage of their "now or never" chance.
(Source: MailCarts)
Remember to add a piece of humor
Sometimes you get too formal when you want to thank a client for brand loyalty. Anniversary emails are always about fun and joy, so add humor, wordplay, and lightness.
See how the Gymshark brand congratulates the client and jokes that there is not only a leg day but also a birthday once a year.
(Source: MailCarts)
Anniversary email examples
And here, we have collected some interesting examples of anniversary emails for your inspiration. See how different brands creatively approach congratulations and how they design them.
First purchase anniversary email example
A great anniversary email example is Grammarly's birthday email, which offers a discount and highlights the user's written achievements in the app.
(Source: ReallyGoodEmails)
Birthday email example
We wrote above that birthday emails usually offer excellent discounts. Still, in Hulu's example, the approach is different: the brand informs the subscriber that they are entitled to another free trial month. And the company does it with humor — short and straightforward.
(Source: ReallyGoodEmails)
Company anniversary email example
MacPaw sends out an anniversary email celebrating a specific milestone — 3 years after the product launch. The brand expresses gratitude for the use and offers a 30% discount for a friend, thus teaching a chance to attract more audience. See how their every email contains consistent branding and visually appealing design.
(Source: ReallyGoodEmails)
Anniversary sale examples
In this example, a brand is announcing that they are having a holiday sale to celebrate their anniversary. Look at the size of the discount and the bright festive design of the anniversary email that grabs the recipient's attention.
(Source: Milled)
Anniversary email example for product birthday
In this example, pay attention to an interesting move — you can celebrate the anniversary even for a single product, especially if it is one of your flagships. The brand uses the cream's anniversary to commemorate its effectiveness and show evidence of its work.
(Source: Milled)
Ready-made copy of anniversary email templates
So that you can save time on creating texts for anniversary messages, we have prepared several text templates for you.
Email template 1: First purchase anniversary email
Dear [Name], Happy Anniversary!
We remember exactly that you made your first purchase in our store a year ago. We want to express our gratitude for being with us and say how valuable you are to us.
As a token of appreciation for your loyalty to [Brand], we offer an additional gift — get 20% off your next purchase using promo code [Coupon code].
We are always happy to receive feedback if we have something to improve in service or if you want to write about our products.
Best regards,
[Brand name]
Email template 2: Customer's birthday email
Hello [Name]!
As far as we know, your birthday is coming soon!
We want you to have time to prepare for the holiday, so we're giving away a 30% off promo code to help you treat yourself to something incredible on this special day. Use the following code by [Date] when purchasing from our online store.
Hurry for a gift!
Happy birthday!
[Brand name]
Email template 3: Company anniversary email
Dear [Name]!
Today we want to share our joy with you. Ten years ago, we created [Brand] with the sole purpose of helping [People/businesses] achieve their goals.
Much has changed over the years, but our mission remains the same. Thank you for your participation in this journey. It won't be easy to work productively without you!
Here are the key achievements of our company:
[Name or graph your accomplishments]
We are just starting our journey, and many more achievements are ahead of us. We will also give the world new valuable services and products that will allow you to achieve your goals for many years.
Good luck for many more years!
Best regards,
[Brand name]
Wrapping up
In this article, we have collected examples and ideas for anniversary emails that will help you boost customer loyalty and increase engagement. There is another important point: people not only make repeat purchases but also share such congratulations on social media platforms with pleasure, which means that the strength of your brand will only grow.
