Studies show that I am not alone.

A new white paper from Experian Cheetahmail, The birthday and anniversary report: Benchmark data and analysis for email marketers, illustrates the impact that birthday and anniversary emails can have on your email program.

There are a number of key findings within the report, including the following:

• Total open rates for birthday and anniversary campaigns are 3 times higher than those of mass promotion mailings.
• Transaction rates are five times higher for birthday and anniversary emails than they are for bulk campaigns.
• Birthday mailings sent to all subscribers with known birthdays pull much higher transaction rates and revenue per email than those sent only to select or loyalty members.

I don’t know about you, but on my birthday, I want to be a bit extravagant and spend some money on myself, on decorating my home, or on a good time with some friends!

Here are a few examples of birthday/anniversary emails that have really caught my interest:

This email from Art.com offered me the chance to save some cash on a birthday purchase. In the study, emails that included discounts had the highest transaction rates and revenue per email of all the birthday mailings measured.

When it’s my birthday, I can’t afford forgetting to pamper myself. Aveda celebrated my birthday week by offering free gifts as a sign of their appreciation. According to the study, birthday campaigns such as these — mailed weekly or daily — had 40% higher transaction rates than those mailed monthly.

It’s always best to spend birthdays celebrating with friends. Sands Casino-Resort got my attention and really captured the birthday spirit with photo of a cake and the promise of good time. Our report doesn’t have data on the impact of cake imagery on email performance, but if I had to guess, I would say it helps!

Have fun with birthday and anniversary emails. Use these special occasions to connect with your customers, enhance their engagement with your brand, and increase your sales.

Taking Simmons’ findings into account, it should come as no surprise that customers are much more likely to make a purchase when offered a coupon via email. This finding and several others were confirmed in Experian Cheetahmail’s recent white paper, The coupon report: Benchmark data and analysis for email marketers, which examined the performance of emails with coupons redeemable online and those with coupons to be printed and redeemed in-store. The businesses that participated in Experian CheetahMail’s study had a 64 percent average increase in revenue per email, as well as increases in all other transaction metrics. In addition, average order values and transaction rates increased by six percent and 48 percent respectively.

These metrics show that coupons prove to be successful in driving and creating an incremental lift in sales, but businesses have to use best practices if they want to truly experience email coupon success. Some of these email coupon best practices include:

• Targeting the right segments. Email subscribers that are involved in membership clubs, loyalty programs, and professional groups, as well as wholesale buyers tend to all have notably high responses to coupons offered via email. Make sure to include consumers that meet these criteria in your coupon-based email campaigns.
• Creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity. Email and online coupons have the unique advantage of being able to offer instant discounts through the use of codes that are redeemable at online checkout. Some customers may still take time to reach a buying decision. You can shorten this lag period by creating limited time offers that create a sense of urgency. This tactic works well for online as well as in-store coupons.
• Tailoring coupons to business cycles and needs. Sending email coupons in conjunction with the seasonality of your product line and inventory cycle is an effective way to move inventory. Data indicates that mailings announcing deeper discounts, typically of 30 percent or more, drive high performance rates when offered on top of clearance prices or aggressive sales on specific items.

As part of our research for this white paper, we conducted a study posing the following questions to email marketers:

• Are more companies deploying free shipping emails?
  On average, about 50% of mailers were offering free shipping in Q1 2009, representing a slight increase from the 48% we saw a year earlier. This percentage rose significantly in the 4th quarter of 2008, with some 60 to 65% of mailers using a free shipping offer for holiday sales.

• Are free shipping emails as effective now as they had been in the past?
  Based on free shipping campaigns from 198 mailers, free shipping offers boosted transaction rates (conversion) by 18%, and revenue per email by 31% across all industries, when compared to non-free shipping mailings.
• What factors can positively or negatively affect a free shipping promotion?
  Free shipping continues to be an extremely effective offer, but free shipping offers do not succeed all of the time.  Best practices for free shipping include:
  • Feature the right product. Free shipping may not be enough to override consumers’ lack of interest in a product, and response may be low. Be sure to identify in-demand products tailored to your audience.
  • Keep free shipping promotions short and special. Selective offers to targeted segments for short periods of time had the highest performance. Follow-up reminders with strong calls to action such as “Last day for Free Shipping” or “Final 4 Hours” can be particularly good performers.
  • Test a minimum purchase requirement and/or tiered rates for the free shipping offer. Higher minimums had better performance on free shipping emails, enticing customers to spend “just a bit more” to get the free shipping.
  • Couple-up with a sale. Sales and clearance emails featuring free shipping tend to be high performers. Use free shipping to deepen the impact of a special sale or ensure strong sales of clearance items.

As consumers become more discerning towards any message they receive, free shipping remains an important tool for many of today’s email marketers. As with any promotion, however, it is important to test if free shipping is right for your specific business needs as well as the needs of your customers, and at what capacity. Remember to consider the best practices mentioned above in addition to factors such as seasonality, product mix, customer behavior, and the timing of other promotions, and you are sure to build a cost-effective and engaging email program to which customers will continually respond.