Are You Wishing Your Fans A Happy Birthday?
February 2, 2011
Michael Brandvold in Expanding Your Fan Base, Facebook, Fans

I love this tip so much… Marcio Teixeira made a very simple suggestion for my 2000 Things article that fit perfectly with something else I was working on, wish your fans a Happy Birthday. How many are doing this? I have to say not many.

I don’t remember getting a birthday greeting from any band recently.

We all love it when someone recognizes our birthday. I am also always impressed when every year Southwest Airlines sends me a birthday card. No other business does that. A very simple action that always makes me think just how much I like Southwest Airlines. You need to do the same with every one of your fans. I already hear the comments… how!

We have 1000s of fans I can’t write every one of them personally. Here are two tips:.

1. As part of your sites user registration ask for date of birth. Then get yourself a developer to write a simple script that every day looks for birthdays that day and sends out a email message. You should have a little admin that allows you to change the birthday message as often as you like. Don’t send the same message out for months. In that message you could even include maybe a discount on a purchase in your store, or maybe a link to download a special mp3 file. I keep saying this, but trust me… your fans will love it that you thought enough to send them a message.

2. I REALLY like this idea… on Facebook create a Facebook ad campaign. When you are building the ad you can set up who you want to target, meaning who in Facebook do you want to see the ad. Set it up to target only users who are connected to your Facebook Page AND on their birthday. That targeting means only fans who Like your Page and on their birthday will see the ad. Yep, Facebook lets you only display a ad on someone’s birthday. Create the ad with a short personal birthday wish and link it back to a special birthday page on your website where they can get a discount or a free download. This is only going to work if you have enough fans on your page. If you have 50 fans Facebook is going to say the target audience is too small. Once you have built up a nice fan base on Facebook try this out. Yeah you will have to spend a little money on the ads… but it is a great investment to really win over your fans.

Article originally appeared on Music Think Tank (https://www.musicthinktank.com/).
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