It’s my birthday today. Most people don’t know that, nor do they care. But I have, on occasion, filled out a form for a membership card or a special rewards card and my birthday was on there.
As a conservative estimate, 5 or 6 businesses that I deal with or purchase from have at least my name, email address, mailing address, and birth date.
But only one of them bothered to send me anything for my birthday. Alright, so it’s not really a gift, but Borders Books emailed me a “Happy Birthday, take 15% off any 1 item. – from your friends at Borders.”
“But Henry, you don’t like sales.”
I don’t like pointless sales because they decrease the value of whatever you’re selling. But this isn’t a pointless sale. This is a special discount for their special customer… me!
When you’re in business, you should make it your goal to make every customer feel like they’re special. They’re part of the family.
If they’re already your customer, they’ve probably given you some information. How are you using it to deepen the customer’s relationship with you? Are you sending birthday emails? You should be. When it’s personal, it’s not a sale, it’s a gift.
Collect information about your customer and use it to your advantage.
Here’s a list of other occasions when you can offer special individual discounts:
- Anniversary of becoming your customer.
- Little-known holidays related to your business (e.g. Administrative Professional’s Day, Bosses’ Day, Bean Day, Bubble Bath Day).
- Spending a certain amount of money with your business (email may say, “Congratulations, you’ve become a Gold-Level Customer. As a thank you for your patronage, here’s a special gift…)
- Not spending money with you for a certain period of time (email offer might say, “We’ve missed you… It’s been over 6 months since we’ve heard from you. We want you to know that you’re a valuable customer and would like to offer you this special discount for 15% on anything in the store. Hope to see you’re smiling face back again soon.”)
By the way, Borders is going to be seeing my smiling face this afternoon, holding their 15% off coupon.
What are you doing to individualize your customer’s experience?
Henry Bingaman 
