Birthday Text
A feel-good "Happy birthday!" text to your members on their birthday.
Pretty simple: a member gets a happy birthday text from your agency. No ask, just a nice touch.
In the template picker, this one's called MA Birthday Text.
It's one of the pieces of the Retention Journey, so you can run it on its own or alongside the rest.
At a glance
| Who it's for | Your members, on their birthday |
| Goal | Make their day a little better |
| How people get in | You add them (there's no automation, but you can build a Birthday one) |
| Calls | 0 |
| Texts | 1 |
| Runs for | 1 day |
| Escalations | None |
How people get in
There's no automation, so you add people yourself. See Add Customers to a Campaign.
Heads up: the text goes out on Day 1, the day someone's added. So if you add people by hand, they get "Happy Birthday" that day, birthday or not. That's fine for a list of today's birthdays, but for the every-year version you want an automation.
To set that up, go to the campaign's Automations tab and add one with the Birthday trigger that enrolls people into this campaign. You can add a policy status filter too, so only your current members get it. See Automations Explained.
Date automations like Birthday are checked once a night. They don't go back for birthdays that already passed, so if you turn this on in June, your March birthdays get their first text next March.
Reaching the same members again next year
A Birthday automation runs every year, but it only adds people who haven't been through this campaign before. Anyone who finished it last year won't be added again on their own. To run them through again, filter your Customers to the people you want, select them, and click Restart (or check Restart the [number] previously enrolled when you add them). See Restarting people.
The text
Day 1: Text
Happy Birthday [First name]! 🎂🎉🥳 Hope you have a wonderful day - from all of us at [Agency].
Unlike most of the other texts, this one has no fallback for the name or the agency, so make sure your members have a first name on file.
After the text goes out, the journey ends.
Before you turn it on
- SMS registration. Texts don't send until your number is registered (10DLC). See SMS and RCS Registration.
- Member data. Members need a phone number, a time zone or state, and a first name. If you build a Birthday automation, they need a date of birth too, or they never get picked up.
- Timing. Texts only go out during your business hours and between 8 AM and 9 PM in the member's time zone. If your business hours skip weekends, a weekend birthday text may not go out on the day itself. See Business Hours and Holidays.
- Test it. Send it to yourself first. See Test Your Campaign.
- Activate. A new campaign starts as a Draft. Nothing goes out until you click Activate on the Overview tab.
Changing any of this
- The wording: the Pulse tab. Click the text step to edit it. See Pulse.
- Who gets in: add people yourself, or build a Birthday automation on the Automations tab. See Automations Explained.