Don’t tell anyone, but I have a birthday.

Happened a couple months ago and, hopefully, will happen again in 2020. And like any email-subscribing marketer would expect, I got a lotta this that day.

Truth be told, the volume of these messages has dropped quite a bit in recent years. And it’s not like it’s a bad thing, it’s just that this specific way of celebrating one’s birthday…well…sorta ran its course.

Sunday River
But birthdays do matter. And people want to be recognized. So what do you do?

Maybe something like this.

At the bottom of weekly email campaigns that go out to the larger group, Sunday River simply gives a shoutout to season passholders who had a birthday that week.

You can imagine how it works – the marketer in charge of the campaign jumps into the database, pulls all the passholders with birthdays between the two days, grabs first and last name, runs it through a macro or something to create the formatted list, and pastes it into the footer.

A 15 minute process, maybe?

The Positive Irony
As much as I believe in one-to-one marketing (and trust me, I do), this is one of those situations where the fact that this list of names is sent to and seen by everyone is the exact reason it has the potential it does.

It’s yet another example of putting folks’ names up in lights. In making them feel special.

An automated email may not do that anymore, but being included in a list that tens of thousands of people can see? Maybe so. And given the time required? Why not.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.