21 Today And No Messages On My Wall?
It was my 21st birthday the other day. As a July baby I was always blessed with the school year just finishing around my birthday so I didn’t have to go to school but I would have a chance to hand out my cartoon decorated invitations to all my friends. My birthday morning would always start with the frantic present opening with my family sat around half asleep. Then one by one the grandparents would stop by or call me up to wish me a happy birthday. My friends would all call at my house to personally wish me a happy birthday and treat me to the odd box of celebrations.
How things have changed.
I recently removed my birthday from Facebook (so that identity thieves couldn’t steal it) only to discover none of my friends were notified about my birthday. It meant that many of the people I would have expected to congratulate me, didn’t.
The fact of the matter is most of my friends and even some of my family members rely completely on web applications/networks to communicate with me and sometimes this can have pitfalls but all in all these are extremely powerful tools. Online retailers should be capitalising on the host of possibilities for strategically designed and placed selling applications which could transform the way we shop, communicate… and celebrate birthday’s!
I think many online retailers greatly underestimate the power and influence online operations can have to their business. Those who are profiting online, are those who not only have e-commerce stores that are user friendly, but intuitive and intelligent in equal measure.
Tags: facebook, industry insight
1:33 am
3rd August 2008
Belated Happy Birthday Katie…
If our own friends and family forget our birthdays, miss sending the card on time or don’t see the facebook update then we’re usually pretty surprised.
However, I was even more surprised when a local club in Manchester sent me invites to my own birthday last year! They’d cleverly used their database of online fans/VIPs and integrated a direct marketing campaign based around their birthdays. The offer was all your mates in free for the night and a free drink at the bar.
I think we’re going to continue to see a growth in how those that we interact with online develop new ways of encouraging us to spend our hard earned cash with them offline!