Of all the ways you can communicate with customers, texting is their top preference. Doesn’t it make sense to use this powerful communication method to send your customer a birthday greeting?

Dale Carnegie wrote, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Being wished a happy birthday has to rank right up there, too.

The reason why we even celebrate birthdays is open to diverse interpretation, but nobody seems to argue that the majority of us really do enjoy receiving birthday wishes. The satisfaction extends from relatives and friends even to wishes from business connections. It’s an opportunity companies should take advantage of. There’s even a highly effective way your company can use birthday greetings, and we’ll get to that—but first, let’s dive a bit deeper into the reasons why we love getting birthday wishes.

Birthdays through the ages

History generally attributes the Egyptians with getting us started with birthdays. When a pharaoh was crowned, he or she was considered to have transformed into a god. That was far more important than their birth. The Egyptians appear to have given us the concept of celebrating a birth—but in this case, it was the pharaoh’s birth as a god.

We have the Greeks to thank for birthday candles. They offered moon-shaped cakes as a form of tribute to Artemis, goddess of the moon. They lit candles and put them on these cakes to recreate the glowing effect. So, up to this point, we pretty much have the concept of birthdays being reserved for the gods.

Which was the case until the Romans made it a celebration for mortals. They celebrated birthdays for friends and families, and the Roman rulers created public holidays in honor of the birth dates of famous citizens. On your 50^th birthday, you received a special cake baked with wheat flour, honey, grated cheese, and olive oil. But, only if you were male. Women’s birthdays weren’t celebrated at all until around the 12^th century.

The early Christians would have none of this birthday celebration nonsense. The organized church believed it was a pagan practice—at least until around the 4^th century when they adopted the holiday of Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus.

We owe the contemporary birthday cake to the Germans, who in the 18^th century invented Kinderfeste, a party for children, who received a cake with one candle for each year they’d been alive—plus one additional to symbolize the hope of living for one more year.

Finally, in 1924, we added some music to the celebration when Robert Coleman added a few new extra lyrics about birthdays to a song originally written in 1893. The original song titled “Good Morning to All” quickly became known as “Happy Birthday to You.”

What do birthdays and text messages have in common?

We love them both! Of all the ways you can communicate with customers, texting is their top preference. An astounding 95% of texts are read within three minutes of being sent. As far as engagement goes, they have a 90-second average response time.

Doesn’t it make sense to use this powerful communication method to send your customer a birthday greeting? No other medium has a better chance of delivering this message. Studies show that 99% of all text messages are read. Compare that to email, which has an average open rate of less than 20%.

And, since you know that 99% of your birthday greeting text messages will be read—on an average of three minutes after you send it—it’s the perfect time to offer your customer a special birthday-related sales opportunity. It’s personal, it’s relevant, and you’ll be reaching a receptive buyer. Nothing is better at increasing customer engagement.

Business text messaging is a highly effective tool that can send perfectly timed personalized messages to customers. Take advantage of our love affair with receiving birthday wishes, and combine it with the special offer.

Find out how we can integrate CRM data—like your customers’ birthdays—with our automated text messaging service.