Sending Birthday Wishes

For the last few days, I have been receiving cards, letters, emails and Facebook messages wishing me Happy Birthday.

Hehehehe, I even received a birthday card from myself. I’ll get to that in a minute.

As I opened each card or message, I began to realize that each one of them came as a result of a system.

Facebook has a lovely reminder – it even told me that today was my birthday 🙂 – for family and friends to be reminded about my birthday. It then has an easy function to be able to post a message right on my wall (or timeline).

The good ol’ fashioned calendar. I received a couple of personalized, handwritten cards and letters. I expect that they use some type of calendar reminder, perhaps it’s electronic or if it’s anything like what my Grandmother uses, the good ol’ fashioned calendar where she would hand-write everyone’s birthday on the calendar.

One friend always takes the time each year to do a special card. And this year she went through some old photographs of my cousin and I showing our horses and had that picture added to a card.

A gentle reminder from a friend. My cousin sent me an email wishing me happy birthday. And then I started getting emails from other friends, ironically with the same exact birthday message in the same exact font.

And then there’s the automation of sending cards. Remember earlier I mentioned that I even sent myself a card.

Actually, I had forgotten all about the fact that I had set this up last year. And really, that’s the beauty of automation – set and forget.

I used Send Out Cards to schedule a birthday card campaign. All I had to do was setup the campaign – really a campaign is just a card that you pick and then write something inside it – generic enough for everyone.

Once the campaign was setup. I just had to add my birthday to it. And voila, I got a card a couple of days before my birthday.

Whether you choose to use an automated system, the good ol’ fashioned calendar, a gentle reminder from another friend, or some other reminder system, sending birthday wishes or other well wishes really can brighten someone’s day.

It doesn’t have to be high-tech. Use whatever system works for you. But just remember, in order for the system to work, you have to work the system.