Birthday Lists Generate Top Response

We all know that birthday lists generate top response for all sorts of offers. Are you suggesting birthday mailings to your clients?

—Insurance agents market to turning 65-ers to sell Medicare supplements;
—Driving schools market to Turning 16-ers to sell Drivers Ed;
—Swim schools market to families with children just turning 1;
—Long Term Care companies market to individuals Turning 50
—Restaurants offer special discounts by birthday month
—Chuck E Cheese is mailing to families with kids, by birth month, to promote birthday parties at their locations.

Chuck E. Cheese is an advocate

It works! Read this article. IRVING, Texas (Aug. 24, 2009) CEC Entertainment Inc., parent to the 544-unit Chuck E. Cheese’s chain, is using new store attractions and a first-time direct mail marketing campaign to drive recently stalled sales, according to a report released Monday by Morgan Keegan Equity Research.

Chuck E. Cheese has tested in one Dallas unit a new attraction called “Birthday Star Blast,” a clear, human-sized plastic capsule into which money, tickets and prize vouchers are blown — much like in casinos and television game shows of the past — to be gathered by the child celebrating his or her birthday. The test is to be expanded to 20 more stores.

Birthday parties represent about 24 percent of Chuck E. Cheese’s business, so additions such as the Birthday Star Blast, which cost less than $3,000 per store, are likely to increase sales, according to the securities report from Morgan Keegan analysts Robert Derrington and Destin Tompkins.

Should the Birthday Star Blast become a system wide feature that drives two incremental birthday parties per week, it would boost same-store sales by 1 percent, the analysts noted. The chain’s same-store sales fell 5.4 percent during its latest quarter. In addition, 60 percent of the sales from Birthday Star Blast would flow through to pretax profit, they said.

Worth the Spend

Consequently, CEC also will start using direct-mail marketing using birthday mailing lists for 240 of its stores. This will be their first time doing a national campaign like this. The analysts  CEC’s direct mail program will cost between $50,000 and $60,000. It is expected to reach 24 million consumers. Newspaper inserts with coupons would promote the birthday party push as well.