Automated Birthday SMS in Ghana: How to Set It Up, with Templates

Automated birthday SMS sends each customer a text message on their birthday, every year, without anyone on your team remembering the date.

You add a date of birth to each contact, put those contacts in a group, write one birthday message, and switch birthday messaging on.

The platform then matches today's date against your list and sends the greeting, personalised with each customer's first name.

At a glance

• You need three things: contacts with a date of birth, a contact group, and one birthday message.
• Ask customers for the day and month only. The year is not needed to send a greeting, and Section 19 of Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) says personal data must be "necessary, relevant and not excessive" for its purpose.
• A greeting with no offer is the safest message. Add a discount and it becomes a promotion, and roughly one birthday in seven falls on a Sunday, when the NCA's consumer guidance says promotional messages should not be sent.
• Long first names can push a message past 160 characters and double its cost. Each template below shows the longest name that still fits in one SMS.
• Test the set-up with a staff number before a customer ever receives it.

What is automated birthday SMS?

Automated birthday SMS is a scheduled message that a messaging platform sends to each contact on their birthday, worked out from the date of birth stored on the contact.

You set it up once; the platform checks the date every day and sends to whoever has a birthday.

On BMS Africa (by mNotify), birthday messaging is built into the platform and repeats every year. The birthday message can go out as an SMS or as a voice message, and it is charged from your normal SMS or voice credit.

Why do Ghanaian businesses send birthday SMS?

A birthday message is one of the few marketing messages customers are glad to receive. It is personal, it is expected to come once a year, and it reminds the customer of your business on a day they are already in a good mood.

SMS is the right channel for it in Ghana because it reaches customers who are not online. DataReportal's Digital 2026: Ghana report counts 41.8 million cellular mobile connections but 8.95 million people, about a quarter of the population, who do not use the internet.

A WhatsApp or email greeting never reaches them; a text message does.

Businesses that use birthday SMS well include:

• Salons, barbers and spas, with a birthday-week discount that brings the customer back in.
• Pharmacies and clinics, with a warm greeting that keeps the relationship personal.
• Restaurants and chop bars, with a free dessert or drink for the birthday week.
• Churches, where the pastor's greeting matters to members.
• Schools, for staff and for students' parents.
• Suppliers and wholesalers, who thank their trade customers for another year of business.

What do you need before you start?

You need three things, and the first takes the longest.

You may also need an approved sender ID, so customers see your business name instead of a number.

On BMS Africa, sender ID registration is free and reviewed the same day, so register yours before the date you want the first greetings to go out.

You do not need every birth date before you switch it on. A group with fifty birth dates starts working tomorrow, and the rest fill in as customers come through.

How do you set up automated birthday SMS on BMS Africa?

Five steps take you from a contact list to automatic greetings.

1. Add birth dates to your contacts. Enter them on each contact, or import a CSV or Excel file with phone, firstname, lastname, email and date_of_birth columns. BMS provides a sample file to download.
2. Put the contacts in a group. Use one group for everyone, or separate groups if different customers should get different messages.
3. Write your birthday message. Choose SMS or voice, and insert the first-name field so each customer sees their own name.
4. Switch birthday messaging on for that group and choose the message.
5. Test it with a staff number before you rely on it (see the test procedure below).

From then on, BMS sends the message every day to whoever in the group has a birthday. Birthday messages go out on the birthday itself.

Customers who reply STOP to your messages are removed from future sends automatically, according to BMS Africa, so an opted-out customer will not receive a birthday text.

How do you collect customers' birthdays legally?

Ask for the day and month only, tell the customer what you will use it for, and record that they agreed. That approach follows Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), which governs any business collecting personal data such as a date of birth.

Four sections of Act 843 apply directly:

Good places to ask:

• The loyalty card or membership form: "Birthday (day and month), so we can send you a birthday greeting."
• Booking and appointment forms at salons, clinics and restaurants.
• New account or registration forms at pharmacies, schools and churches.
• An SMS keyword, such as "Text BDAY and your birthday to 0XX XXX XXXX".

Leaving out the year has a second benefit: customers who would never tell a shop their age will happily give the day and month.

What should a birthday SMS say?

Lead with the customer's name and a warm greeting, name your business, and keep any offer short and clear. A message that reads well and fits in one SMS will do better than a long one.

Six birthday SMS templates you can copy

Each template is in standard characters. "[First name]" marks where the customer's name goes. The last column shows the longest first name that still keeps the message to one SMS (160 characters); a longer name pushes it into two parts, and each part is charged as one SMS.

The templates with an offer include an opt-out route, because an offer makes the message promotional. "0XX XXX XXXX" stands for the number customers text to opt out.

Can you send a birthday SMS in Twi?

Yes. "Afehyia pa" is written in plain letters, so it stays in standard characters and costs the same as English. Twi words that use the letters ɛ or ɔ are different: either letter switches the whole message to Unicode, which holds only 70 characters, so a 147-character message would need three SMS instead of one.

For a longer greeting in Twi, Ga, Ewe or Dagbani, consider a recorded voice message instead. BMS birthday messaging can send voice as well as SMS, and a spoken greeting in the customer's own language carries warmth that text cannot.

What catches people out with birthday SMS?

Most birthday set-ups fail quietly. The message still sends; it just sends badly, and the first person to notice is the customer on their birthday.

• Blank first names. A contact with no first name receives "Happy birthday ! Nhyira Salon wishes you..." Fill in first names before you switch on, or write the greeting so it reads well without the name.
• Commas next to the name. "Happy birthday, [First name]!" becomes "Happy birthday, !" for a contact with no name. Leave the comma out.
• Long names. "Oheneba Nana Kwabena" is 20 characters. In a 144-character template it pushes the message to two parts and doubles the cost for that customer. Check the "longest name" column above.
• Sunday birthdays. About one birthday in seven falls on a Sunday. If the message includes an offer, it is promotional, and the NCA's guidance says promotions should not arrive on Sundays. A greeting with no offer avoids the problem.
• Wrong date formats on import. A spreadsheet may store 03/04 as 3 April or 4 March depending on its settings. Check a few imported contacts by hand.
• 29 February birthdays. Decide what should happen in years without a 29 February.
• Curly apostrophes. "It's" typed in Word or WhatsApp often becomes "It’s", which switches the message to Unicode. Type templates directly in the platform.

How do you test birthday SMS before customers receive it?

Add a staff member to the group with tomorrow's day and month as their birthday, wait for the next send, and read the message on their phone. What arrives is exactly what your customers will receive.

1. Pick a test number on each network you can: MTN, Telecel and AT.
2. Add it to the birthday group with tomorrow's date as the birthday, and a real-looking first name.
3. Add a second test contact with no first name, so you can see how the message reads when the name is missing.
4. Wait for the next birthday run and check each phone: the sender name, the personalised greeting, and that the message arrived as one piece.
5. Check the delivery report for the number of SMS parts charged.
6. Remove the test contacts or reset their birth dates once you are happy.

Pre-launch checklist

• ☐ Contacts in the group agreed to hear from you, and you know where and when
• ☐ Birth dates are imported in the right format, with day and month correct
• ☐ First names are filled in, or the message reads well without one
• ☐ The message fits in one SMS with your longest customer names
• ☐ The message has no ₵, emoji or curly quotes
• ☐ Any message with an offer includes a free way to opt out
• ☐ The test contacts received the message correctly

Frequently asked questions

How do I send automatic birthday messages to customers?

Store each customer's date of birth on their contact record, put those contacts in a group, write one birthday message with a first-name field, and switch on birthday messaging for that group. The platform then sends the message every year on each customer's birthday, with no one on your team needing to remember the dates.

Do I need the customer's year of birth?

No. A birthday greeting needs only the day and month. Asking for less also fits Section 19 of Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), which says personal data must be necessary, relevant and not excessive for its purpose. Customers are also more willing to share the day and month than their age.

Is it legal to send birthday SMS in Ghana?

Yes, when customers have agreed to receive messages from you and know why you collected their birth date. Act 843 requires a specific purpose for collecting personal data and prior written consent for direct marketing. A birthday message with an offer also counts as promotional, so it should include a free opt-out route.

Can a birthday SMS include a discount?

Yes, but the discount makes it a promotional message. Include a free way to opt out, and note that the NCA's consumer guidance says promotions should not be sent on Sundays, which is when about one birthday in seven falls. A greeting with no offer avoids both issues.

How much does a birthday SMS cost?

A birthday SMS costs the same as any other SMS: the rate per message multiplied by the number of parts. A greeting of 160 standard characters or fewer is one SMS. A long name, an emoji or a cedi sign can push it to two or three parts. Current rates are on the BMS Africa pricing page.

Can I send a birthday voice message instead of an SMS?

Yes. BMS Africa's birthday messaging can send a voice message as well as an SMS. A recorded greeting suits customers who prefer their own language, such as Twi, Ga, Ewe or Dagbani, and customers who are more comfortable listening than reading.

Start with one group this week

Automated birthday SMS takes an afternoon to set up and then runs for years. Start with the customers whose birthdays you already hold, write one greeting that fits in a single SMS, test it on a staff phone, and switch it on. Birth dates for everyone else can be collected at the counter from today.

For how birthday messages fit alongside your promotions, reminders and other campaigns, read our complete guide to SMS marketing in Ghana.

Create a free BMS Africa account to import your contacts and switch on birthday messaging.

Sources

• Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), GhaLII
• Frequently Asked Questions, National Communications Authority, accessed 1 October 2026
• Digital 2026: Ghana, DataReportal, November 2025
• BMS Africa product pages, accessed 1 October 2026