Every time there is a colleague’s birthday or a client’s anniversary, are you always torn about what to do?
“Is it XX’s birthday today? I remember writing it in my memo last week…”
“It’s so troublesome to edit text messages manually. I’m afraid it will seem insincere if I send them in groups. How can I balance them?”
“I was so busy that I completely forgot to post it. I felt embarrassed and self – reproachful when I remembered it later…”
If you have these troubles, this article can help you solve them completely today – use n8n to build a “fully automatic personalized SMS congratulation system” to let the system help you “check the calendar, write blessings and send messages” every day. You don’t need to touch your mobile phone during the whole process, and the blessings are punctual and considerate.
What can this workflow do for you?
Simply put, its core logic is: automatically check “if there is an important event today” (such as birthday, anniversary), if so, automatically generate a personalized text message and send it to the other party via Twilio.
There is no need for manual intervention throughout the process. You only need to fill in the information in advance and leave the rest to the system. Specifically, these effects can be achieved:
✅ Automatically “clock in” at 8 am every day, no need to check the calendar
The system will start at 8:00 every morning (time can be customized), and automatically check the “transaction table” you have sorted out in advance to see if there is any day to celebrate today.
✅ Precise matching of event types ensures unique greetings
You can prepare templates for different events in advance: for example, “Happy Birthday [Name], may you be surrounded by good luck today!” for “Birthday”, and “[Name], you joined us X years ago today, thank you for being with us all the way!” for “Work Anniversary”.
The system will automatically call the corresponding template according to the event type.
✅ Support multiple scenarios, applicable for both work and life
Whether it is a company sending birthday wishes to employees, anniversary greetings to customers, or individuals sending holiday greetings to relatives and friends, as long as you fill in the information in the form, the system can handle it uniformly.
Is it difficult to configure? You can set it up in 3 steps
You might be thinking, “This sounds complicated. Do I need to know how to code?”
Not at all! n8n is a “visual drag-and-drop” tool. You can connect nodes just like building blocks. The core configuration is divided into 3 steps, and even beginners can follow along:
Step 1: Prepare the table (information repository)
You need to create tables in Google Sheets in advance. One table records events, and the other table is a blessing template.
Step 2: Build a workflow with n8n (5 nodes to complete the whole process)
Open n8n, drag and drop 5 core nodes, and you can achieve automation:
① Timed trigger: starts at 8:00 every day
Use the “Cron Scheduled Trigger” building block to set “Execute at 8:00 every day”, which is equivalent to setting an alarm clock for the system.
② Read event data: Grab today’s event from Table 1
Use the “Google Sheets Read” node to connect to your “Event Log” and after reading all the data, the system will automatically filter out events where “Date = Today’s Day/Month”
③ Read template data: Grab the corresponding blessing from Table 2
Drag another “Google Sheets Read” node, connect it to the “Blessing Template Sheet”, and read all event types and templates.
④ Combine + Personalize: Combine the template with the name
Use the “Merge Node” to match data by “Event Type” (e.g., the “Birthday” event corresponds to the “Birthday Template”), and then use the “Function Node” to replace “[Name]” in the template with the specific name to generate the final SMS content.
⑤ Send SMS: Send via Twilio
Finally, connect to the “Twilio Node”. Fill in the phone number of the recipient and the generated blessing message. Click “Run” and the message will be sent!
What else can n8n do for you besides sending blessings?
You may wonder, “Is it really necessary to build a system just to send out blessings?”
In fact, this workflow is just the “tip of the iceberg” for n8n. n8n is an “all-in-one automation tool” whose core value is to turn “repetitive manual operations” into “systematic automatic execution” –
For example:
- Automatically synchronize Excel data to the CRM system without copying and pasting every day;
- After the customer fills out the form, automatically send a welcome email and add them to the WeChat group;
- Monitor price changes of competing products and automatically send you a notification when the price is lower than the threshold;
- Automatically summarize the sales data of last week every Monday, generate a report and send it to the group…
If you feel that “I do this every week / day, and it is very mechanical”, you can try to automate it with n8n.
