In a recent poll, marketers said that one of the key reasons they’re hesitant to use SMS is fear of over-messaging customers. We agree: pinging your customers too often is a terrible, no good, very bad way to earn trust, loyalty and drive long-term value.

That’s why we’ve created smart ways to orchestrate messaging across all your customer engagement channels, so you can use the best mix of channels for messaging, instead of blasting customers on every channel every time.

Here are three SMS combinations you can use to create deeper connections with customers and better integrate text messaging into your overall customer engagement strategy. For more examples, check out our SMS Playbook—download today!

SMS + Mobile Wallet

SMS and mobile wallet are the only two channels that allow you to directly communicate with users on mobile without an app — using them together creates a power combo for maximum engagement.

Reward your loyal customers by sending a text message with a link to download a loyalty card or coupon for their mobile wallet. For crucial and time-sensitive items like tickets and boarding passes, SMS delivers what they need — without depending on a wifi connection or an app.

See what the power combo could look like in our SMS Playbook.  

SMS + Email

Using email, a popular user-preferred channel, and SMS, a channel with high engagement, together gives you the best of both worlds.

Identify your most loyal customers by using email to promote text messaging communication. This is a great cost-effective strategy; by using email, a less expensive channel, to broadly reach users and bring your more active and loyal users into SMS, you’ll be making sure your text messages are going to those who have a higher chance of engagement, getting your money’s worth in both channels!

Make sure to quickly show your opt-in users how valuable this channel is by providing them a personalized coupon via SMS, based off of a purchase they’ve already made. That kind of personalization will increase the chance of them becoming long-term loyal customers.

To see examples, download the SMS Playbook here.  

SMS + In-App Message:

So, your customer downloaded your app. Awesome! In-app messaging is a great way to send personalized and localized messages to your customers in the exact moment they’re most engaged with your brand. By leveraging in-app messages to encourage them to sign up for text messages, you’ll help ensure that you have a way to connect with them — even if they become inactive on the app — or even delete it.

A great SMS marketing strategy opens up a world of possibilities for creating better, deeper and more valuable connections with your customers, and you can implement all of these strategies, and more, on our Digital Growth Platform.

Get more inspiration in our SMS Playbook.  

Is your brand maximizing the opportunity from SMS? Download the SMS Playbook for more use cases, tips, and best practices.

Take your SMS strategy to the next level. Connect with an SMS expert today!

The post How SMS Powers a Better Multi-Channel Customer Engagement Strategy appeared first on Airship.

Fortunately, mobile wallets can now do exactly that.

Here are three ways that new advances in mobile wallet marketing are making this channel a whole lot more interesting for marketers and consumers alike.

1) The Mobile Wallet is Now an Entry Point for Connecting with Customers on Mobile, Outside the App

What if, every time your customer went to make a transaction, your brand could be right there, ready, willing and able to assist in adding value and convenience?    

The ability to do so begins with identifying moments where something in the consumer’s wallet — a digital coupon, a boarding pass, a loyalty card, etc. —  can add value.

Here is where the mobile marketer’s skill around one-to-one personalization kicks in (Urban Airship’s adaptive pass management solution can make it easier to connect the dots between personalization and mobile wallets).

Once the essential connections are made, creating brand engagement and distinct value for the consumer as they move through their mobile journey becomes a matter of studying behaviors and promoting opportunities across channels —  in essence building a bridge between the desired experience (e.g. buying red shoes) and the opportunity to add value to that experience (with an auto-presented mobile loyalty card or coupon).

Get your strategy for the initial download of a mobile pass correct, keep things conversational, and you’re set to deliver meaningful value for the long term. That will deepen your relationship with consumers and ultimately drive desired campaign metrics around redemption, conversion, foot-traffic or whatever else you’re aiming for.

Want a few examples of how to create powerful mobile wallet campaigns? Keep reading.

2) Marketers Can Use Mobile Wallet in More Ways Than Ever

Because mobile wallets are a go-to utility in moments of committed action, they present a unique opportunity for brands to engage consumers both directly and when it matters most.

This opportunity can be found in an endless array of use cases, for example:

Acquiring and enrolling customers

Let’s say I’m visiting a Panera Bread retail store in my local area and I haven’t previously signed up for their loyalty program.

When I make my purchase using Apple Pay, I am pushed a lock screen notification with an invitation to join the program. I swipe right to check out the offer and am immediately presented with pre-populated form and a single button to click in order to join.

Panera has just acquired a new program member in an ideal context, while also gaining my consent to future engagement.

Learn more about how to create frictionless, one-tap loyalty enrollment >>

Removing friction from common tasks

In another case, let’s say I am already a balance rewards member with Walgreens and I swipe my card to collect points while also tapping to pay. I receive a lock screen notification asking if I’d like to convert to a digital pass to make payment and collect rewards in a single step.

From Walgreens’ side, they’ve just eliminated the expense of producing that plastic rewards card and can now notify me directly through my mobile wallet whenever there is a special offer for cardholders.

For all parties, there is less friction encountered in accomplishing our goals.

Facilitating better experiences for live events

Let’s say I just flew into Las Vegas for a conference we’re both attending and your company wants to give me a couple tickets to a show as a thanks for doing business with you. As I’m in a cab heading towards the venue, I get a notification to download a mobile wallet pass that will act as my ticket.

While I’m queued up for entry, you realize that someone else has cancelled, meaning you still have VIP passes available, so you decide to upgrade me. You’re able to update my mobile wallet pass to a VIP version, update my seat info – and let me know exactly what perks I’ll get, right on the pass – then notify me about the upgrade with a lockscreen notification.  

This all happens instantly, and right in front of me. You’ve reached out live, improved my experience and added real value —  and I’m going to remember you for it.

In each of these cases, it is the underlying utility of the mobile wallet platform that ultimately powers the personalized engagement the marketer can offer.

3) Everybody’s Barrier to Entry is Lower

Brands don’t need an app to make mobile wallet marketing work, and setting up a personalized mobile wallet campaign can be accomplished in as little as a couple of weeks (longer if you want something more complex).

Consumers will get a much smoother transaction experience that includes not just payments but also coupons, loyalty rewards, admittance and boarding passes — in other words, all the stuff that people actually keep in their wallets now.

These are giant leaps forward for marketers seeking to create engaging mobile wallet experiences for consumers. If you’re interested to learn more about Urban Airship’s adaptive wallet pass management solution, please just contact us — we’d love to hear from you!

The post Marketers & Mobile Wallets: 3 Ways Things Just Got More Interesting appeared first on Airship.

Ever wished you could send personalized notifications to any channel or device in your marketing stack — from one centralized platform?

We are making that dream a reality through our Open Channel API, a new approach to connecting Urban Airship to any system through easily extensible APIs, that eschews the common “closed” marketing system approach that requires you to rip and replace existing investments.

Open Channel API has all of the powerful services of our Digital Growth Platform accessible — like segment builder, real-time automation and user-level personalization — so you can create and send notification-style messages anywhere.

Once you’ve created the notification, our Open Channel API allows you to send it to any channel from any service provider in your stack: AR/VR devices, chatbots, voice systems, tvs, cars and in-home smart assistants like Alexa or Google Home. The sky's the limit.

And, unlike a basic webhook implementation, our approach creates a dedicated channel you can reuse to orchestrate, deliver and analyze messages across all of your customer communication platforms.

The best part? No matter what device or experience emerges on the market over the next few years, you’ll be ready.

Creating APIs that put your customer data to work for you anywhere and everywhere is part of our commitment to helping our customers future-proof their martech stack. (Learn more about our vision here.)

Bottom line: this is going to change the way you think about the notifications you can send — and how you send them.

In today’s digital environment, where new channels and devices like Alexa and HomePod are always emerging, we believe you need an extensible notification solution that allows you to grow with you as your needs grow. The days of rip and replace, and lowest common denominator marketing can be behind us.

We can’t see what great connections you build.

Learn more about Open Channel API in our Docs, or contact us to talk about use cases for your brand.

The post How to Send Notifications to Any Channel In Your Marketing Stack: Introducing Open Channel API appeared first on Airship.

Several Airshippers attended I/O this year, while many more of us watched via livestreams. Check out a few pics and read on to see what we found to be 2016’s most surprising and noteworthy unveilings.

The post Google I/O 2016: Our 7 Biggest Takeaways appeared first on Airship.