Note: We’ve shared the overall benchmark stats here; for industry-specific benchmarks for retail, travel, media and more, download the full report.

To create the report, we analyzed data from more than 600 billion push notifications sent via Airship to more than 2 billion users in 2020. The result? The definitive mobile app push notification benchmarks to help you assess and elevate your push mobile strategy. The report focuses on three key areas: opt-in rates, direct open rates and monthly push notifications per user. 

Interpreting the Data

The benchmarks were broken down into high (90th), medium (50th) and low percentiles (10th). The 50th percentile number is the median for the vertical. The 10th percentile number means 10% of the apps had a lower value, while the 90th percentile number means 10% of apps had a higher value. 

For example, if you are a media brand with a 60% opt-in rate on iOS, you compare with the top 10% of apps in this study and can feel confident that you have some of the highest opt-in rates in your vertical.

However, if your direct opt-in rates for that same vertical are less than 29%, you’re in the bottom 10% for your vertical and there’s significant room for improvement. 

Opt-In Rates for Push Notifications

Once a customer downloads your mobile app, getting them opted-in for notifications is essential to deepening engagement. That’s because when users opt in and stay opted-in, brands can reach out beyond the confines of their app to engage people right on their device lock screens — the most visible real estate available! 

This benchmark is key to assessing whether your messaging and customer journeys are delivering the optimal opt-ins for your brand and industry. If your opt-in rate is on the low end, here are some tips that can help: Top 10 Tips to Get the Opt-In. 

Direct Open Rates for Push Notifications

Your push notifications are only as good as the engagement they generate. So it’s important to know how your direct open rates compare to those of your competitors. 

Use this benchmark to assess whether your push notifications are delivering best in class conversion and engagement, or whether you’ve got room to improve. Keep an eye on this figure, while also monitoring conversions, active users, opt-outs, indirect opens and uninstalls to get a more granular understanding of how push messages are influencing engagement and retention over time.

For push notification strategies to improve engagement, check out this blog post: Push Notification Strategies for Customer Retention.

Average Monthly Push Notifications Per User

Overall, we know that more frequent push notifications tend to increase app retention rates. However, too many messages can start to look like spam, quickly eroding trust. The key is to find the right balance to keep customers engaged without overwhelming them. 

How many is too many? Use this benchmark to understand where your brand stands within your vertical and across industries. If you need help finding the right balance, we have 11 Proven Push Notification Strategies for Customer Growth.

An effective push notification strategy can create a world of opportunities to be there for your customers in the moments that matter most, keeping them engaged and driving conversions. 

Want to learn more about how you can grow your customer relationships and lifetime value one game-changing push notification at a time? Download the report and get in touch with Airship to learn how we can help!

Next Steps

We can help you create a personalized messaging strategy

Contact us today!

The post How to Benchmark Your Mobile App Engagement Strategy appeared first on Airship.

Our studies have found that users opted in to notifications are four times more engaged with apps and are retained at double the rate of opt-out users. Notification opt-ins are an important component of a healthy and growing app. 

So what can you do to maximize your opt-in rate? We have top 10 tips to help you get that opt-in for your mobile app notifications.

1) Make Sure Your App’s Value Is Clear 

It’s never too early to convey your app’s unique value proposition. As early as the app store preview, you should position not only your app’s value, but also the value of opting in to receiving marketing messages like push notifications, in-app messages or other types of app-based notifications. One retailer includes the following in their app store description: “Get exclusive access to app user only sales.” 

2) Manage Expectations: Let Them Know How You’ll Use Alerts

When users know what to expect with notifications, they are more likely to opt-in. Explain why users should consider opting in when you make the ask and guide the user through key app functionality. For example, NHL grew its opt-in rate nearly 10% after adding a customized screen before the default dialogue box.

Did You Know: iOS requires apps serve up a default dialogue box to request permission to send push notifications. It has become common practice for this rather generic message to be the first thing a users sees the very first time they open the app so make sure you customize it.

3) Prioritize Preference: Let Users Know How They Can Set Preferences as Part of Your Welcome Series

Helping users understand upfront that they can customize their notification settings to receive only what they want, when they want it, can be a critical nuance to securing the opt-in.

4) Make It Easy to Turn Push Notifications On and Off

Rather than relying on users to navigate system settings in Android and iOS, consider adding an on/off button within your app. Doing so allows users to turn notifications off during busy or inopportune times; for example, not wanting to receive spoiler alerts for the big game they are watching later. More importantly, It may also save your app from deletion for people that simply don’t want to receive notifications no matter how tailored they are to their interests. Or, in the best case scenario, this enables users to easily turn notifications back on. 

5) Market Your App in Non-Mobile Settings to Increase Your Possible Opted-in User Base

Brick-and-mortar businesses should promote their apps’ unique value proposition with in-store signage and at the point of sale (POS). Help people understand how it will enrich their experiences, as well as any exclusive offers that will be unlocked by getting the app.

6) Use Email to Persuade Users to Download, install and launch your app, and why they should opt in to push notifications 

Already have customer emails? Use them to drive customers to engage with your brand on mobile, and usher in new levels of immediacy and contextual understanding.

7) Sweeten the Deal

Consumers frequently share email addresses in exchange for coupons. Consider what mobile exclusive benefit you might offer.

8) Prompt Mobile Web Users to Download Your App

Every digital property you have should support your app recruitment effort. It can be the difference between just being where consumers can find you to being able to effortlessly reach out and engage them.

Learn more about Cross-Channel Acquisition. 

9) Know When to Ask for the Opt-in – and Set the Stage to Ask Again

The opt-in ask should never be once and done. Consider pre-asking (also known as soft-ask) users, and give them time to evaluate the app before asking again through in-app welcome messages or customized screens.

10) Track Users That Opt-Out to Re-solicit with Highly Contextual In-App Messaging

If opted-out users view specific products, visit the “Deals” page, or perform some other in-app activity that signals strong intent, use the insight to tailor in-app messages offering single tap sign-up to related notifications. If users understand the additional and targeted value they’d receive through the immediacy of notifications, they’ll be more likely to reconsider their initial opt-out decision.

Learn more about how you can use Mobile App Notifications

The post Top 10 Tips to Get the Opt-In appeared first on Airship.

If you’re not already excited about RCS messaging, we predict you will be soon. Sometimes referred to as “the new SMS” or SMS 2.0, RCS is an incredible new channel for creating customer experiences on mobile — no app required. 

Here are just a few RCS highlights: 

• Early results from brands trialing RCS have been incredibly impressive, with massive open and engagement rates (download our white paper for more stats and examples)
• Consumer demand for RCS messaging is high — a recent GSMA study (RCS Business Messaging Research Study) showed 75% of consumers prefer RCS over SMS for interacting with brands.
• RCS creates intuitive, friction-free customer experiences within the native messaging app — no app download required.

The time to get going on RCS is now. 

According to GSMA, “While SMS will remain a key part of the Business Messaging business model, mobile operators and aggregators that serve a predominantly smartphone market should start to actively engage with RCS Business Messaging or risk finding themselves at a significant competitive disadvantage.” 

So download our whitepaper today to get a jumpstart on your RCS strategy.

Our experts are at the ready to help you take full advantage of the RCS opportunity — and help you crush your mobile customer engagement goals. Get in touch and let’s go!

The post RCS Messaging Is a Gamechanger: Are You Ready? appeared first on Airship.

Web push notifications, sometimes called web push or web notifications, provide marketers a way to reach one of their largest audiences: website visitors.

It’s important to have the ability to address website visitors. Why? Because your website drives volumes of visitors and this channel is likely the first touch a consumer may have with your brand.

With Airship’s Web Notify solution, you can create notification-style messages for web visitors (even when they aren’t active on your website). Use web push alongside your mobile app engagement strategy for an omni- channel approach, or as a standalone messaging channel.

Here are three categories of web push notifications brands can consider to deepen connections with website visitors.

Related Content: For even more ideas and inspiration, download our Web Push Notifications Inspiration Guide

Transactional: Deliver Value & Utility

If you’re anything like me, when you order something you want to know where it is at every step of the way — especially when it’s reached your door.

Use transactional notifications to confirm a purchase, provide shipping and order updates, notify a customer of a bump in status — even direct deposit availability or pending transactions.

They can also be helpful during onboarding to illustrate the value of taking an action like registering an account or creating a profile.

Send a notification when a customer has reached the next level of status in a loyalty program. You can even add an interactive button to prompt immediate action. In this example, a button invites the visitor to take advantage of an exclusive discount. Bonus points for deep-linking to a specific page on your site based on their preferences.

Educational: Engage With News & Updates  

Informing your audience via web notifications about key events, just released products or new features keeps them up to date and coming back for more.

For example, a retailer can share the latest lookbook or new apparel that just landed. Upon clicking or tapping on the notification, the user could be deep-linked back to a specific page, such as “men’s new arrivals.” This could be based on tagging (men, women, kids, etc.) or a customer’s account history to see what they’ve shopped most in the past.

Share the latest product releases, events and features your visitor will want to know about.

Educational web push notifications are particularly relevant to organizations who want to deliver notifications quickly at scale — like breaking news, sports scores, or other time sensitive information.

Promotional: Drive Conversions

Promotional web notifications share offers and special opportunities intended to drive conversion.

For example, a brand could send a web notification sharing an in-store event or exclusive, bridging the digital and physical by encouraging a visit to the nearest brick and mortar location. Or, let a visitor know when an item in their cart is low inventory or goes on sale to increase likelihood of purchase.

Drive conversions with promotional web notifications. You can also use notifications to prompt in-store visits — deep link to a page that allows visitors to find the closest location.

Promotional messaging needs to be a win-win for you and your customers. Consider rewarding them for their loyalty by sending, a buy-one-get-one offer or special pricing if they book within a certain window.

We recommend using promotional messages after visitors have visited your website several times and have become acquainted with your brand, and the value they’ll receive.

Use Web Push to Deepen Relationships With Website Visitors

Airship’s Web Notifications support many features to help you optimize the performance of each message, including segmentation, automation, personalization and A/B testing. It also provides custom events to measure ROI based on key performance indicators.

Want more ideas for using web notifications? Check out our Web Notifications Inspiration Guide. Ready to get started? Get in touch anytime!

The post 3 Ways to Use Web Push to Connect With Your Customers appeared first on Airship.

Since then, the company has gone through a lot of changes, sent many more messages and grew relationships with many more clients. We are now called Airship and we provide much more than push notifications. We have a comprehensive and powerful Customer Engagement Platform that integrates multiple channels, like Apps, SMS, Mobile Wallet, and Web Notifications, to drive deeper customer connections and better business outcomes with coordinated, automated and personalized messages.

A decade of achievements was difficult to narrow down, but we wanted to highlight some of the ones we’re particularly proud of:

• June 2009: Urban Airship sent out the first push notification as a small start-up in Portland, OR.
• August 2011: Just two years later, we delivered our 5 billionth mobile push notification.
• Oct 2011: Made our first acquisition with SimpleGEO and opened up a second location in San Francisco.
• May 2012: Won Global Enabling Technology Company of the Year from the Mobile Marketing Association.
• December 2012: Made our second acquisition with Tello and opened our London office. Urban Airship was now officially global.
• May 2014: Published our Our Good Push Index, showing that highly targeted messages drove 293% more influenced app opens on average than broadcast messages, solidifying the critical importance of a segmented approach to push messaging.
• October 2014: Brett Caine becomes President and CEO of Urban Airship.
• November 2016: Launched the industry’s first (and still only) third-party support for Apple News notifications.
• November 2016: On Election Day for the U.S., Urban Airship broke records delivering 2.5 billion notifications in 24 hours, equivalent to eight notifications per person in the U.S. or one notification for every active smartphone in the world.
• May 2017: Delivered our 1 trillionth notification.

• September 2017: Forrester Research, Inc., named Urban Airship a Leader in “The Forrester Wave: Mobile Engagement Automation, Q3 2017.”
• February 2018: Continued our global expansion with the opening of our India office.
• July 2018: Named a Leader by Gartner, Inc. in its 2018 Magic Quadrant for Mobile Marketing Platforms, positioned furthest to the right  in the Leaders quadrant on the completeness of vision axis overall.
• August 2018: Set a message delivery speed record by sending 400,000 notifications per second during the conclusion of the 2018 World Cup as traffic spiked for nearly seven minutes.
• November 2018: Received the highest product scores in three of four use cases in Gartner’s 2018 Critical Capabilities for Mobile Marketing Platforms. That same month, we also won Mobile Marketing Magazine’s Most Effect Messaging Campaign award for our other record-breaking campaign with BBC News for the Royal Wedding coverage.
• January 2019: Established our dominant global leadership position by acquiring continental Europe’s largest provider, Accengage.

• March 2019: Won Best Mobile Marketing Platform from the ClickZ Marketing Technology Awards.
• April 2019: Rebranded with the name Airship to showcase the game-changing customer engagement we deliver for the world’s leading brands across all digital channels.

To celebrate our ten year anniversary, we’ve launched an official Instagram account: @airshipsocial! Please make sure to follow us there and across our social channels as we share the next chapters in our continuing journey to revolutionize the ways brands serve and engage with their customers.

Subscribe to our blog for weekly updates and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook!

The post 10 Years, Trillions of Notifications & More Than Two Thousand Amazing Clients appeared first on Airship.

The exact definition depends on how you measure mobile engagement:

• If you have a breaking news or social app for which you’re measuring daily active users (DAU), a “dormant” user could be one who hasn’t engaged in a week or two.
• For a shopping or retail app that’s integrated with other promotional and relationship channels, more infrequent usage might be OK, especially if you are evaluating a customer’s activity level across all your channels.
• Gaming apps may implement success metrics like DAU, monthly active users or something else like purchase volume.

Whatever way you choose to measure a dormant user, they pose challenges to data hygiene and often uninstall the app. But avoiding uninstallation isn’t your only goal. Disengagement is much more common and has the same effect — lack of conversion and, likely, loss of revenue.

Why Users Go Dormant

The most consistently named attribute of frequently used apps is that they make a user’s life easier. Apps like WhatsApp, Gmail and Waze provide clear benefits to their users and are consistently highly-ranked in the app store.

An app has to be valuable, and your user must also see that value. Google’s survey named the three following factors as the most important for frequent app usage:

1. Ease of use. Good user experience, clear instructions and good onboarding all help users realize the value that your app provides.
2. Aesthetic appeal. Thoughtful art direction is a key part of good user experience, and is also a key factor in establishing credibility with your users.
3. Consistent cross-device experience. Whether a user visits your website, uses your app or receives an email from you, consistency is crucial in helping your user accomplish their goals.

Users can go dormant for lots of other reasons, of course. If your app crashes frequently or is otherwise unreliable, users will stop using it. If you bother or annoy users with unwanted messages, expect uninstalls. No app is perfect, but the users who go dormant have found the flaws in your app outweigh the benefits. Reducing those flaws, or finding other ways to make the app more beneficial, will keep your users from leaving in the first place.

Re-Engagement Strategies to Win Back Users

As you work to improve your app overall, use the data you have. Use it to see how long users are dormant before they uninstall. For example, you might know that once a user hasn’t looked at the app in 15 days, their chances of uninstalling the app rise dramatically. In that case, focus your efforts on keeping them from hitting that 15-day window.

Specific offers can also often help dormant users get more value out of your app immediately.  Experiment with compelling offers like:

• Discounts or coupons for items that you know pique their interest. These are most effective for retail, travel and local apps. Use your knowledge of what the user has engaged with before — perhaps even what’s in their cart — to get them back into the app.
• Special content. For a sports app, can you provide an exclusive guide to building the perfect bracket, available only through the app? 
• Updates on friends and family who have joined. One way that LinkedIn and Facebook got so popular is that they let users search for people they know on the service. And they keep them coming back by sending updates. Tell your users how many of their friends have joined since they left.
• New product and feature notifications. Let dormant users know about what been added since their last visit that makes the app more useful for them.

Utilize All Messaging Channels

Since your users aren’t engaging in the app, the best route is likely to message them via push. Push notifications show up on their home screen, and bring the user back into the app with one click.

Within your notification, deep link users back to the specific app screens that support your message. This isn’t a good time to send them back to the front page of your app and hope they’ll convert. You need to give them a focused task that helps them remember why they installed the app in the first place.

And lastly, make sure to use a highly-targeted message. A disengaged user should actually be easier to get back than they were to acquire, since you already have data on their preferences. For example, if they have an abandoned shopping cart, offer them a discount on one of those items. Or if you know their geographic location, send them relevant offers.

You Won Them Over Before, You Can Do It Again

Dormant users at one time found enough utility in your app to download it. You’ve done that hard work. You now have an opportunity to win those users back with the right strategy and technology in place. A focus on demonstrating that initial utility, which you should have data on, is the key to driving increased mobile engagement.

The post Addressing and Winning Back Dormant App Users appeared first on Airship.

Recall those stories and more, in our list of top ten blog posts from 2018.

1) Highlights From Gartner’s 2018 Critical Capabilities for Mobile Marketing Platforms Report

We were thrilled and honored to be recognized by Gartner in two reports in 2018, the Magic Quadrant for Mobile Marketing Platforms and the 2018 Critical Capabilities for Mobile Marketing Platforms. The reports offered a comparative analysis that scores competing products and services against a set of critical capabilities identified by Gartner, with Urban Airship named a Leader in both reports. Check out the latest report >>  

2) Get Insights From Leading Brands From Our Digital Engagement Forum Series

What a season it’s been! From Paris to Toronto, San Francisco and even to Mumbai, our Digital Engagement Forums brought together some of the brightest marketing minds from leading brands like SXSW, The New York Post, Zilllow and Adidas. There were a lot of great insights shared across the board, but we picked out some of the best for you from the different events. Here are the highlights >>

3) Short and Sweet: Intelligent SMS Messages Pay Off  

This year we added SMS to the engagement channels available on the Urban Airship platform. Why? Because SMS text messaging is a critical — and incredibly effective — component of a strong omnichannel marketing strategy. With this add to the platform, we’ve also been publishing content meant to help you make the most of the channel. Check out some or all of these, including “SMS Top 10 FAQ” and “SMS Regulatory Compliance: What You Need to Know About Text Messaging.” Learn More About SMS >>

4) Now You Can Do (Way) More With Mobile Wallet & Google Pay  

Urban Airship was the first to support tickets and boarding passes in Google Pay. The combination of Google Pay’s new ticket support and the Urban Airship platform makes it easy for any business to provide best-in-class user experiences on mobile wallet. Vue Entertainment joined the partnership and become the first movie theater in the UK to offer paperless movie tickets on Google Pay. Get the Details >>

5) Urban Airship Helps Our Clients Score Big With Faster Push Notifications

During the final of the 2018 World Cup, Urban Airship hit a new peak throughput record of 380,000 notifications/per second, which was sustained for more than one minute. How did we send so many, so fast? With Urban Airship Boost, our proprietary system that can deliver notifications within a minute — even when pushing to audiences of 10 million or more. See what Boost can do for you, and Check Out Our Other World Cup Game Numbers >>

6) Protecting Privacy: Urban Airship and GDPR

After many years in the making, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is here. We’ve welcomed GDPR as an opportunity to highlight our commitment to data protection and privacy rights. As your trusted provider, we’re also committed to supporting your GDPR-compliant use of our platform. See What We’re Doing With GDPR >>

7) Getting the Most Out of  iOS 12

Apple’s iOS 12 came, in part, as a response to a new mindset that’s growing among consumers — people want more control over their digital experiences. Many of iOS 12’s features make it easier for brands to give customers more control over how they receive notifications. Here are four things marketers need to know about iOS 12 >>

8) Our Execs Tackle Vital Digital Marketing Issues in Top Marketing Publications

Our leaders and experts shared their unique insights in publications like Adweek and the Washington Post on topics ranging from boosting customer engagement to giving predictions about the marketing trends that will matter the most for brands in the coming year. Steve Tan explained what it takes to deliver customer experiences that lead to increased loyalty and company growth, Mike Stone picked four bands that are great at defining moments, Mike Herrick shared his tech fears as a parent, and Nigel Arthur explained what Open Banking can do for app development, to highlight a few.

9) How to Get Ready to Go All In On Voice

We’re quickly heading into a world where we will increasingly speak to launch a digital experience instead of tapping or clicking icons, so marketers need to start contemplating voice user interfaces as the new home screens. Purchases made through voice-powered devices are projected to explode from $2 billion now to $40 billion by 2022. Are You Voice-Ready? >>

10) Answers to 6 FAQs About Marketing Orchestration

Coordinating messages across engagement channels isn’t easy, but since customers don’t think of channels in silos, neither should brands. To help, Mike Herrick and Alyssa Meritt hosted the webinar, “From Garageband to Symphony: How to Orchestrate your Marketing Messaging Across Channels.” In it, they answered a lot of questions about how why marketing orchestration matters, how to use orchestration to create “super fans” for your brand, and how our unique approach can help you level-up your orchestration capabilities. Make Marketing Music With Orchestration >>

What would you like to see more of (or less of) on the Urban Airship blog in 2019? Contact us and let us know!

Never miss a blog post in 2019. Subscribe to our blog newsletter, for the very best of our content delivered straight to your inbox once a week.

The post Our Top 10 Blog Posts From 2018 appeared first on Airship.

Marketing leaders from NBCUniversal and the New York Post were on stage at our New York Digital Engagement Forum to talk about what’s working for their brands. We also had loyalty platform Aimia getting us up to speed on the latest trends in driving customer long term value. Read on for some of the key takeaways from the event!

Focus on Offering Great Content Everywhere Audiences Want to See It

The physical version of the New York Post is just one way the publication reaches their audience — their digital properties have an exponentially larger reach — and a very different audience, said Remy Stern, Chief Digital Officer, New York Post. Recognizing that different channels make sense for different users, the New York Post maximizes customer choice by providing their content in every channel they can from email alerts to push notifications and beyond.

Jason Reid, Director, Audience Development & Operations, NBCUniversal said their aim has not been to focus on just one platform, but to make great content and make it available everywhere. Their teams are keeping an eye on new ways people are consuming content and adjusting their strategies — audio, newsletters, social push notifications and email are all valid for different users who need to be served differently, said Reid.   

Create “Thoughtful & Detailed” Workflows To Stay Accurate While Moving Quickly

Given all of the places news needs to get pushed to —  and the number of people in different locations involved — prompted NBCUniversal to implemented a “detailed and thoughtful” workflow for the content and notifications they create. Their workflow helps maintain accuracy, make processes more efficient and reduces errors — because “being right is more important than being first to break news,” said Reid.

Stern agreed and described the centralized management system The New York Post has put in place to make sending out push notifications and email alerts from a centralized location, including a built-in review process. It’s important to have the process dialed in because, while you can change a headline on the website, Stern said, “you can’t take back a push.”  

Allow Users to Set Preferences to Drive Deeper Engagement

NBCUniversal recently changed their app onboarding process to prompt users to choose the news categories they want notifications for in the preference center, said Reid. Within a few months after go live, they saw a 10% lift in engagement, and saw uninstall and opt-out rates decline.

Onboarding is important at the New York Post as well; Stern noted that it’s important not to overwhelm users with too many choices at the start, but rather to lead them through a flow that makes sense, and allow them to get granular if they choose. Also important is making sure users understand what they’ll  be receiving when they turn on notifications.

Be Hyper Relevant

Allow an audience to choose exactly what they want to see through segmentation is important — both for the audience and for the New York Post, said Stern. But it’s also important to have a broad option — at the New York Post it’s “Editor’s Choice” — that crosses segments to create opportunities to talk to a bigger percentage of your audience at the same time.

To break through the volume of notifications most people get on their phones each day, NBCUniversal teams are always asking: how do we make our alerts as relevant as we can? For example, proximity alerts that let users know it’s going to rain in 5 minutes have been very successful.

Listen To Your Audience

“If we’re not listening to the audience, what are we doing,” said Reid. NBC Universal has added the ability to provide feedback right in the app — they also stream that feedback directly into a Slack channel for the whole team to be able to easily see, using that feedback to make changes and updates.

Foster a Culture of Continuous Digital Transformation

For brands that didn’t start out digital, making the shift to thinking digital-first and mobile-first can be a challenge, said Stern. Small changes — and small victories — are important for turning the ship in a different direction. (For example, making it a part of the process for newsroom editors to write and A/B test several headline and notification options for each story they publish.) “Your work is never done — and you’re always asking how you can do things better. You can’t be complacent because things are changing so quickly,” said Stern.

Reid agreed: creating a data-driven culture can be a daily struggle, as a business transforms — which sometimes includes two steps forward and one step back as people revert to old habits and ways of doing things. But once people really see the difference — and the results of taking a digital-first approach — they’re in.

Tap Into the Power of Digital Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs have been around a long time, said Sara Galloway, Head of Strategy, Aimia, but there is a still a massive untapped opportunity in making loyalty programs even more sophisticated and valuable — for you and your customers. Not only are loyalty programs a fantastic way to increase customer long term value, they can help increase your number of “known” users in your database, unlock a treasure trove of essential data about your customers, and helping you do more orchestrated omnichannel marketing.

Don’t miss out on our upcoming Digital Engagement Forums, coming to cities near you! See the cities and register to attend here!

The post 7 Digital Marketing Takeaways from NBCUniversal, The New York Post & Aimia from Our NYC Digital Engagement Forum appeared first on Airship.

The number of devices, channels, apps, services, media, ways to pay for stuff, etc. is growing. It’s always going to grow. You have engage customers where they already are and serve up right-sized experiences proactively based on their real-time context if you want to be a Customer Experience (CX) transformer.  So says the authors of the Forrester report “Consumers Are Connected; Your Company Isn’t” — this is our take on that report. 

No firm should offer all services on all devices, platforms, and channels. Most, however, fall short on engaging their customers where they already are and keeping pace with consumer expectations. But the easy way to spot a CX transformer in the market (they don’t morph into fighting robots, darn it), is that they’re employing mobile to transform customer experiences.

What’s the ROI on that? The majority of CX transformers see positive financial returns from mobile and emerging technologies while only 16% of shrink-and-squeeze firms do.

The largest difference between CX transformers and shrink-and-squeeze firms is in their use of notifications.

To that end, what follows are my takeaways of Consumers Are Connected; Your Company Isn’t, by Julie A. Ask and Mike Chirokas. I’ll also offer some thoughts on how CX transformers stand out from their peers, and touch on some business and technical challenges ahead.

CX transformers are Squeezing Out Slow Mobile Movers

According to Forrester, CX transformers apply “in-app messaging, interactive push notifications, and rich push notifications” at a far greater rate than their  counterparts. But compared to firms at different maturity levels, CX Transformers are: a) channel, device and experience agnostic and, b) adept at meeting mobile natives on their own terms.

By comparison, so-called shrink-and-squeeze firms (a third of Forrester’s sample), pursue brand consistency and “bolt on new channels, shrinking and squeezing experiences from the PC browser onto a smaller screen.” These leads to repetition across channels, not evolution in experience.

Mobile-first firms are closer to the mark. These firms “understand that new technologies offer new possibilities but are yet to implement them.” That may be because they’re in less demand-driven service industries, such as insurance or wealth management, or because budgets/staffing/strategy are simply inadequate to implementing and optimizing transformative techs. And beginning with limited potential is not a good way to transform customer experiences.

What CX Transformers are Doing Right

Simply put, CX transformers understand the full potential of mobile to transform experiences. “They use emerging devices, platforms, and channels to enhance customer experiences . . . They make smart choices to meet customers where they are — and are rewarded as a result.”

Examples of CX transformation done right:

• Airlines and hotels with mobile check-in, boarding passes or room keys;
• Quick-service restaurants with “order on mobile, pick up in-store” services;
• Brands using emerging techs to create new business models (e.g. MetroMile, Proteus, Volvo, John Hancock)

Who’s a CX Transformer?

What follows are snippets from a few case studies referenced by the authors of Consumers Are Connected; Your Company Isn’t:

• USA Today uses rich push notifications to show stock charts alongside text. Using the push notification, the customer can choose to save, share, or see more new stories directly from her home screen. Rich push notifications have driven an 18% increase in app opens for USA Today.
• Virgin Trains sends SMS alerts to passengers 2 minutes before platform information appears on the board. This has improved customer satisfaction significantly. Lesson learned: messaging is critical to delivering great contextual experiences. Brands with a big data set, a high % of user opt-ins, and a knowledge of their messaging KPIs outperform those just getting started
• eXtra, a consumer electronics retailer in Saudi Arabia, uses web push notifications to connect with Android web visitors. Click through rate is about 12%, and web consumers are 4x as likely to return to the site as those that opt out of notifications.

CX Transformers Still Have Much to Learn

At this point, if you don’t support smartphones and tablets in addition to desktop, you’re not really in the game. But a CX transformer can’t stop there. “Firms have been slow to embrace smartwatches, voice assistant speakers, or virtual reality (VR) headsets … too many stop at smartphones and tablets when delivering digital experiences for their best customers — even though these will go out of their way to download apps for emerging devices.”

On the other side of the same coin, apps alone won’t do, either. “Progressive web apps and instant apps are an effective alternative to mobile apps for medium- and low-frequency users who just want to get something done and get out. However, 92% of firms aren’t using either of these channels, and about a third don’t even know about them yet.”

One more thing CX transformers need to get better at, according to the Forrester report, is sorting out how to build, buy or borrow engaging moments from others. “Digital business pros must borrow moments from third-party platforms like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google to reach their customers and offer them convenience by inserting their services into existing task flows.”

Makes sense —  if there’s a good thing happening, smart brands want to be there. But in this case, according to the authors, emerging market reality and current market response have a gap. “Few of even the CX transformers offer messaging (18%) or chat bots (9%) on third-party platforms.” Fewer still are creating voice experiences, and that’s surprising, considering Forrester’s prediction for smart speakers in 26 million households in the US alone by the end of 2018.

CX Transformers Will, Well, Transform

So, clearly there’s plenty of room for more CX transformers to emerge. Want to be among them? Get Forrester’s additional recommendations in the report — download your complimentary copy today.

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Marketing leaders from eHarmony, Guess and Urban Airship led the conversations at our Los Angeles Digital Engagement Forum on Thursday, on topics ranging from leveraging data to boosting loyalty to using data to drive your engagement strategy. Here are a few of the key takeaways:

1) Leverage Unique App Features to Drive Deeper Engagement & Loyalty

Guess has five apps in their portfolio at this time. They use the apps to drive customer engagement and loyalty — as well as to learn more about their most valuable customers, said Haseeb Tariq, Mobile Marketing at Guess.

Understanding the role your app can uniquely play in your overall customer engagement strategy is key to getting the most out of it, said Tariq. For example, during app onboarding, Guess asks their customers specific questions like “who are you shopping for” to better personalize and understand that customer — and apply that knowledge to communications on other channels. They also offer an app-only service: connecting with a Guess stylist who offers personalized advice and recommendations.

The app is also a powerful conduit to growing their loyalty program: customers who have taken the extra step of downloading an app are prime candidates for a deeper brand relationship.

Haseeb Tariq, Mobile Marketing at Guess on stage with Alyssa Meritt, moderator and Head of Strategy for Urban Airship.

2) Beware of Tunnel Vision: Look to Other Industries for Ideas

If retailers are only looking at other retailers for marketing program ideas, they’re missing a big opportunity, said Tariq. If app engagement is your goal (and it should be, given that app churn rates can be brutal)  be sure you are regularly taking a long look at other apps that share that goal — especially gaming apps. Guess has added a feature called “Spin the Wheel” in their app, gamifying deals and discounts. By giving users a reason to come back to the app every day, they’ve seen an increase in daily active users — and those users have spent more than average.

3) Choose Your Data Carefully

When choosing what marketing data to look at, said Gareth Mandel, Director of Product Marketing, eHarmony, it’s good to ask the question: Is this going to change my decision or am I going to do the same thing anyway? For example, if you’re not going to change what you’re doing no matter what, is it worth doing the data analysis in the first place? If your learn that only 1% of your customers are going to be able to use a particular feature or product, will you be willing to stop offering it? Putting data to work for your team is critical — and so is looking at data through the lens of actionability.

4) Trade What’s Kind of Effective for What’s Most Effective

In the same vein, Mandel recommends brands look carefully at the opportunity cost of certain customer engagement tactics. Obviously brands can’t inundate customers with every message they could send all the time. So if a marketing tactic you’re using isn’t driving value for you and your customers, you’ve got to be willing to turn it off in exchange for something that’s better. Doing that is a key part of making sure you’re managing your customer engagement strategy holistically — and being willing to experiment and change your approach based on customer feedback and data.  

5) Predictive Machine Learning Tools + Automation = Powerful Combo for Better Results

Machine learning is a fantastic tool for digital marketers, said Lisa Orr, data scientist with Urban Airship. And it’s even more powerful when you combine it with marketing automation tools. For example, using Urban Airship’s predictive churn solution, marketers are triggering automated messaging when a user’s churn risk escalates. One retailer has set an automation that sends a too-good-to-pass-up offer to a user who has moved from medium to high risk of churn, and is seeing significant uplift in customer engagement and retention.

Don’t miss out on our upcoming Digital Engagement Forums, coming to cities near you! See the cities and register to attend here!

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