So what’s your plan for converting those new users into the loyal customers who will contribute to hitting your app business goals all year long?

Here are three ways to improve app user retention for customers (and potential customers) who downloaded your app during the holidays:

1) Acknowledge That People Who Downloaded Your App During the Holidays are Different 

Building a strategy for retaining holiday app users starts with recognizing that they might have different goals than those who download your app at other times during the year.

One way to test this hypothesis is to track your holiday download cohort and learn from their behavior. Our mobile analytics tool, Insight lets you review user activation and retention data.

Look at the date of install, and date of inactivity, churn or app deletion. Is the duration different than users acquired outside of the holiday period? What offers did they see or redeem? What pages did they visit? Did they make a purchase?

2) Act on Your Hypotheses About Your Holiday Download Cohort

Once you know something about this cohort, act on your hypotheses about who they are and what you might be able to do to engage (or re-engage) them — this year or next.

If I see that most of the users in my holiday cohort become inactive — or delete my app within a certain number of days after download — I have a better idea of the window of time I have to hook users before I lose them.

Looking at the offers they redeemed or purchases they made, I may also have some ideas about the messages that might resonate best.

Automating messages that will be sent based on a custom event trigger make this simple. In this case, a message sent after a customized length of inactivity (whatever is reasonable for your app — a day, a week, two weeks, a month or more) could help you turn a short-term user into a long-term fan.

3) Answer the Burning Question: “Why Should I Hang On to This App?”

I buy from one gourmet food retailer exactly once a year, when I purchase a fruitcake for my father. The company I order from offers a mobile app discount which has kept me coming back year over year. But I typically delete their app after my one purchase.

What could they do to keep me year round?  

Here are ideas for improving app user retention:

Show Them the Value

If holiday users were downloading your app just to get deals, they may have no idea what other features and benefits the app offers. Why not create a series of in-app marketing messages that make the value clear?  

An in-app message series could contain a mini-tour of features and benefits of the app — with an emphasis on reasons to use the app year-round (You can prompt your opt-in audience to look at the series with a push notification that deep links to the series – or retarget them with messages through other marketing channels.)

For example, my gourmet food app could show me how incredibly easy they make it for me to give gifts — at any time of the year — by offering to send me personalized reminders for occasions I don’t want to forget (co-workers’ birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)

Or, the message series could share some fun statistics about what gourmet food gifts are most popular for gift-giving occasions throughout the year, showcasing gift ideas I wouldn’t have otherwise considered.  

Make Them a (Personalized) Offer They Can’t Refuse

Combining a value message with a deal or offer for the next natural gift-giving occasion —  a discount on Valentine’s Day gifts for example — and there’s a good chance you’ll have your users thinking about reasons to come back.   

For example, the gourmet food app could send me an offer for a discount on Valentine’s Day gift baskets. The message could even be personalized to show only those baskets that are in the same price range as the gift I already purchased.

Mobile Marketing Opportunities Should Never Be One And Done

Mobile marketing is relationship marketing. Long-term customer engagement on mobile means understanding your users and creating ongoing value. The result is a win-win where your users are delighted, while you continue to boost your mobile app retention rates — and grow your app.

Need some inspiration? We’ve got useful mobile tips and marketing tricks all year long! Subscribe to our blog and never miss a post.

The post 3 Ideas for Improving App User Retention from Holiday Downloads appeared first on Airship.

Mobile and media thought leaders from GameStop, SXSW, TGI Fridays, and Bottle Rocket took the stage at our Dallas Digital Engagement Forum. Here are a few of the insights they shared:

Use Smart Engagement Strategies to Create Great Customer Experiences

“Customer experience is everything,” said Michael Brown, Director of Innovation and Emergent Technologies for SXSW. They’re always looking for ways to use tech to make experiences at the event better — more frictionless, more engaging and more modern. Brown shared a few examples of successful customer-first initiatives:

• Replacing wristbands with mobile wallet passes: customers loved them, and production costs were slashed.

• Implementing location-aware notifications that makes messaging more personalized —  including using beacons to trigger location-specific experiences.

• Piloting the use of a machine learning-powered recommendation engine to help give event attendees a more personalized experience (including discovering events they might not otherwise have uncovered) based on their preferences, which events they’ve been too (gathering data via RFID scans) — and even third-party data like their Spotify favorites and playlists.

To get CX right, Brown encouraged digital marketers to have an experimentation mindset, and to be dedicated to creating ways to get customer feedback — and really pay attention to it.

Mark McKinney, SVP Corporate Strategy at Bottle Rocket echoed this sentiment, “The bar for what customers consider a good experience is going up every day.” He also made the point that customers increasingly equate trust with digital savvy. And the bottom line business costs are growing, too. McKinney said 57% of consumers in a recent study said they’ve stopped buying from a brand and went to a competing brand for a better experience — and 62% of consumers say they’ll tell other people about a bad experience they’ve had.

McKinney also noted the importance of recognizing that brands are no longer competing with their immediate competitors — they’re competing with brands who are creating frictionless, intuitive, highly personalized digital experiences. All the more need to get it right.

Use Data to Be There in the Moments That Matter

GameStop and TGI Fridays talked about ways their brands are using data to better serve customers — by predicting the moments that will matter most, and being there in those moments.

For GameStop, it’s about taking the data they have about their customers — especially their loyalty customers — and picking up and analyzing the “breadcrumb trail” they’re leaving to anticipate what they may want and when they will want it, said Sonia Williford-Gill, Senior Manager, Integrated Communications. Part of the solution is stitching together information from multiple business systems, including Salesforce, display ads and more to really see where customers are in their journey. They’re also looking for ways to make smarter recommendations and understanding customer intent.

At TGI Fridays they refer to these “moments that matter” as “occasions,” said James Washington, Director of Digital. They are listening to the data for signals of what occasions are important to customers — whether it’s an upcoming birthday celebration, pre-movie drinks or needing a quick option for takeout dinner. They want to be there in those moments with messaging that feels like a complimentary service, “not just another brand shouting at you,” said Washington.

Make (the Right) Data Accessible to the Right People

There is a ton of data available, said Washington, the key is making it meaningful, “shining a bright light on the things that are most important.” Staying focused on data points like what areas of the app and website customers have visited and how they engage with notifications are all important. Also important is stitching together what customers have done online versus what they’ve done in stores is a big challenge and a big focus. Connecting those dots — and working to make quicker decisions, and scale them, Washington says, is critical both for serving customers better and meeting TGI Fridays goals.

Look For Smarter Ways to Use Different Engagement Channels

TGI Fridays decided to launch on Alexa last year, and the results were interesting. While they loaded their entire menu into Alexa, their main focus was on promoting ribs — a great product for to-go orders. What did they learn? “Not all channels are created equal,” said Washington. While customers browsing the menu on their phones or on a desktop might want a lot of detail, on Alexa, the team found, customers just wanted to say something very quickly and get in and out of there. They made ordering ribs as easy as saying “I love ribs,” which helped. Another major boost to conversions happened when TGI Fridays implemented Amazon Pay with Alexa, which meant customers didn’t have to go through the multiple steps of connecting their credit card with their account. 

The GameStop team has also taken a deeper dive on how best to engage with customers on different channels, making sure messages on different channels are complementary, not repetitive, and are building out a journey and a story. For example, said Williford-Gill, if an in-store event is coming up for loyalty members on a Saturday, they’ll first send an email about a week before that gives event details and a sneak peek of the deals. Then on Friday, they’ll send a push notification reminding customers that the event is tomorrow, and on Saturday morning, they’ll send an SMS text with a very quick alert that the event is starting or just underway. This approach is driving bretter engagement and results. It’s important to understand how customers are using different channels, and match your messaging to that use, said Williford-Gill.  

Look For New Ways to Get More From Your App

TGI Fridays app is their highest growing channel and their main form of communication with customers. To capitalize on that, TGI Fridays uses the app data they get from Urban Airship to identify what the traits and behaviors of their highest value customers are, then applying that information in paid media channels to be more out of those buys.

For GameStop, it’s adding more and more reasons to use the app so that it has a compelling value prop — for both customers and employees. For example, they’ve added in an app feature that allows customers to estimate the value of a game trade-in, and then lock in that pricing offer for 24-hours. Loyalty program members also get a ton of benefit from the app, including being able to access coupons straight from the app. Selling the app to front-line employees, Williford-Gill added, is a critical step in getting even more adoption and engagement from customers.  

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 Insights From Marketing Pros at GameStop, SXSW, TGI Fridays & Bottle Rocket From Our Dallas Digital Engagement Forum appeared first on Airship.

At our recent Toronto Digital Engagement Forum, mobile and media thought leaders from Walmart, Rogers Sportsnet and Urban Airship led conversations on topics ranging from how to drive more value during opt-in, to why all channels are created equal. Here are a few key takeaways:

Drive Push Notification Opt-Ins by Providing Clear Value

James Thomas, Principal Product Manager of Mobile Apps, discussed Walmart Canada’s strategy for getting more users to opt-in to push notifications. For Walmart, the magic came by offering users custom push notifications on “rollback pricing” items they were interested in. By offering this option as part of the onboarding process for its app, and providing a clear value-benefit, the brand created greater engagement and drove more opt-ins.

Work Hard To Make Things Easier For Users

It’s easy for product managers to over-complicate things when it comes to mobile experience, according to Thomas. Worse yet, some still want to go the other route and try to shoehorn a desktop experience into a mobile context. Maybe that gives you a ‘mobile experience’ but, a) it doesn’t represent your brand well, b) it probably won’t resonate with customers and c) it will probably make you less competitive. It’s much better for app designers and product managers to focus on turing complex interactions and processes and turning them into easy, one-tap experiences. Better yet, automate away the need for the click/tap and use the engagement time to help the user do something even more interesting.

Not All Channels are Created Equal

Omnichannel is the goal, but every channel, right now, isn’t always an option. Even if you have the most scalable marketing stack on the block, it’s impossible to always be positioned to service each new channel as it emerges. (Alexa, you’re causing a lot of marketers pain.)

To pick the channels (platforms, devices, whatever) that make sense, says Matthew Durst, Product Manager of Digital Media at Sportsnet, listen to your customers. For example, if they’re all over Roku and iOS, then there’s your early integration roadmap.

Messaging is a Must for News, Media and Sports Organizations

Durst also talked about Sportsnet’s use of messaging as a key tool in the network’s ability to engage fans. Being in the news business and reaching people with the message — both before anyone else and with more complete coverage — is critical.

The same is true for all forms of media and users, including sports fans (don’t wait to tell a Canadian the Toronto Maple Leafs just made a big trade, and then not know the details). The best in this space don’t just use notifications to be first with the news, they layer in context, complementary content, analysis, and response, letting the app user choose their level of engagement.

Being a “Product Person” is About More Than Managing

Technology changes fast and sometimes in ambiguous ways. Part of a product manager’s job is to read and adapt to these changes as they’re happening. This requires a broad and diverse skill set, according to Thomas, making it difficult to pigeonhole product people as managers in the classic sense.

Flexibility and adaptability, rather than strict adherence to plan, are critical, as is a strong sense of being the customer’s advocate. The best product people aren’t afraid to challenge status quo.

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 5 Ideas From Marketing Pros at Walmart Canada & Rogers Sportsnet From Our Toronto Digital Engagement Forum appeared first on Airship.

Marketing leaders from AMC, Caribou Coffee and Supervalu were on stage at our Minneapolis Digital Engagement Forum to talk about what’s working in digital engagement for their brands. Read on for some of the key takeaways from the event!

If You’re Looking for High ROI From Push Notifications, Consider What You Can Automate

“Mobile push has by far exceeded our expectations,” said Kelly Hayse, Director of Email, SMS, Mobile App Marketing at AMC Theaters, “not just in how it drives revenue, but also how it drives engagement.”  

AMC’s top performing push notifications are automated — triggered by abandoned carts; geo-based pushes announcing which new movies have come to which markets, and movie release date reminders users can set up themselves.

Because engagement rates and results from push notifications have been so strong, AMC is looking at how they might re-balance their communications from other channels to better leverage app push. For example, most of the communications they’ve done to loyalty program members have historically been email-based. But, looking at the advantages of push for in-the-moment messaging, they’re considering which part of loyalty program messaging might be a good fit for push notifications, and how it might drive even more engagement and revenue.

Digital Experiences Complement In-Person Experiences — and Can Create More Value in Both

When Supervalu launched online ordering and delivery, there was some concern that it might reduce the number of in-store visits said Jennifer Houselog, Digital Product Manager. What they found, however, is that customers who have an account and have ordered groceries online buy more from the brand overall making them are even more valuable than in-store only shoppers.

In fact, customers who had purchased through the app were still coming into the store — in part because Supervalu has more ways to incentivize them to do so, regularly sharing weekly deals, loyalty program perks like an in-store only “Friday Freebie” item, and more with push notifications.

Help Your Brand Stay Customer Focused

Product managers should be the voice of the customer, said Kelly Rehrauer, Product Manager at Caribou Coffee. Different teams have different goals, and revenue targets are always critical, but product managers can help keep the potential impact on the customer front and center. Rehrauer recommends making your product roadmap deeply focused on the Venn diagram overlap where better customer experiences will create more value for the brand and the customer — it’s easy to get organization-wide consensus and support for adding features and functions that are directly in that zone, she said. For example, adding Apple Pay, for example, or making changes that remove steps between customers and their coffee.  

Cross-Functional, Inter-Departmental Teams are Essential for Success

Each of the speakers at the Minneapolis Forum had significant stories to tell about the internal, cross-departmental relationships they’d built to drive more value for customers and their brands.

Kelly Rehrauer talked about the unique opportunity product owners have to convene both technical and marketing teams to remove siloes, and help everyone get and stay on the same course. She also talked about the deep relationship she has built with the loyalty team at Caribou, meeting with them weekly to share roadmaps, promotional calendars, and audience segmentation strategies to better align promotional efforts in the app and in-store.

Jennifer Houselog at Supervalu said that one of the first things she did after joining was set up meetings with functional teams across the brand to ask “what are your goals for the year?”  She wanted to start demonstrating the ways she could help them meet their goals more easily, gain their trust, invite them into conversations about the development of features they cared about — and make more progress on deeply integrating the app and website into all of the brand’s customer engagement strategies.

Likewise, Kelly Hayse at AMC realized there was an opportunity to not only convene cross-functional teams, but to show them — in detail, with the numbers — how their efforts were helping create tangible value for the brand. For example, AMC was doing incredibly well in terms of engagement, conversions and revenue growth from their email, SMS and mobile notifications, but the IT teams who had contributed to setting these up weren’t really in the loop on the fruit of their labors. Thanks to being clear about the results these channels were driving, Kelly has also been able to secure a dedicated IT resource to help her team set up the automations, triggers, API calls and more they need to continue driving results.

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 Insights from AMC Theaters, Caribou Coffee & Supervalu: Highlights from Our Minneapolis Digital Engagement Forum appeared first on Airship.

Marketing leaders from Allstate, Zillow and Urban Airship took the stage at our Chicago Digital Engagement Forum to talk about what’s working in digital engagement for their brands. Here are a few of the key takeaways:

1) Mobile Isn’t Just a Team or a Channel, It’s a Mindset

Sarah Buzak, Principal Product Marketing Manager at Zillow said that their mobile team works closely with other teams to stay aligned on delivering unified customer experiences — no matter what device or platform a customer is using. However she emphasized that, while there are some things people on the mobile team know more about than others, everyone needs to “own” mobile.

To emphasize that necessity, Buzak said Zillow continues to find new ways to make the mobile experience top notch for users. One way to help cross-functional teams keep mobile at the center of their strategies has been to have design and product teams present mobile web and mobile app designs first, rather than last. This simple step helps underscore the need to keep mobile at the forefront of Zillow’s customer engagement strategy.

2) Use What You Learn On Mobile to Drive Better Customer Experiences Across All Channels

Michael Antognoli, Senior Mobile Product Manager at Allstate said the term “mobile first” is a bit of a cliche, because it makes it seem like there are other things that come second, third, or fourth. It’s more important to think about what’s possible on mobile — for Allstate it’s things like photo-first claims, ordering a tow truck, and telemetric vehicle monitoring — and re-engineer the back end to support those richer, more contextual experiences — rather than trying to move existing, legacy processes onto a smart phone,

3) The Faster You Understand Intent, The Faster You Can Deliver What Your Customers Want or Need

Both Buzak and Antognoli talked about the importance of quickly identifying why a user is interacting with their brand at a particular moment in time so that they can deliver what that user is looking for faster.

For example, Zillow has re-engineered their app onboarding/welcome series to have users say right away whether they’re looking to buy, sell or rent. They’ve also made it easier to see how to switch between those functions as intent changes over time.

The Allstate app team knows that, in a stressful moment when someone needs roadside assistance or has to enter a claim, the last thing that person wants to do is try to find their account information to log in to the site or the app. Allstate no longer requires a login for those actions, and they've reduced the number of steps in each of those processes, fast tracking customers to help in their moment of need.

4) Look For Chances to Leverage Customer Intel to Add Unique Value

Zillow is always looking for ways to use the data they have from users to provide something unique to take action on, said Buzak. For example, Zillow can now send push notifications — based on your preferences, criteria and search history — that surface homes that might be a good fit that you haven’t already seen.

5) Ask Yourself: What Can’t Be Digitized?

Some customer experiences can’t be replicated digitally. For Allstate tapping into the expertise and experience of a local, trusted agent in face-to-face conversations will provide the best, most valuable experience.  

Zillow knows that it’s not practical to handle all of the complexities that go into selling a house in online-only interactions — that’s why they provide a point person to help customers through that experience.

Both brands, however, recognize that giving their agents the customer intelligence gathered in digital interactions means those agents have more time to focus on creating high-value conversations — and discovering even more ways to help meet customers' needs.

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 5 Digital Marketing Takeaways From Allstate & Zillow: A Recap of Our Chicago Digital Engagement Forum appeared first on Airship.

Here’s a recap of our favorite highlights, themes and more.

Interested in hearing other industry leaders share their thoughts? Stay on the lookout for one of our Digital Engagement Forums coming this year around the world.

Meeting App Users In the Moment

“This past year I think in terms of big wins for the business is really seeing how our consumers reacted to us launching the shopping app, and the incremental benefit was large. We’ve found that people who download the app are our most loyal users and brand fans. So when you compare this audience to the shopping behavior of those on our mobile website we found that our app user conversion rates were higher, they spend more and they spend more often. I really think its the tools that you can use within apps to get them to engage and re-engage and come back and the retention that you can leverage through push notifications and app messaging, you know, retargeting capabilities.” – Angela Hawkins, Mobile Marketing Lead at Under Armour

“On the eBay side of the house, if you still like the auction and the immediacy of auctions, push is very important there. Because if you’re watching an item and it’s about to expire, we’re gonna trigger something at like twenty minutes before to let you know ‘Hey come back, that item you’re watching is about to expire.’ If you’re bidding on something, and someone outbids you, we push messages to you to let you know ‘Jump back into the eBay app, your item, you’ve been out bid’ to make sure you still can be a player and potentially win that item. And then you can  increase your bid right there on the fly.” – James Meeks, Head of Mobile at eBay

Why App Onboarding is Important — and How to Make It Successful

“Consumers expect you to show something that they either like or are interested in and so in order to figure out what they are interested in, you have to ask them questions. For the Under Armour shopping app, we have an onboarding that we put every single user through, its a series of five different questions — it’s like a handshake — ‘thank you for coming to our app, let’s get to know you.’ Tell us what you’re interested in, are you a runner, are you a cyclist, are you into yoga? Do you shop for men or women? What of the Under Armour athletes inspire you so we have a list of our professional athletes like Tom Brady and Jordan Spieth. New users go through this onboarding and then it gives us a way to reach back out to them.”  – Angela Hawkins, Mobile Marketing Lead at Under Armour

“Brands need that preference center to truly understand that behavior, because you don’t want to send someone a push and an email with the exact same content. If I know you’re an engaged push notifications user then maybe I don’t send you as many emails but then at the same time, maybe there are better times for me to engage with you via email, that I know you wouldn’t normally respond to a push. I think you have a strategy where they all talk to each other across multiple text points so you can know this customer does this at this time, so I’m gonna send them this type of message.”  – James Meeks, Head of Mobile at eBay

Machine Learning Makes Delivering Relevant Content Smarter and Easier

“We try to break the news about ten to fifteen minutes before most of the major news apps through a combination of machine learning and human operation. We want to leverage machine learning and start surfacing content around your interests based on what news content you view in the app. But it will never replace the essential news from both sides and the top ten headlines are still gonna be challenging your assumption.” – Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, Head of U.S. Marketing at SmartNews

Trigger Messaging for Smarter Engagement

“The first thing that comes is behavioral triggers. I think that those do very well, so based on the behavior that a user has within the app, you’re basically triggering messages that relate to that. One of the most successful triggers that we have for the Under Armour app is the abandon cart trigger — as soon as someone leaves three days later they’ll get a push notification that says, ‘You still have this amazing gear in your cart.’ And the sales skyrocket. I think when people are on mobile, its a convenience, which is great — but that also means that they’re probably doing a lot of other things at the same time. So reminding them to come back and shop is a big moment.”  – Angela Hawkins, Mobile Marketing Lead at Under Armour

“Behavioral triggers are absolutely helpful – you have to have those embedded in your experience to truly understand what your customers are doing. I think you also want to build a preference center, so customers can choose the type of messages or types of ways you can engage with them. At eBay, we’ve set up our app so you can opt into push notifications, but there’s a number of levers, which you can pull within push too — so if you’re not interested in selling, we’re not gonna encourage you to start selling if you don’t want to. We’re also connected across our digital properties: if we’re pushing you a message and we also have your SMS, your phone number, and we also have your email, if we reengaged you on one channel, we don’t want to spend money elsewhere knowing that we already got you via that first channel. You have to be smart and understand that your systems need to talk to each other.”  – James Meeks, Head of Mobile at eBay

Creating an Omnichannel Experience with Orchestration

“I think what you, you have to find a good mix of it and you can collect the data, it’s how you put it back in the customer’s face, which is really important there. So I’d be subtle about the decisions I’ve made and the types of, ways in which I’d message a customer, based on what I know about them.” – James Meeks, Head of Mobile at eBay

“I think that, that creating of a customer profile, what you choose to actually message on versus what you choose to have a wider view of the customer’s, such as multiple touch points across different preps, apps or properties is interesting and also what they prefer from their channel perspective. I think that we’re moving towards more of this omnichannel world.” – Angela Hawkins, Mobile Marketing Lead at Under Armour

Always Be Testing to Continually, Learn, Refine and Improve

“At Under Armour we say always be testing. We spend about 80% of our budget and our time on things that we know work, and that work well, and the other 20% of our budget and our time we spend on testing new things and I think KPI’s play a big factor to that. So, if your key performance indicator is revenue then that needs to be decided on a monthly basis. Our entire marketing team has access to our data. So, on a monthly basis we’re always meeting and interpreting the data and interpreting the success and performance of previous campaigns and making decisions and optimizing based on that.”  – Angela Hawkins, Mobile Marketing Lead at Under Armour

“Don’t interpret data in vacuum with just the marketing team, or one person on the team. Make sure you share the data with other teams, like product. In our case, we share it with content — we try to have at least one 30 minute stand up every week to discuss data and different customer touchpoints.” – Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, Head of U.S. Marketing at SmartNews

“I definitely think you should test different strategies when it comes to messaging. A lot of times companies just go out the door with things and they stick with it. Test it, learn from it, see what the data says and really understand what the behaviors are of the customers after they’ve engaged with you. You have to look at more than just revenue. A lot of times people think “Well, if I send this message, how do I attribute it to revenue?” It’s not just revenue, you got to look at your opt out rates, people who uninstall the app, etc. It’s a full like all encompassing picture. The data’s truly going to tell the story.” – James Meeks, Head of Mobile at eBay

The post Digital Marketing Insights from eBay, Under Armour and SmartNews: Recapping the “Mobile Meat-Up” event appeared first on Airship.

If you’ll be in Austin, Texas during March 9-13 for SXSW Interactive, request an invite and join us March 10. Here’s what to expect and what we’re excited about.

There’s lots to look forward to in this full day event. And if you’ve attended any of our previous events during SXSW, you know we pack in quality content and great conversations!

To recap, here’s a few highlights:

• No SXSW badge required — all you need to do is request an invite.

• We take the stage at 11:00 a.m. to share how brands are unifying digital data, acting on engagement analytics, and orchestrating interactions, to meet their customers' goals and needs, starting with mobile.

• Hear from speakers at brands like Google, eBay, Condé Nast, Under Armour, HomeAway and more.

• This is a great event for app marketers, app agencies and product owners to attend, but everyone is welcome!

We hope to see you there! And in the meantime, subscribe to our blog to get the latest best practices, tips and information to help build better customer relationships across your marketing channels.

The post Join Us in Austin, Texas During SXSW Interactive appeared first on Airship.

What are the secrets for bringing great mobile experiences to life?

“Creating engagement around a business problem isn't the right approach, it has to be about what's delightful to your users. So, we focus on prototyping, lean methodologies, and vetting problems through lean frameworks. As long as I am solving a core requirement of what a customer needs, and doing it in a super interesting way, that's going to lead to engagement.” – Amber Foucault, Vice President, Product Management at Symbility

“When I think about what we want to put into a great experience, I go back to when I was hired. My boss said We need a new app, go to it. It was a rare opportunity to start fresh. We started with a visioning exercise, talked with our team about our brand strengths and the competitive landscape for sports apps. We prioritized based on our internal strengths and where we thought the tech was going. Three years later, we've added live streaming and a subscription product to support our original vision.” – Matthew Durst, Product Manager, Digital Media at Sportsnet & NHL Digital

Talk a little about your approach to storytelling and building a compelling brand experience.

“Today, brands feel like the best way to connect with consumers is through their phone, but sometimes struggle to take storytelling from other mediums and bring it into the phone. We try and bridge that by educating clients on how to use notifications, images and videos to pull the consumer through their screen and into the brand experience.” – Amber Foucault, Vice President, Product Management at Symbility

“Storytelling is key to our brand. Our main voices represent our brand and tell the stories. As a product and tech person, there's been a lot for me to learn about how to bring the best of that into a mobile context. We use iOS, Android, Apple TV, Apple Watch and Chromecast and they all have different consumption patterns, for example Apple TV has lower frequency but longer sessions. The challenge is figuring out what we can do in each scenario to deliver engagements that keep people coming back.” – Matthew Durst, Product Manager, Digital Media at Sportsnet & NHL Digital

Lapsed users are a common problem for many mobile marketers. How can you get more users to come back to your app?

“Our retail and gaming customers in particular are very interested in this. We’re seeing a renewed focus on re-engaging lapsed users using what I call a Golden Hockey Stick analogy, which is basically going back to get the users who first started using your app and getting them re-engaged” – Jillian Burnett, Director of Customer Success at mParticle

What’s the difference between artificial intelligence and machine learning, and why is machine learning so important in mobile?

“The low level of AI is your Roomba. The high level would be some kind of recommendation system that presents you with smart choices. The underlying technology that powers those smart choices is machine learning; it’s the tool that allows us to create the facade of intelligence. As to why it’s so important in mobile, there is just so much data constantly coming in from mobile devices. That makes customer data your bread and butter. Looking specifically at apps, by capturing data and learning from it I can determine when you use the app, even where if location is enabled, and your affinity for different types of engagement. Machine learning makes that possible.” – Lisa Orr, Data Scientist at Urban Airship

What are some of the challenges of working with AI here in the early days and how may those things change?

“I think a lot about how we can share that with customers to do the best job for them. Looking ahead, I think the evolution will be to elevate data models as enablers of goal-driven events. For example, in a dating app you think about users who open the app but don’t send any communications. How can we drive them forward into completing that journey. Maybe it's by learning from the people who are already doing what you want and creating an experience based on that to get people who drop out in the middle of the journey more engaged.” – Lisa Orr, Data Scientist at Urban Airship

What are some easy ways to start thinking about using data and how to succeed in the face of so-called data silos?

“I would say to start thinking about remarketing and user acquisition, and how to use your own data to make their marketing efforts smarter. I’d also suggest they stop wasting money targeting people who already have your app. As for data silos, success comes from the ability to recognize the problem and getting data into a common platform. Do that and you can start analyzing data and creating a consistent user experience across all platforms.” – Jillian Burnett, Director of Customer Success at mParticle

With machine learning models still under development, is there a way for brands and marketers to take advantage of them today?

“You can take advantage of the signals of people who are likely to leave you to automate retention messaging, for example. There’s still a ways to go to really unleash the power of machine learning, but what we're building now are a number of models for things like predictive churn, or the best time to send a notification. We’re also working on models to help you figure out what the right content is to send based on different sets of goals. The goal is to give our customers the tools to set the ideal attributes to manage all that. Hopefully, that will happen sooner than you may think.” – Mike Herrick, VP Product & Engineering at Urban Airship

Any thoughts for brands trying to do more and better with their data?

“Start by thinking about your goals, the data streams available to you, and what you want to know. You can do all those things today. Look at how you collect and organize data, and very importantly, how you share it between your own systems, or with others. You can do a lot to set yourself up for success by going through this exercise.” – Jillian Burnett, Director of Customer Success at mParticle

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The post Digital Marketing Insights from Symbility, Rogers Sportsnet and mParticle: Recapping Our Toronto Mobile Growth Workshop appeared first on Airship.

Want to grab some time with our experts to talk strategy? We’re always open to connecting: get in touch anytime!

Future Proofing Your App

“To future proof your app, two things are critical for you and your team: a clear understanding of your app’s business goals, and a roadmap. Taking the roadmap and dividing it into what your release schedule is going to be is another fantastic step towards future proofing. Knowing what your schedule is going to be means you can make plans further out in advance — and be able to more easily adapt as things change.” – Bradford Dillon, Senior Technical Architect, POSSIBLE Mobile

“Before we finalize our roadmap, we wait to see what Apple and Google are doing to announce. At least some of the time, it affects what we deliver.” – Patrick Evans, Senior Product Manager, NCAAA Digital for Turner Sports

“I’m always looking at what other companies are doing in terms of different features and customer experience. Like hey, that was a really great login experience, or that was great video programming or personalization effort. It’s looking outside of the median lines of my business to see what else is happening. Where are those cool innovators that are doing amazing things, and what can we learn?” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

Leveraging Video & Live Streaming

“We have ten TV markets around the country, so when it comes to what stakeholders want, it can be a bit mixed. Video is a common denominator because users watching more newscasts and playing more videos drives the revenue. Live stream is also a big business. It's expensive, but in those moments when news happens, users expect you to be there with a live stream. Making sure people have a positive video experience on any device — and finding ways to make it easy for users to watch video content when, how and where they want it — is mission critical for us.” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

Using Location Services

“We’ve done a lot of work with location — nearly every one of our projects has some form of location services in it. One of the keys to creating a great experience for users with location is getting the opt-in; that can be a big challenge. With location opt-in, it can be better to wait until they try to use the feature that requires location to ask. At that point, they obviously have showed that they’re interested in whatever the feature is.” – Bradford Dillon, Senior Technical Architect, POSSIBLE Mobile

“Location is definitely something our users want. For example, our users want to know the weather in their part of town. So we’re going to continually customize what the forecast looks like. Users also want to know about what’s happening in their particular part of town. We know that when users set up those preferences, they’re going to have more affinity to our brand and our app, and they’ll be more likely to use it regularly.” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

Engaging & Re-Engaging Users

“Brands often do onboarding for the initial app open, but you want to make sure when you’re updating the app and introducing new features that you also share what’s new. You might have the best app, but if you don’t point out features that might catch someone’s eye, you tend to lose those folks that might become a power user or a champion. Maybe someone hasn’t been in your app in the last 30 days. Target them via segmented messaging and show them what they’re missing.” – Andy Pikul, Technical Account Manager, Urban Airship

“There’s nothing quite like a traffic disaster or major hurricanes or tornado. During these moments, people are going to show up and tune in. They’re going to consume everything we can give them. Once we have those users, we know they’re going to keep coming back and that they’re more likely to consume content in the future.” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

Personalization & the Roles of Data, Preferences & Channels

“When users tell you they want to see things like weather alerts or sports scores, they want to see that information as soon as it’s available. Being able to take that data in and handle it quickly and get it to the user as fast as possible — based on their preferences, and including video in the push notification or links to video content — is really important.” – Bradford Dillon, Senior Technical Architect, POSSIBLE Mobile

“In terms of content, you can start from the baseline of giving everyone the same thing. But then there are not only personalizations for user preferences, but also what your content should look like in each individual channel — phone, tablet, watch, etc. The space keeps expanding, and the number of additional things you have to keep an eye on keeps growing. It doesn't seem to be slowing down, either. We want to make sure we’re putting the right experiences in the right environments — and that will look slightly different on each channel.” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

“The folks that I see really doing well are the ones who collect good data — not necessarily more data. You don’t want a lot of white noise that obscures the information you really need. And what you need is to understand — down to a personal level — what your users want, so you can experiment and iterate to deliver it. For example, with push notifications, as you gather more analytics and have more user information about how receptive they may be in terms of content types and frequency, you can experiment and see what users respond to. That gives you valuable intel for your next experiments.” – Andy Pikul, Technical Account Manager, Urban Airship

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The post Insights from Cox Media, Turner Sports & POSSIBLE Mobile: A Recap of our Atlanta Mobile Growth Workshop appeared first on Airship.

As a strategist helping top brands win with mobile every day, I’ve found that it’s easy for teams to get caught up in the cycle of releases, features and functions and, as a result, lose track of some of the fun and fundamental ways to keep improving on a mobile marketing strategy.  

So here are four simple yet often overlooked back-to-basics tactics I use to help keep myself and the clients I work with in it to win it. I guarantee that doing even one of these four things will help you keep up with the pace of change, keep new ideas coming in and keep your strategy — and your results — on track.  

1) Be Curious: Ask How People Are Using Connected Devices 

If you want to learn more about how people are using connected devices  (from phones to smart home assistants like Google Home and Alexa) in the wild, be curious. Your co-workers, neighbors — even the stranger sitting next to you on the plane — probably have one or more smartphones, tablets and in-home assistants, and they’re likely to be willing to share answers to friendly questions like:

• What mobile apps do you really like and why?

• Were you surprised by something you were able to do on your phone or some other connected device this week?

• What’s the last push notification you got — was it helpful or annoying?

Striking up conversations like these has not only exposed me to cool new apps and ideas, but also offered remarkably revealing and valuable insights about why people repeatedly engage with some apps over others — and they may spark the next big idea for your brand.

2) Try Living Mobile-Only For a Week

Fifty-one percent of internet users world use only mobile devices to access the Internet — and that number is increasing year-over-year.

Challenge yourself to only use your smartphone for both personal and professional tasks and see how it shapes your experience with brands and websites you visit.

As you go through the week, ask yourself some questions like:

• Was I able to do what I needed to do on mobile web, or did I need to download an app?  

• How frictionless was it to do what I needed to do?

• Did the mobile messaging I received (push notifications, in-app messages, SMS or other) valuable to me? What was missing, or what could have been better?

• Were there missed opportunities to use the unique capabilities of the phone — like sensors or mobile wallet — to make things easier — like offering Touch ID for passwords, an integration or voice search?

Take your learnings and apply them to the digital experience for your brand: where could you reduce friction or be more helpful? Where are users getting stuck? Then talk to your team and see how and where improvements to customer experience fit on your roadmap.

Related Content: 5 Things the Best Mobile Notifications Have in Common

3) Create a Mobile Value Proposition — and Put It In Writing

It’s easy to say you put customers first, but have you thought about what this really means for customer experiences on mobile and other connected devices?

Having a mobile value proposition for your brand in writing is one of the most overlooked yet most critical steps a brand can take to help get everyone across multiple teams get on the same page — as well as create a decision framework that helps you decide what you will (and won’t) do.

To create the mobile value proposition, ask questions like:  

• What do people expect from us when they interact with us on mobile?

• Why would someone download our app?

• Once someone downloads our app, are we taking advantage of the unique capabilities of smartphones (sensors, contextual messaging, etc.) to really engage them, making an experience easier, faster, better, or more delightful?

Then, fill in the blanks to this sentence to create a simple mobile value proposition: My brand’s mobile [app, website, messaging] helps users [detail the unique value, utility or relevance you offer].

4) Use Your Data to Pinpoint Incremental Improvement Opportunities

Wherever you are within your data analytics program — from very sophisticated to just getting started — there are incremental improvements you can make in how you use the data to take action.

Here are three ideas for setting an improvement goal, and the data you could use to create and test a hypothesis — and move the needle.  

#1 I want to increase direct and influenced app opens from push notifications.

Use your data to see:

• Are there patterns in the types of push notifications that result in direct or influenced opens (lifecycle, location-based, coupons/discounts/offers? etc.)

• Are our A/B/n tests of copy in our push notifications helping us find the voice or tone that  resonates best?

• Do personalized push notifications drive more app opens than broadcast or generic notifications?

#2 I want to reduce customer churn/improve customer retention on mobile.

Use your data to see:

• Which users are the most likely to churn — and which are the least likely? (Our Predictive Churn solution uses machine learning to help you quickly spot your most valuable and least valuable cohorts and see patterns.)

• How have our win-back campaigns performed?

• How do push notifications impact our customer retention rates? (We’ve got benchmarks for you to measure against in this data study.)

#3 I want to use what I know about customers from their mobile behavior across all my marketing campaigns.

Use your data to see:

• What do we know about our customers from their mobile actions that we can use in other channels? (User-level customer intelligence makes this possible — see how our customer intelligence solutions Insight & Connect help marketers access and put this kind of data to work.)

• What are our most valuable customers doing on mobile?

Even if you take action on just one of these ideas, you’ll be well on your way to becoming an even more effective marketer than you are today. Tell me how this went for you! Leave a comment here or over on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post 4 Simple Strategies for Becoming an Even Better Mobile Marketer appeared first on Airship.