“77% of consumers have chosen, recommended or paid more for a brand that provides a personalized service or experience. “

Forrester Webinar – Individualization Versus Personalization

With these increased expectations, personalization is no longer just an option.  But as you make plans for personalization, think beyond simple tactics, like using the customer’s first name.  While the data shows a small lift in open rates with basic personalization, Liveclicker found that advanced personalization tactics result in 17% more revenue.  This means that if you’re running a campaign with basic personalization (i.e., using list-based segments and first name in the greeting), generating typical enterprise revenue of $500k, making the change to advanced personalization tactics (i.e., using behavioral data to target and personalize at the time of open) leads to an opportunity for $85k in incremental revenue.  

Great experiences incentivize customers to share more data with your brand.  Airship’s recent survey of 9,000 global consumers showed that customers are more willing to share their data with brands if it results in a better experience.  Customers, especially those who have established accounts, expect that you know their past interactions, interests and communication preferences.  I recently made a purchase from a DTC beauty brand where I used an offer.  I’ve continued to get emails after the product arrived suggesting that I had not made the purchase or used the offer.  Not only is this a broken experience, it’s a missed opportunity for post-purchase educational content, usage reminders and cross-sell offers.  It has diminished my impression of the brand, leading me to start ignoring and deleting their messages.  

What is advanced personalization?
Similar to a brand’s mobile app experience, personalization moves along a maturity curve.  We see brands progressing along three key phases: History Based, Time of Send and In the Moment.   

In the History Based phase, brands target customers based on basic profile data (i.e., city and state), and basic personalization (i.e., first name).  

Personalization at Time of Send uses information about a customer’s behaviors and attributes when a message or experience deploys – for example, an entertainment brand using a customer’s most recent viewing history as part of its campaign segmentation.  In this phase, a persistent user identifier ties together behavioral data from customer interactions across channels. 

In the Moment personalization is the sweet spot of personalization, which  uses real-time customer behaviors and  preferences to drive experiences.  Mobile apps are the ideal destination to enable these personalized experiences.  Mobile capabilities, such as segmenting on location and refreshing behavioral information between time of send and time of open, allow brands to better meet customers where they are and with the most relevant information.  With In the Moment, brands can create experiences that feel individualized along the entire customer journey.  

Alignment across the organization is critical to achieving In the Moment personalization.  When brands design their org structure around the customer (rather than the channel), they tend to focus on customer personas and are able to create experiences for specific personas.  Persona-based experiences are better tailored to individual needs and  show customers that your brand understands their expectations and is respectful of how, when and where they engage.   

Imagine a campaign for a bank where they’ve created a cross-channel journey for home buyers using the mobile app as the primary destination for customer  interactions.  

While checking their balance in the app, the customer sees an in-app message about home loans.  They complete a survey in the app to find out their ideal loan qualification amount.  After finishing the survey, the customer has the option to book an appointment with a banker.  On the day of their appointment, the app alerts the customer to check in as they arrive at the bank.  The customer does so and the banker greets them upon arrival with information pre-populated from their survey.  

Personalization is essential for app success. Regardless of the phase you’re in, the important thing is to get started now.  

If you’re looking for help with your personalization plans, reach out to your Airship Account Manager to learn about a use case audit.  We also have Strategic Services available to help guide you in developing personalized experiences for your app.

The post First name is not enough: applying advanced personalization tactics to mobile appeared first on Airship.

Let’s look at how three brands are using Airship’s platform to meet those challenges with highly effective cross-channel campaigns.

Redhawk Casino Goes Omnichannel

Red Hawk Casino leverages Airship Orchestration to ensure they’re using the right channel and the best timing for each message. A cross-channel welcome series helps onboard customers and educate them about key features. Dynamic emails keep them informed of the week’s sales and promotions. SMS reminders go out right before an event, promotion, or last minute COVID-19-related schedule change. And Redhawk uses push messages for day-of communications and time-sensitive offers. 

Redhawk Digital Marketing Specialist Matthew Borja explains that “during COVID, having the ability to reach our customers through multiple channels allowed us to build up and grow our brand affinity, when so many brands are struggling to get customer attention. We were able to save over 30% by switching to Airship and using it for multiple channels, helping us reach more customers at lower cost.”

Betbull Keeps Customers Engaged with Airship Journeys

Sports betting brand Betbull uses Airship Journeys to automate and orchestrate messages across SMS and email to keep customers engaged in the Betbull mobile app and informed about promotions and bonus offers. Betbull credits Airship with making it easier to build customer journeys that reach customers on the right channels and generate some of their best engagement to-date.

“It’s taken a huge operational workload off of the team,” said John Ibanez, CRM manager with Betbull. “Airship has been a game changer for us through COVID-19 for our customer retention and engagement efforts. We’ve seen our biggest engagement numbers ever.”

Getplus Prevents Dropoff with Email + App Personalization

Indonesia’s GetPlus helps its members obtain discounts and offers from a variety of retailers when purchasing within the app. GetPlus’ strategy during COVID-19 is all about personalization. They use Airship to trigger seamless, personalized welcome journeys and voucher reminders via email, in-app messaging and push notifications that prevent drop-off after signup and keep customers active in the app.

Plus, Airship helped GetPlus rapidly integrate their existing engagement platforms and start handling all of their customer engagement from one place. According to Co-Founder Adrian Hoon, “With Airship’s support, we were able to quickly onboard and start executing campaigns. It gave us an ability to get going much faster.” 

As these brands have shown, email+app are a dynamic duo in your channel mix that can keep customers engaged and build a lifetime of loyalty and value. To learn more about how Airship can help elevate your customer engagement strategy, get in touch!

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The post How Three Brands Used Email + App to Increase Engagement During COVID-19 appeared first on Airship.

In our new Airship Journeys playbook and recent webinar, we outlined three customer journeys for the growth phase of the customer lifecycle. Read on to see how we built these journeys using our Airship Journeys platform, and download the playbook today!

Boost Customer Engagement

When a customer engages with your mobile app, your brand is top of mind. Leverage that pivotal moment with Airship Journey’s event-based triggers by setting app activity to launch a series of push messages that drive engagement. Use this journey to grow your relationship by promoting valuable offers or features they may not already be aware of. This journey also includes interactive buttons that provide data about customer interactions. And if the customer doesn’t respond to the first message, a follow-up message arrives three days later with additional incentives to get in touch.

Nurture Repeat Purchases

Focusing on repeat purchases is a winning proposition during the growth phase. That’s because existing customers are far more likely to purchase again and again. This journey targets established customers with a series of messages promoting exclusive discounts and complementary products. Here, we’re using Airship Journey’s powerful channel coordination to deliver the messages to the customer’s originating channel — so you know you’re reaching them where they prefer to engage. Plus, with customized offers based on purchase history and preferences, you can provide great CX and even more reasons to convert!

Personalize Your Upsell

What better way to show your customers you know them than with personalized offers just for them? This journey drives sales and loyalty among a specific segment of your audience. It starts on the customer’s originating channel and alerts them to an upcoming happy hour just for teachers. Interactive buttons give user-friendly options for engagement and provide data that help guide the next step in the journey. Depending on the customer’s response, they’ll receive a second message on the channel where they were last active. Plus, you can use one of our latest feature, Journey Maps, to map them across multiple journeys and continue guiding them through the customer lifecycle.

These are just a few of the ways you can use Airship Journeys to deepen engagement and lead your customers toward brand advocacy and a lifetime of value! For more insights on how you can acquire, grow and retain with Airship Journeys, download the full playbook today!

The post Show Them You Know Them: Three Customer Journeys for Growth appeared first on Airship.

Hi, I’m Kathryn! I lead Customer Success for the Apptimize team and have been working at Airship since the acquisition in August 2019. I grew up in Kansas City, and have since lived on either coast, first in Boston and then also in San Francisco for the past 5 years.

While weekends look a little different these days, I still am finding ways to spend time outside — whether it’s driving north of San Francisco to hike coastal trails (now that they’re open!) or meeting some friends in a park for social distance picnics. I also have a huge love for international travel and hit 6 of the 7 continents just in the last year. Will definitely be excited to get back to traveling post-COVID. 

What Is Your Favorite Thing About Working at Airship?

Hands down… the people. Even though when I started at Airship most of my team members were in a different office and now we all work remote, the team at Airship has been incredible and made me feel welcome and valued since day one. Although there has been a lot of changes as we integrate the Apptimize business, I feel supported by both leadership and my peers to continue to grow my career at Airship.

What Is Something You Are Proud of?

I am extremely proud of the work our team does to help companies launch their experimentation programs. Going from making product decisions based on gut feelings to A/B testing and taking a data-driven approach does not happen overnight. Our team created a process to drive an experimentation culture into an organization and enable teams to loop experimentation into their development process which allows for faster time to value and helping these teams’ reach their growth objectives faster.

What Has Been the Biggest Change Since the Apptimize Acquisition?

The biggest change has definitely been going from working at a 30 person company to working at a company of hundreds. Working at a larger company definitely comes with its advantages — access to more resources, people to learn from and a global team for more coverage across timezones. While it can be challenging to work through all of the business integrations, working with a large and experienced team on the strategy and execution has been great experience.

How Do You Define Customer Success?

While high-level Customer Success can be defined as having a customer fully adopt the tool, getting the true value of the services and then becoming an advocate, this can be different from customer to customer. Each customer comes to Apptimize and Airship to help solve a range of challenges — from driving conversion (of users from free to premium accounts) to increasing the value of a cart at checkout, to increasing time spent watching content. Our job is to ensure the teams using Apptimize are able to make a meaningful impact on their business objectives.

Fun Question! What Did You Want To Be When You Were A Kid?

Growing up I always wanted to be a teacher. While my life took me in a different direction, I still think some of my favorite aspects of my job are teacher-like: working with customers to train them about Apptimize and A/B testing and also working with team members to help them develop and grow in their role and career… so not too far off :).

Have questions for Kathryn? You can reach her on LinkedIn or email her here.

Learn more about Airship and what it’s like to work with our team.

Check out our career page!

The post Meet Kathryn Hjalmarson – Manager of Customer Success for Apptimize and Past & Future World Traveler appeared first on Airship.

In our new Airship Journeys playbook, we outlined three journeys to keep customers engaged during the retention phase of the customer lifecycle. Check out the examples below – based on real-world case studies from some of the leading brands already using Airship Journeys to acquire, retain and grow – and download the playbook today!

Step Up Your Cross-Selling

When it comes to push notifications, timing and context are everything. Customers are much more likely to respond to event-triggered marketing than mass-marketing campaigns. That’s why this journey uses event-based automation to deliver perfectly timed cross-selling messages for customers attending a sporting event.  

The first message lands the day after a ticket purchase, with an in-app notification alerting ticket-holders about the concessions in their specific seating area. Then, after they scan in at the event, they’ll receive an offer for discounted team merchandise – so they don’t miss out on wearing their team colors at the next game. It doesn’t get more contextual than that!

Show Your Value

To cultivate customer relationships, you need to show them how much value your brand has to offer. This journey leverages the power of Airship Journey’s channel orchestration to nurture customers on the channels they opted in on and highlight valuable features, like referral incentives and low balance alerts. Plus, by leveraging customer intelligence, you can take your personalization to the next level and show your customers you truly get them. For example, by offering a credit card co-branded with their favorite sports team!

Get Ahead and Prevent Churn

Churn may be a fact of life for marketers, but with a little proactivity and the right tools, you can get ahead of it. This cross-channel journey leverages Airship Journeys’ AI and predictive algorithm, which automatically triggers the journey based on a customer’s propensity to churn.

The journey starts on the customer’s priority channel with messages promoting features they may not be using. If they don’t re-engage after the first two messages, the follow-up fans out to all opted-in channels to ensure they don’t miss it. The result is a seamless series of cross-channel messages to keep customers engaged, before they become inactive.

These are just a few examples of how you can use Airship Journeys to build customer journeys that cultivate loyalty and keep them engaged for the long-term! Stay tuned for our next post, which will cover the growth phase. In the meantime, download the full Airship Journeys playbook today for more insights to help you acquire, grow and retain!

The post Keep Them Coming Back: Three Customer Journeys for Retention appeared first on Airship.

As part of our new Airship Journeys playbook, we outlined three customer journeys designed to make the first interactions with your brand the beginning of a long and valuable relationship. Check out the examples below and download the playbook today!

Convert New Customers into App Users

A first purchase is the perfect time to show new customers the benefits of your mobile app. Plus, driving opt-ins during acquisition makes it easier to reach them on their preferred channels during all of the pivotal moments throughout the customer lifecycle. 

In this case, a new customer’s room reservation triggers a welcome message that also promotes mobile app downloads. A few days later, if they haven’t downloaded the app they’ll receive a second message reminding them about their trip and the benefits of using the app. It’s a short and sweet example of how a relatively simple customer journey can start moving new customers toward growth and retention.

Deepen Engagement During Onboarding

Getting opt-ins on your app is a great first step. Now you need to keep them engaged, a challenge illustrated by the fact that 77 percent of daily active users drop off within the first three days after installing an app. 

When a new customer downloads your app, capture that momentum with a customer journey designed to deepen engagement. In this example from the gaming vertical, an app install triggers a series of in-app messages promoting bonus features and the benefits of engagement. The messages are spread out over three and then five days, which helps prevent over-messaging while also driving repeat sessions during those critical first few weeks. 

Draw Customers in with a Multi-Touch Campaign 

Delivering value to your customers on their preferred channels is an ideal way to build loyalty. In this journey, we’re meeting the customer wherever they choose to engage, with the goal of driving sign-ups for a loyalty program.

It starts on the customer’s original channel of engagement, either app or email, with a welcome message that drives them to your website. Two days later, a follow-up message uses Airship Journey’s prioritization feature to automatically select the channel, sending a special offer to their highest priority channel. Finally, for customers who haven’t joined the loyalty program, a third message lands five days later and fans out to all opted- in channels. This helps ensure customers see the message and don’t miss out on the benefits of loyalty. 

These are just a few examples of how Airship Journeys can help you build value for your brand and customers during the acquisition phase. Plus, the customer intelligence collected through these journeys allows you to create follow up journeys that are even more personalized and contextual! We’ll cover that in a future post. In the meantime, download the full Airship Journeys playbook today for more insights to help you acquire, grow and retain!

The post Hook ‘em at Hello: Three Customer Journeys for Acquisition appeared first on Airship.

Feature flags are a tool that separates deployment of code from the feature release process in an update, allowing you to gradually roll out new features and code to whom you want, when you want. Brands like Quizlet, Stash and Western Union are already using Feature Flags to maintain multiple branches of code within apps to gradually release new features to a small subset of users first — quickly rolling features back if needed, or fully deploying them as they are proven successful. 

With app installs growing across many industries, and businesses rolling out new services to meet changing needs, feature release management maximizes opportunities and mitigates risks. You can use feature flags to test new curbside pickup experiences, appointment booking processes, or implementing enhanced recommendations or social selling features, easily choosing when and to whom new features are accessible, and turning them on or off.

Whether you have a new app or an established one with a large audience, you can use Feature Flags by signing up for a free account, or take advantage of newly reduced pricing for unlimited Feature Flags from Apptimize.

To learn more about this offer, check out our press release. We also have this helpful whitepaper that explains what Feature Flags are and how you can use it for your mobile app. 

The post Innovate Faster and Mitigate Risk with Apptimize’s Free Feature Flags Solution appeared first on Airship.

In a recent Airship Webinar, 9 Cross-Channel Customer Journeys to Build Today, we described six critical steps before building your customer journeys. Check out the highlights below, and watch the webinar recording for more insights!

1. Identify the Critical Moments Throughout the Customer Lifecycle

Each stage of the customer lifecycle presents critical opportunities to deliver great CX, build loyalty and grow revenue. The first step is to identify those brand-defining moments. Taking the time to storyboard out your customers’ experience and key touchpoints is a great first step. Consider what engagement might look like during acquisition, retention and growth. And what types of messages make sense at each stage. 

2. Define the Actions You Want Customers to Take

Before building a journey, you need to identify a goal and the milestones along the way. Perhaps you want to convert new customers from a free trial to a paid subscription. Or guide a first-time shopper toward purchase. Maybe you want to deepen engagement with your loyalty program. Whatever your goals, defining the customer actions necessary to get there is essential to shaping effective engagement at each stage of their journey.

3. Select Triggers to Kick Off the Journey

Once you’ve set your destination, it’s time to determine which customer actions will kick off the journey. The possibilities are almost endless; a first purchase, app install, abandoned cart, a location trigger and more. Just make sure your trigger aligns with your goals. Plus, if churn is your concern, Airship Journeys users can let our machine learning algorithm automatically trigger a re-engagement journey to help win them back before it’s too late.

4. Determine Where the Journey Ends

Next, decide on the journey’s end. If you’re trying to convert customers who abandoned a shopping cart, the journey can end once they come back and convert. Similarly, if your goal is loyalty sign ups, then that journey will end when a customer joins the loyalty program. You may also want to set conditions around message frequency and channel orchestration, so you can avoid over messaging. 

5. Choose the Next Best Action

Let’s face it. Even the most engaging journey won’t convert every customer. The key is leveraging customer actions and preferences to deliver value and continue moving them through the lifecycle. So, if your acquisition phase goal is new customer account creation, engage those that don’t sign up with a journey focused on member benefits. When they do sign up, you can move toward retention-related goals such as a first deposit. The Journey Maps visualization below illustrates how these journeys fit within the overall lifecycle marketing effort.

6. Choose Your Personalization Strategies

To deliver truly personalized CX that wows your customers, you’ll need to leverage the power of customer intelligence and think about how those data points can help you craft a great experience. You might create a distinct journey for shoppers with a $500 item in their cart vs. those with a $50 item. Or, trigger a series of highly targeted offers based on country, state or zip code. It could even be something as simple as a personalized birthday message. Just be careful to avoid the common personalization fails that can turn your customers off.

With these steps, you’re well on your way to building journeys that will deliver a lifetime of value for your brand and customers. Be sure to check out the full webinar for more insights!

Go on an Airship Journey

Learn more about our revolutionary customer journey solution

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The post 6 Critical Steps Before Building Your Next Customer Journey appeared first on Airship.

• 66% of consumers say instant, on-demand engagement is very important to winning their business 

• 78% say that they would be more loyal to a brand that understood them and what they are looking for

• 52% say they’d switch brands if they didn’t feel they were receiving a personalized experience 

That’s why we created Airship Journeys, a revolutionary new solution that simplifies how marketers create, measure and perfect customer journeys. We’ve published a playbook highlighting nine powerful strategies inspired by leading brands who are already using Airship Journeys to craft highly effective customer journeys at each stage of the customer lifecycle. 

Check out our key takeaways below, and download the full Airship Journeys Playbook: 9 Powerful Strategies to Acquire, Build and Grow Your Audience for more insights, tips and inspiration!

Customer Journeys: Acquire

Attracting new customers is expensive and time consuming. That’s why, during the acquisition phase, you need to give them a warm welcome and deliver an engaging customer experience that drives action and adoption. 

New customer activities, like an opt-in on your website, provide the perfect opportunity to launch a multi-touch campaign highlighting key features of your brand, and show them just how much value you have to offer. Use the series to encourage them to download your app, and demonstrate some of the ways it can make their lives easier. This is also a great time to engage them in your loyalty program, so they can start realizing the benefits of deeper engagement with your products or services. 

Customer Journeys: Retain

Most marketers know it’s far less expensive to retain existing customers than attract new ones. But customer expectations are high, and rising. That’s why, during the retain phase, it’s essential to deliver value in the moments that matter most to your customers. 

For example, you can trigger a series of messages around actions like a ticket purchase or reservation, and send SMS or emails with important information, upgrades or changes. Entice them with an incentive based on app or web activity. Plus, you can use Airship Journey’s orchestration features to focus on the channels that matter most to your customers, while carefully controlling frequency to avoid overmessaging.

Customer Journeys: Grow

Now that you’ve established rapport with your customers, it’s time to grow those relationships — and their lifetime value. To do that, you need to show them you know them by engaging on their preferred channels, in real-time with contextual content that predicts their needs.

When a customer opens your app, you can bet your brand is top of mind. Leverage this moment to trigger a multi-channel series of offers or incentives based on past purchases or activity. Use the series to remind customers to visit your store or website. And send follow-up notifications offering post-purchase surveys, encouraging social sharing or recommending other items they might like.

This is also your opportunity to re-engage customers who are likely to churn, and take action to keep them. Use Airship’s machine learning algorithm to identify users at high risk and send an email with an offer or incentive to win them back, before it’s too late. 

Every stage in the customer lifecycle presents opportunities to deliver great CX, build loyalty and grow revenue and lifetime value. Download the e-book today to learn more about how you can use Airship Journeys to deliver meaningful, personalized messages at every juncture.

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The post How to Create Seamless Customer Journeys for Each Stage of the Customer Lifecycle appeared first on Airship.

And now, in this moment of uncertainty, the ability to run test — especially in your app — is even more important for identifying growth opportunities, understanding new customers, optimizing and accelerating conversions and much more. 

In our latest white paper, “5 Reasons COVID-19 Is Making App Experimentation Essential,” our team shares the reasons to get a testing solution anyone can use (from product owners and marketers to engineers and beyond — ) to build and grow a culture of experimentation. 

Even small tests can lead to big results like these:

• 16% increase in conversions to a premium membership for Instasize after they tested and optimized their app onboarding flow 
• 15% increase in bookings after Hotel Tonight experimented with their registration process
• 12% increase in adoption of a key feature for banking app Stash after testing design variations

Download your copy of the white paper today, and get in touch anytime with questions or to chat about the small experiments that can make a big difference for your brand. 

Let’s Talk

Let Us Know How We Can Help You Reach Your Experimentation Goals

The post 5 Reasons COVID-19 Is Making App Experimentation Essential appeared first on Airship.