At Movable Ink, our mission is to help marketing teams of all sizes engage each and every customer through scalable, highly personalized campaigns. Today’s economic climate presents unique challenges which will continue to change customer behavior, and it’s more important than ever for marketers to quickly adapt to these shifts.
We know that marketers are no strangers to navigating change, so the challenge is now the scale and speed at which campaign plans and strategies need to evolve. Though we can’t predict exactly what the future will bring, we do know that mobile channels will be pivotal for any successful marketing strategy. That’s why we launched our Inkredible Mobile Integrations blog series, where we’re highlighting all the different ways companies can use Movable Ink’s partner integrations to take their one-to-one campaign personalization to the next level.
In this post, we’ll show you how to leverage mobile messaging to drive engagement and retention during the customer lifecycle.
Strengthen engagement through post-purchase prompts
Let’s say someone buys your product (woo!). That’s certainly cause for celebration, but there’s still more you can get out of the sale. For instance, you can encourage customers to shop complementary categories and styles, or prompt them to leave a review. Whatever you decide that next step is, mobile alerts are the perfect way to guide customers towards them.
SoulCycle created a time targeted in-app message that alerted existing customers to a flash sale for five classes at 20% off. By featuring a countdown timer, they created a sense of urgency.
Remind customers of recently considered items
While we always hope that a customer completes a purchase at first sight, the truth is many shoppers need a few touchpoints before they’re ready to pull the trigger. Perhaps they’ve added an item to the cart, but got cold feet at checkout. Or maybe they use their cart as more of a wish list, adding items for future consideration. It’s also very possible they might only have gotten as far as lingering on the product page before exiting.
A leading retailer automatically reminds customers of items abandoned in their cart via a triggered push notification that taps into their Style API to show them their abandoned item, complete with the product name, price, and image.
Without any kind of reminder, it’s very likely these items will be forgotten. But with in-app messages, marketers have the opportunity to pick up the conversation where the customers left off. It might just be that extra nudge the shopper needs to complete the purchase.
Encourage loyalty by highlighting redemption offers
Speaking of easily forgotten things, how many of us remember how many points we have in our various loyalty accounts? Or even which companies we have loyalty accounts with? Without being aware of points balance or loyalty status, it’s certainly harder for customers to make use of them. And if they’re not using them, how much loyalty are these programs really creating? Luckily, this is easily remedied with an in-app message highlighting redemption offers.
Harnessing the power of personalization, marketers can pull information from each customer’s account and show them their points and/or status, as well as what they’re eligible to redeem. It’ll strengthen their relationship with your brand while reinforcing the value of the program.
Drive engagement with one-to-one recommendations
Recommendations are another great way to get customers to engage, but they’re only as effective as they are relevant. Without the ability to personalize, brands may have to resort to a one-size-fits-all approach. Depending on the range of your customers, this could cause a recommendation to feel spammy to most recipients. For instance, a department store may carry a great standing mixer, but how much is a college freshman going to care about that? (Okay, fine, if they happen to be studying culinary arts, you might get lucky on that one.)
However, with the help of a little personalization, recommendations can suddenly become an extremely effective way to drive engagement. Brands can choose from any number of criteria to focus on, from local weather to user behavior. The more the message speaks to a customer’s needs and interests, the more compelling the message will be. And thus, the more likely the customer will be to act on them.
To learn more about Movable Ink’s mobile partner integrations, visit the Exchange.