Author: Steffen Meyer, Mobile Marketing Content Specialist
When someone downloads your online shopping app, you need to get them hooked, keep them active and transform them into loyal customers. As our partner Batch has great experience in this field, we decided to partner up for two blog posts to tell you about some important eCommerce strategies.
After we dived into the fundamentals of how to gain active and loyal users, we now go one step further with some more advanced methods which also can be easily implemented with Batch’s tool.
1. Welcome your customers with welcome sequences
More than 70% of mobile users use an app less than ten times before deleting it. So getting users to download your app is vital but only a first step. If you want them to come back and back again, there’s an easy trick that works in the digital as well as in the real world: make people feel welcome.
A proven way to do so, is by setting up a welcome campaign:
- Give new users a warm welcome
- Highlight your unique offerings
- Inform them of the type of communication they will receive
- Encourage them to start exploring your app
Don’t think of a welcome campaign as just a technical introduction to your app. It may last a few days, with a series of personalized messages and special offers to get new users hooked. Welcome sequences can be automatically triggered by app download or push opt-in, using various engagement channels.
2. Use In-app messages to re-opt users for pushes
Push notifications are an effective way to pull users back to your app. But since many publishers know this, users are flooded with pushes and they tend to turn them off. To avoid this for your app, you should set up an opt-in campaign that explains the benefits before asking for the user’s permission.
Though this might help first, users may still opt out at a later stage. That is why you should launch re-opt-in campaigns. Using In-App messages, you can tell users what they are missing when push notifications are disabled, and present them with the option to turn them on again.
Watch out to only target opted-out users, so you reach the right audience and don’t irritate the wrong one. Batch recommends using a 100% automated In-App format and displaying it three times with a 48 hours grace period and/or letting it pop up after a user performs a specific action or starts a new session.
3. Personalize push messages
It’s a staggering number: According to a study, personalized push notifications get 2770% more engagement than notifications that are just the same for everyone. However, personalization here doesn’t only mean inserting some dynamic fields to address users by their name like “Hi {FIRSTNAME}, we got this special offer for you”.
To reach a high rate of engagement, you need to synchronize the messages with the user’s interest and send the right message at the right time. Did the price of a certain item on the user’s wishlist just drop? Are there special events coming up for people in the user’s location? Notify them by setting up a trigger campaign.!
So instead of just sending a blast out to your whole database, you should neatly segment your data and create tailor-made campaigns. This may be more effort at first but it’s worth it in the long run.
4. Engage your customers on every channel
People usually interact with more than one channel. They use apps, read E-Mails, check social media, browse through video platforms, look for stuff in search engines or – not to forget – receive regular physical mail. As a marketer, you should have these habits in mind and create omnichannel campaigns.
Customers today expect a seamless and engaging experience on all channels. So you should use different words for an E-mail than for a push notification. However tone, style, and design should still be aligned.
By employing individual messaging on various channels, you stay visible and memorable, creating stickiness to your brand and thus increasing loyalty.
5. Get inspired by these 3 use cases for trigger campaigns
As you may have noticed, individualization is key to success. This counts as well for so-called trigger campaigns that launch after a certain user action. To get you started, we reveal three concrete use cases that proved successful for a Batch customer:
- Reminder of a viewed product: If a user looked at a product but decided not to buy it (for now), you can remind them a day later with a message like “Hey, is this still on your mind?”. Repeat it one or two times with longer waiting periods, if the purchase didn’t happen.
- Reminder for an unfinished wishlist: Some customers may start a wishlist but never finish it. Wait for some time and then chime in once or twice with a little note like “Your lovelist awaits!”.
Celebrating the first purchase on the app: The first purchase is a strong sign of trust. So make this act an event! After three months, send a voucher “just for you”. Give it three more months and send another one because “we miss you”, and finally when 12 months have passed, celebrate this act with another voucher: “Happy anniversary!”
Maintain a funnel overview and have a look at Batch
Each of these strategies falls into a different stage of the marketing funnel. To maintain a good overview of the various stages, we created the Marketing Master Map which you can grab here. Also check out Batch’s blog with loads of news, case studies, and How-Tos.
Our partner Batch will join us at our second Berlin Mobile Marketing & Growth Meetup this year to share the most successful retention strategies in the mobile space. We are looking forward to welcoming you on October 6 to the Remerge office space here in Berlin. Register here now!
Batch is the leading European CRM platform that allows brands and media to communicate with their clients via digital channels. Experts in push and web notifications, Batch will soon enable marketers to address their clients via email and sms channels, too. The personalization features, real-time data, and ease of use make Batch the modern marketer’s top choice. 100% European, 100% GDPR compliant.
💡 Knowledge sharing is at the core of what we do. Get our Marketing Master Map, sign up for our newsletter, and become part of our community on LinkedIn to learn how to make apps succeed in the competitive mobile landscape.
Helpful Links:
