Create meaningful experiences that cultivate customer loyalty and retention in 2022.
In today’s app world that’s flush with options, getting users to download or sign up for your app is only part of the battle. The rest lies in keeping your customers interested enough to come back.
As each user has different needs and preferences, their journey with your app can vary. You’ll need to meet their evolving needs over time.
By creating messaging and experiences that cater to your users throughout the different phases of their journey, you can help your app stay relevant while continuing to bring value to your customers’ lives.
Starting in the right direction with onboarding experiences
Having a solid onboarding experience is crucial, not just for welcoming new customers to your app but in moving them along the path to becoming power users.
Have you ever had a fantastic tool at your fingertips but got frustrated and gave up trying to use it? While your app can be chock-full of impressive capabilities to satisfy your users’ needs, it’s essential to ensure they know how to use it and access important features.
Onboarding is an opportunity to help users understand how to navigate your app and remind them of the app’s capabilities and benefits. A well-curated onboarding experience kicks things off to increase app adoption and lead users to that Aha moment that’ll keep them coming back.
You can create an onboarding flow with multi-channel messaging using email and in-app messages to bring new users back into the app and guide them through its UI elements. IMVU used various “engagement hooks” throughout their onboarding experience to address user drop off on the home screen, contributing to a 157% increase in retention and doubling their ARPU.
Push notifications and email campaigns that re-engage
Once a customer leaves your app, it’s a challenge to draw them back in. Push notifications and email campaigns help engage your customers outside the app with compelling content that brings them back inside.
They’re great for various types of content, like announcing new updates, game promotions, and contests and events. You can also promote new content or send recommendations based on individual users’ preferences and engagement within your app.
Beyond using a customers’ in-app behavior to determine what content to send them, you can also use their activity to identify the ideal time to send notifications and increase the chance of engagement. With “Optimal Time” push delivery like Leanplum’s, messages are sent when they’re most likely to get conversions and results.
Pixowl used Optimal Time for their push notifications for their “Mana Day” weekly promotions. They saw a 16% increase in message open rate and a 17% increase in revenue for users who got notifications using Optimal Time.
In-app messaging to deliver new experiences within your app
You can use in-app messaging in various creative ways that blend with your app’s UI and create new experiences to engage your users within your app.
In-app messages are able to present offers and promotions relevant to your users’ in-app history and engagement. They can also share app updates and highlight new features, new content, or content your customers will likely find valuable based on their preferences.
For example, if they’re traveling in a specific location, an in-app message can show them content related to areas of interest. If they chase certain characters, you can send them promotions relevant to their favorite game elements.
You could even create templates from in-app messages, duplicating and customizing the images and content for different themes or seasonal campaigns to save time.
Not only are you able to customize the content that your users see, but you can also control the timing to show customers messages when it’d be most helpful to them. In-app messages can be set up with triggers to appear after a user takes a specific action or views a particular message a certain number of times.
Personalized messaging to stay competitive in your industry
Personalizing mobile app content
While it’s hard to know what your customers are thinking all the time, their in-app behavior gives you clues on ways to personalize the app experience for them. Analyzing users’ behavior allows you to deliver relevant messages and experiences with content in real-time.
A/B testing provides additional insights to understand what UI or campaign elements are working, allowing you to focus on the ones that perform the best. This includes knowing which channels work optimally for different types of messages.
5x RPM with behavior-triggered messages in gaming apps
Our Gaming Data Science Report found that messages triggered through user behaviors result in 5x higher RPM in mobile games. Further showing the importance of message timing, GameDuell used an onboarding flow that leveraged Optimal Time and saw an increase in player opt-in by 10%.
Personalization accounts for over 35% of subscription app engagement
Personalized messaging with relevant content can account for over 35% of engagement in subscription apps. TextNow integrated personalization into three engagement campaigns across multiple channels, including an onboarding campaign that guided new customers to use the app soon after registering. These generated conversion rates ranging from 25%-79%.
27% re-engagement in on-demand & mobility apps
Via used a multi-channel campaign to re-engage their dormant users. They implemented relevant content and messaging, optimized the campaigns with A/B testing, and brought 27% of riders back into the app to book rides. This also led to riders using the app for at least three weeks following the reactivation campaign.
Mobile retail & finance apps see a 3x increase in signups
MyPostcard used analytics and A/B testing to offer more personalization in the user signup and onboarding experience. This resulted in a 318% increase in signups from specific user groups and improved KPIs, such as user retention, in their other campaigns and initiatives.
Stay focused on your customers to stay relevant.
Getting customers’ attention is one thing, but keeping it when there are so many options is another. Creating experiences that follow your customers throughout their journey keeps users from forgetting about, or even worse, uninstalling your app.
It starts from the beginning with onboarding after they first sign up. Then, you can use their engagement within your app over time, such as what they’re clicking on, what events they participate in, or what products or services they use or purchase, to create messaging and experiences that speak to their needs at the moment.
With Leanplum’s platform, you can use customer data to easily customize multi-channel campaigns and experiences and test, iterate, and optimize them to provide users with personalized experiences in real-time.
This way, you can get your users the content they need most when and where they need it for increased engagement and retention to grow your app.
Excited to learn more? Check out some of these great resources.
- Watch the App Promotion Summit panel for more insights and real-world examples of how different apps successfully included personalization in their CRM strategy.
- Check out our Subscription App Data Science Report and Games Data Science Report for more insights into the significant impact personalized messaging has on revenue.
- Get an inside peek at how to leverage the Leanplum platform to personalize your user experiences by taking our Product Tour.
See Leanplum in action with a complimentary personalized Product Demo.
