Initiatives like Spotify Wrapped famously demonstrated an impressive display of first-party data by giving their users a glimpse of their behavior- a way to show off their taste in music to the world. It plays on our inherent need for self-validation and to know what we’ve been up to the last year.

Thanks to the proliferation of data-led campaigns, brands from all walks of life set their minds to it. Allow us to introduce you to one such brand that reinforced our faith in first-party data.

Meet TBO.COM, a global travel distribution platform from Dubai. Their platform connects over 147,000 Travel Buyers with a whopping 1 million Travel Suppliers across 100 countries.

The Campaign:

Not too long ago, TBO.COM partnered with WebEngage in February 2023, and a few months later, wished to roll out TBO Rewind, an impactful year-end campaign akin to Spotify Wrapped.

The Challenge:

The countless data points at their disposal were a boon but also posed complex challenges in executing the campaign.

The Solution:

The first step was to standardize and ready the data for consumption by WebEngage’s platform.

The next recommendation was to leverage WebEngage’s Catalog feature.

Rishika, from the Customer Success Team, played a pivotal role in breaking down sophisticated data sets and suggesting changes to plug them into the WebEngage platform.

Vinay from the Services team took the reins for the campaign’s execution by conducting thorough testing and accommodating multiple changes to deliver the TBO Rewind campaign in record time.

WebEngage’s Catalog feature allowed TBO to execute individualized insights into the Top Destinations Booked by individual bookers in the past year and showcased the Top Destinations in Your Country based on bookings by all agents.

We’ve illustrated a creative from the campaign and dissected its anatomy.

The Outcome:

This visually striking TBO Rewind campaign, which was the first-of-its-kind initiative in the B2B Travel Industry, was graced by around 10,000 bookers and demonstrated personalization at scale across 15 countries in 4 languages.

The campaign

• Recorded open rates of 34%-52% against an average of 22-25% in the B2B industry.
• Experienced clickthrough rates between 0.90-2.30% against an average of 0.5-1% through the Call-To-Action (CTA) button Explore More.
• Won back substantial inactive customers on the portal looking for and booking more

The Takeaway:

The results prove their users value personalized content and, more importantly, quality content, which breaks the clutter of promotional and transactional emails they receive every week. TBO will now make this a half-yearly initiative needed in the fast-moving world of Travel & Tourism.

Behind The Curtains:

The Rewind campaign exemplifies the successful collaboration between TBO Holidays and WebEngage, showcasing the potency of innovative marketing strategies in the growing universe of global travel distribution. Besides this success story, recent implementations of diverse use cases have fueled their growth, resulting in a satisfied and thriving partnership with WebEngage.

WebEngage has helped grow 800+ brands like TBO over the years. If you’re reading this and are curious to do more with data, reach out for a free demo of our state-of-the-art marketing automation platform.

A McKinsey report suggests that 78% of customers are more likely to return to a brand that offers a personalized experience.

While the right product recommendation can improve sales, building customer relationships is far more important for brands who want to make their business sustainable.

This is why the focus should be shifted to building the synergy between online and offline user experience. And that’s where product recommendations based on past purchases come into play.

What is omnichannel engagement?

Say you have purchased a dress from a physical store and later bought an accessory from the online app of the same store. The recommendation engine takes into account this transaction history along with other available identities.

So, after an offline purchase where your WhatsApp number was provided, you will receive recommendations tailored to your previous purchase history via WhatsApp.

Following your app purchase, you can expect personalized recommendations delivered through push notifications, email, or other channels specifically centered around the item you purchased.

This approach ensures that recommendations align with customer preferences and behavior, contributing to an engaging shopping journey.

Why are purchase-based recommendations important?

There are several reasons why we recommend using purchase-based recommendations in your omnichannel engagement strategy:

1. Contextual to intent

When you know your customer’s purchase history, you know more about their intent. For example, if a customer has bought a formal outfit, you know their intent of shopping — formal attire in this case. So you have a precise idea of what to recommend to them that matches their intent.

A purchase intent might be different from the interest that a shopper shows when browsing. For example, the shopper might have browsed casual wear, beach wear, and holiday outfits but have settled on buying formal clothes.

Purchased-based recommendations are more contextual to the intent than the interest of the shoppers because purchase shows higher intent vs. the interest shown when browsing.

2. Increase repeat sales

Once a transaction happens, you need to re-engage with the customers to improve the chance of repeat sales.

If you have the purchase data of the customer, you may recommend and prompt with related products through in-app push notifications, WhatsApp messages, or emails.

3. Improve your CLTV

CLTV, or customer lifetime value, is a business metric that measures how much revenue a business can earn from the customer throughout the relationship with the customer.

When the recommendations are made based on the purchase intent of a customer, there are higher chances of converting them into a repeat buyer, which improves the CLTV.

4. Enables hyper-personalization of messages

A personalized message is always good. But why settle for simple personalization like referring to the customer by their “first name” when you can do so much more with purchased-based recommendations?

Using this strategy, Clovia, India’s fastest-growing lingerie brand, saw a whopping 85% uplift in their revenue.

Clovia leverages WebEngage’s funnel feature to understand customer behavior across various channels to analyze drop-offs. They also created a checkout funnel to understand the drop-off of high-intent customers.

Based on these findings, Clovia ran a hyper-personalized multi-channel engagement journey using WebEngage’s Journey Designer to encourage potential customers to complete their purchases.

5. Better upsell and cross-sell opportunities

Say you purchased a pair of denims from the Shoppers Stop app. The next day, you receive a nudge from the brand offering recommendations of tops and tees to pair up with your denim or recommendations for similar denim at a higher price range. Sounds familiar?

Consumers expect brands to remember their prior purchase behavior and spend almost 40% more than planned when they receive hyper-personalized messages.

Knowing prior purchase history and sending product recommendations based on this data can help brands land better upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

6. Boosts AOV

Product recommendation based on past purchases improves upsell and cross-sell opportunities. And when you’re able to cross-sell and upsell to your existing customers, you can improve your average order value (AOV). Here’s how AOV is calculated.

Using this strategy, EGO, the fastest-growing fashion brand from Pakistan, was able to boost its average order value by over 12%.

After analyzing the shopper’s previous purchases on the EGO platform, the team identified their most purchased products. Based on the findings, the team with WebEngage Journey Designer started cross-selling relevant products in a timely manner, increasing their AOV.

What are the types of post-purchase product recommendations you can send?

Here are some examples of different types of post-purchase product recommendations for you to consider.

1. Mode of purchase

For instance, you can send post-purchase recommendations based on their mode of purchase — online or offline. Say the customer bought an apparel through your website. You can send post-purchase recommendations by email and WhatsApp based on the data collected during checkout.

2. Products purchased

Say a customer has purchased a bottomwear. Your post-purchase recommendation can be similar bottom wear at a discounted price or a matching ‘kurta’ or ‘kameez’ to pair with the bottom wear.

3. Product value

Knowing the customer’s previous cart value can hint at their spending power. For example, if a customer previously had a high cart value, it indicates they have decent spending power, and you can recommend them products accordingly.

4. Repeat customer

If a customer is purchasing from you for the second time, it means that the customer has already used your product and trusts you. These users are great prospects to cross-sell/upsell because they’re already familiar with and like the brand.

So, you have a better chance of conversion while up-selling or cross-selling. Look at the CSAT score to determine your satisfied customers and target them with personalized recommendations.

5. Discounts availed

Based on the discounts the customers have availed in their previous purchases, you can cross-sell items available on similar discounts and deals.

6. Based on brand loyalty

Pamper your high-value customers with some special ‘brownies’ in the form of early bird offers, exclusive deals, member-only discounts, etc. When you reward your loyal customers, they feel special and valued. This also subtly encourages them to repeat purchases. Spice it up with relevant product recommendations to shorten their buyer journey.

But how do you make your product recommendations this accurate? This is where a CDP comes into play.

Using CDP for effective post-purchase recommendations

A CDP or a customer data platform is a packaged software that collects customer data from various channels and offers a holistic view of the customer. As there is a dissipation of the third-party cookies along with data influx in our system, brands are leaning on first-party data to gather insights on the customers.

However, the problem arises as there is no way to collect and unify data and orchestrate them for marketing campaigns.

CDP helps brands to collect customer-specific data by integrating multiple channels. This helps in getting a complete 360-degree view of the customer. Once the data is integrated from all the channels, it’s then segregated and segmented for specific marketing campaigns.

Let’s say a shopper has purchased a coord set from the physical store. The same person later buys a watch from the store’s digital app.

The customer has a different journey on multiple channels with multiple intents across the touchpoints.
Sending this customer recommendation based on one touch point can make them irrelevant or complete.

WebEngage’s CDP, for example, ensures that all the customer data is aggregated from various channels for its recommendation engine to send personalized product recommendations.

Going back to our previous example, after the offline purchase, the customer may receive recommendations tailored to clothing via the WhatsApp number that they provided during the store shopping.

Following the in-app purchase, the same customer can get personalized recommendations delivered through push notifications, email, or other channels specifically centered around the item they purchased through the app, the watch in this case.

This omnichannel approach ensures that recommendations align with customer preferences at all stages of the buying journey.

Additionally, the best channel and intelligent sending feature of WebEngage helps marketers make targeting more precise and effective. With WebEngage on your side, you can’t get wrong with precise targeting and sending product recommendations that are apt and timely.

Conclusion

Today, the customer’s journey is not linear, and they have different intent at different touchpoints.

Product recommendations need to adapt and evolve to address the different intents and interests of the customers across various channels where they’re most active.

Journey Designer of WebEngage ties it all together to automate campaigns using an easy-to-use campaign management platform like WebEngage.

Book a free demo today to know more.

Holidays also mean customers getting bombarded with promotional messages from various brands across industries.

While people are gearing up to soak in the vacation spirit and brands are ramping up their promotional campaigns, the edtech industry may see a drop in engagement as the break begins and ‘shopping’ takes priority.

But here are some user engagement strategies you can set up to keep the engagement going during the holiday season.

Holiday campaign ideas for user engagement in EdTech

While it’s normal for everyone to take a break from learning during the summer holidays, a complete disconnect may also mean they never return. Here are some strategies we recommend setting up:

1. Offer discounts

Bring some cheer to your customers (new and old) with exciting discounts during the vacation days. These offers could include offering popular courses and subscriptions at discounted prices for a limited period. Alternatively, you can offer access to a premium course/ module exclusive for the vacation season.

2. Send season’s greetings

The holiday season is the perfect time to strengthen your customer relationship. So, send an e-card or a personalized note to thank them for their patronage. It’s always a great idea to keep the marketing agenda aside and send your customers a Season’s Greetings or Happy Holidays note.

3. Make information available at the fingertip

Notch up your customer service so that your customers ( i.e., students and their guardians) can access information anytime, even during the summer holidays. Ensure your customer representatives are knowledgeable while making FAQs available on the app and website. You may also consider live chat, email, and phone support to offer guidance at any time.

4. Improve the product

Users are naturally engaged with useful products that make their lives easy, bring in value, and are easy to use. So, improve your product that ticks off all these parameters. This means adding new features that the students might find helpful. For instance, if the students have complained of any bugs previously, it’s time to fix them.

5. Make it engaging

Students love applications that are interactive and engaging. Consider bringing in gamification to make the tool more engaging. Gamification will help improve the student’s communication and problem-solving skills.

Interactive quizzes with immediate answers and educational games are also popular among students, so adding these features to your tool will surely boost engagement.

Add curated content for students who love self-learning. Consider adding a leaderboard to the tool to help students track their progress while encouraging healthy virtual competition among the student community.

6. Implementing in-app and push notifications

Using in-app and push notifications helps improve user engagement. These small micro pieces of content pop up on the screen even when the student is not using the app.

When the users are away from the app enjoying their vacation, a gentle nudge will help to remind them about you. Planning in-app and push notifications in the holiday theme is a good way to add some element of brand recall.

User engagement strategies for holidays for EdTech

Now that you have some holiday campaign ideas, let’s dive into some strategies you must try for your edtech brand for the upcoming summer holidays.

1. Omnichannel for maximum engagement

Look at any Gen Z or millennial, and you’ll find them glued to their smartphone, hopping from one platform to another. And it’s not just a vague claim. A report mentions that 99% of Gen Z users own a smartphone.

So, it only makes sense to connect with your user base across multiple channels. Target different apps for specific promotions and advertisements.

For example, TutorBin, an online tutoring platform, grappled with fragmented communication. So, they partnered with WebEngage to improve its student engagement and retention rate. After this collaboration, TutorBin witnessed:

• 13.7% increase in unique conversions
• 25% increase in retention
• 187.82% overall conversion with web personalization

Explore how WebEngage’s Journey Designer can help you create workflows to deliver tailored experiences across platforms.

2. Personalize your campaign

Collect your customer insights to create segments based on their preferences. Leverage AI to understand the user’s behavior and what they liked in the past and send them targeted, personalized campaigns at the onset of the holiday mood.

Treat them to exclusive deals to entice them to make a purchase. For instance, for avid learners, we may highlight advanced courses or specialized learning paths aligned with their interests. Exploratory learners might be enticed with bundles of diverse courses or engaging challenges to broaden their knowledge base. Meanwhile, potential new learners could be introduced to the platform with enticing offers such as free trial periods or discounts on their first course.

Akash Digital, an online learning platform for the K12 segment, partnered with WebEngage to boost their mobile app engagement.

With the help of the partnership, Akash Digital was able to achieve significant results. They introduced data-backed, targeted, and hyper-personalized learner communication. Some of the key highlights of the partnership were:

• 2.3X deduction in acquisition cost
• 18% boost in learners return to the app
• 31% increase in LIVE class attendance
• 50% increase in overall learner calls received via the lead nurturing

3. Loyalty all the way

Loyal customers are the backbone of consistent revenue growth.

Holidays are the perfect time to pamper them through personalized campaigns. Consider creating exclusive campaigns, offering discounts, and reducing course prices for your loyal customers.

WebEngage enables you to create customer segments based on interactions and past purchases to target this campaign to the right set of audiences.

Discover how WebEngage’s Segmentation feature helps you target ideal audiences based on interactions and past purchases.

4. Time to beat the drum

Holidays are the best time to create buzz about all you have done in the past year. Showcase your achievements — for example, how the past students performed, the success rate, your new offerings, and your contributions to society.

Create teaser campaigns with early bird access to your upcoming offerings. The idea is to create some noise that you promised and delivered. However, don’t go too overboard with it.

5. Leverage the downtime

For EdTech firms, the summer vacation season presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities. While some educational institutions close for summer vacation, others may continue to offer classes, albeit in a different format, such as summer camps or additional courses. This can lead to a shift in demand and behavior among students and parents, impacting EdTech. But you can use downtime to improve your product, brainstorm new ideas, innovate, and diversify your offerings.

For example, developing specialized summer courses, partnering with summer camps or educational institutions, or introducing new features to enhance user engagement during the break.

You can also utilize the downtime to improve your product features for a better platform experience. For example, you can streamline and optimize your onboarding process to help new students navigate the app seamlessly. Consider bringing in gamification, tutorials, screen hits, and other useful features to help students access the right information at the right time. Remember, a smooth onboarding experience will help you boost your engagement.

Conclusion

Whether it is the holiday season or not, every brand must thrive for better user engagement and retention, and edtech brands are no different. While you may have various strategies and campaign ideas, you need tools to turn those ideas into action. That’s where WebEngage comes in.

To help you learn more about us and how we have helped various edtech brands, we have created a comprehensive eBook. In this eBook, you can learn about how our customers:

• Reduce new customer acquisition costs
• Nurture and retain existing customers to increase stickiness
• Engage with the most active customers to drive engagement

In this e-book, you will get access to:

• Toppr’s strategy to increase subscriptions by 133% through personalized campaigns
• How Testbook achieved a 15% conversion uplift from free to paid users
• How Unacademy increased engagement with the help of action-based recommendations
• 15% uplift in fee payments by multi-sided communication by Cuemath

Book a demo now to learn how WebEngage can help craft bespoke engagement strategies for your business.

In this scenario, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force. Marketing is one of the areas in which AI has the potential to drive immense change, so much so that a study found that along with sales, marketing is the single business function in which AI will have the most significant financial effect.

With its ability to streamline processes, enhance decision-making, and generate more value from marketing efforts, AI can truly revolutionize how marketing strategy can deliver results.
This article will show how AI can effectively leverage your marketing strategy to skyrocket productivity.

The AI Revolution in Marketing

AI plays a fundamental role in today’s marketing landscape. The integration of AI in marketing began with basic task automation and data analysis. The emergence of machine learning techniques has accelerated the adoption and sophistication of how AI can be used in marketing.

Depending on the level of intelligence and whether it is a stand-alone solution or part of a broader framework, marketing AI can be categorized according to two dimensions- less advanced and more advanced, further breaking down into four main types of marketing AI.

As we can see, the range of applications is quite huge. Understanding these quadrants can help marketers choose the applications that serve users’ needs best and design the most effective marketing strategy.

Here are the top 10 ways to leverage AI to achieve 3X productivity.

#1. Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics is one of AI’s most noteworthy contributions to digital marketing. AI processes huge amounts of historical data by collecting, cleaning, and analyzing it using machine learning algorithms. Thus, it can predict trends, customer behavior, and fluctuations in market conditions. This element of prescience enables marketers to make informed decisions about their campaigns, content strategies, and product launches.

For example, imagine a retail business that sells everything from electronics to groceries. For such a business, managing inventory is a challenge. By cleaning and analyzing the data about sales, consumer behavior, and seasonal economic trends stored in a database, AI can process it.

It can offer insights such as:
“Based on historical data and demand forecasts, we expect a surge in demand for smartphones during the summer holiday season.”
“Our current inventory for stationery products is too high compared to demand. Consider reducing stock and reallocating resources to higher-demand categories.”
“Supplier A consistently delivers orders on time and offers competitive prices. Explore opportunities to expand our partnership with them.”

Thus, based on the analysis, it could suggest inventory optimization, identify the most reliable suppliers, or even suggest a pricing strategy.

Walmart, for example, uses AI to improve daily supply chain workflows, anticipate and work in line with seasonal demand cycles, and even optimize and personalize grocery deliveries.

#2. Customer Segmentation

Customer segmentation can help you target your marketing efforts more precisely, leading to better results. AI can segment your audience with unparalleled accuracy. By analyzing user behavior, demographics, and preferences, AI helps create highly targeted marketing campaigns. This boosts customer engagement and conversion rates, as messages are tailored to individual interests.

Imagine an online fashion retailer that uses AI for customer segmentation to improve its marketing and product recommendations. By analyzing customer data, including purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographics, AI algorithms create distinct customer segments, such as “Frequent Shoppers,” “Fashion Enthusiasts,” and “Casual Shoppers.” The retailer can then personalize the marketing efforts directed at each category. So, a frequent shopper may receive early access to sales events or exclusive discounts, whereas a casual shopper may receive email campaigns highlighting discounts on selected products.

Coca-Cola uses AI for customer segmentation in its marketing campaigns. This allows Coca-Cola to personalize its advertisements, promotional offers, and product recommendations to match its customers’ specific interests and needs based on these segmentations. So, for example, it has different packaging and sizes to appeal to people of varying income levels. Similarly, while it may target a younger audience using advertisements that feature popular celebrities, older patients, who are more likely to be diabetic, may receive promotions for Diet Coke or other healthier product options.

Accurate customer segmentation made the difference for Scripbox, India’s leading digital wealth manager. Initially, Scripbox used segmentation based on demographics such as age. However, they didn’t see the desired results. It was segmentation based on the users’ residence status (domestic vs. NRI) that made a difference. Assisted by WebEngage dashboard features like Send Intelligently,’ ‘A/B testing,’ and personalization opportunities, they were able to leverage communication channels with greater effectiveness. Ultimately, this led to a 3X growth in user engagement, an increase in email open rates, and a reduction in unsubscribe rates.

Explore in-depth how WebEngage can help you achieve precise customer segmentation to deliver the best customer experience.

#3. Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

Chatbots and virtual assistants are the most obvious ways in which customers directly experience the use of AI. They provide 24/7 customer support by answering common queries, assisting with product recommendations, and guiding users through the sales funnel.
Imagine a customer who visits the website of a bank or insurance company, looking for a specific financial product. Presented with a wide range of choices on the website, the customer may want immediate guidance on which product best fits their financial goals. At this point, a chatbot can assist the customer to choose by responding to questions. It can also utilize the interaction with the customer to upsell another product.

Airbnb, for example, employs a chatbot on its website to help users with various tasks such as finding and booking accommodations, customer support during the booking process, and getting refunds. This has allowed Airbnb to enhance the host and guest experience.

#4. Content Generation

Generative AI-powered content generation tools can help create blog articles based on trending keywords, social media posts with relevant hashtags and captions, and even video scripts for product demonstrations or promotional videos. While these tools are not capable of completely replacing human creativity, they can help marketers save time and maintain a consistent content schedule.

Generative AI can be used in unique ways to engage customers and get them to participate in innovative marketing campaigns. A brilliant example of a company that does this well is Coca-Cola. Most recently, it has generated a buzz around its latest “mystery” flavor, Coca-Cola Y3000, which it says was co-created with AI. Similarly, the ‘Create Real Magic‘ campaign helped Coca-Cola encourage talented creators and artists to work with Generative AI to develop unique and attractive images featuring Coca-Cola assets. These images were featured on billboards in prime locations like New York’s Times Square.

#5. Content Optimization

In a world of search engines that rank content based on multiple factors, it is necessary to create quality content and optimize it so potential customers can easily find it. AI-driven SEO tools assist marketers in identifying keywords, tracking rankings, and analyzing competitors. They can also provide recommendations for optimizing on-page content and structure, which enhances organic search visibility. Thus, AI allows businesses to keep up with evolving search engine algorithms and user behaviors, ultimately refining their online visibility and search engine rankings.

Zillow, a leading online real estate marketplace, implemented AI-driven content optimization strategies to improve its search engine rankings and user engagement. Aside from recommendations about keywords, user behavior analysis, and dynamic content generation, AI also helped Zillow improve its local SEO efforts by analyzing location-based search queries. As a result, Zillow saw a noticeable increase in website traffic and improved engagement metrics as their listing began to rank higher.

#6. Email Marketing Optimization

Email marketing is a must-have in any marketer’s toolbox. AI can improve email marketing by analyzing subscriber behavior and delivering personalized content and recommendations, leading to higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. AI can also optimize and automate send times and subject lines to maximize engagement.

Expedia, a leading online travel agency, aimed to boost its marketing performance by crafting more persuasive and engaging email subject lines. Using AI, they discovered emotional and linguistic patterns that resonate with specific customer segments. This led to an uptick in click-through rates and revenue generated from email marketing.

Juicy Chemistry, a D2C brand offering natural and organic skin products, achieved 4.5X growth in email conversions and 2X improvement in email open rates. They could do this by using fewer yet more sharply targeted communications, along with optimization of channels, segments, and spending, using detailed analytics from WebEngage.

Unlock the potential of your email marketing strategy with WebEngage’s expert assistance. Dive deeper into your possibilities.

#7. Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising platforms leverage AI to automate ad buying and placement in real time. AI can optimize your bidding strategy, generate and deliver personalized ads, and help you understand your audience better. This ensures your ads reach the right audience. This makes ad campaigns more effective and efficient.

Amazon, for example, uses AI algorithms that analyze customer data and behavior, including past purchases, to optimize ad placements on its e-commerce platform.

#8. A/B Testing and Optimization

A/B testing identifies winning variations and suggests product, service, UI, and UX improvements. AI accelerates and enhances A/B testing by automating processes, conducting complex statistical analyses, and enabling personalization and dynamic content testing. This allows marketers to optimize landing pages, ad copy, and other elements of their digital marketing strategies for better results.

Imagine that a travel booking website wants to test the impact of using different images in email marketing campaigns. In AI-driven A/B testing, users are served automatically selected images based on their preferences and past interactions with the website. This allows for greater personalization, as users receive emails with images they will most likely connect with. Airbnb, for example, has successfully used AI for A/B testing.

Closer to home, for Bajaj Finserv EMI Store, using WebEngage’s Send Winner of A/B Testing Automatically feature allowed them to test different variations of their campaigns and then send the best one to their audience. Thus, implementing A/B test insights in real-time was a crucial factor that helped them to run more effective campaigns. This, in turn, led to an increase in user engagement, 3.5 X increases in conversions, and a 17% increase in conversions from retargeting efforts.

#9. Social Media Management

Most successful brands use social media today. AI tools can study social media conversations and trends to help you design your content strategy. AI can also automate posting schedules and monitor brand mentions, allowing for more effective social media management and engagement. AI-driven sentiment analysis tools can monitor social media mentions and comments to gauge audience sentiment. This can help you understand how your customer perceives your brands and products. This, in turn, will enable you to adjust strategies accordingly.

AI can also help with influencer marketing. Using natural language processing tools, for example, AI can predict how well an influencer’s style and voice will align with the brand’s goals. Accordingly, brands can select the social media influencers whose content resonates the most with the brand.

Coca-Cola relies heavily on AI for its marketing efforts, including social media marketing. In Japan, the company’s AI-powered app, Coke On, allows users to access a loyalty scheme by buying a drink from a vending machine. Innovative efforts like these enhance customer engagement and brand loyalty.

#10. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

AI-powered CRMs enable businesses to manage customer data effectively. They can track interactions, analyze customer sentiment, and even predict when a customer might be ready to purchase. Additionally, AI can reduce customer “churn” by identifying leak patterns in conversion funnels. Overall, AI-driven CRM can help build stronger, more personalized customer relationships.

Coca-Cola is a prime example. They implemented an AI-powered CRM system that enabled them to track customer behavior and preferences. They later leveraged this data to design targeted marketing campaigns. The system also helped them identify improvement areas for their customer service function.

The Future of AI in Marketing

As per research, the AI market is poised to grow twentyfold by 2030. Around 97 million people are expected to work in AI by 2025.

This shows that AI is here to stay. Emerging AI trends like AI-driven voice search optimization and augmented reality marketing will continue to shape the digital landscape and radically transform how brands engage with buyers.

As AI technology advances, businesses that embrace these trends can stay ahead of the curve in optimizing their marketing strategy.

Conclusion

AI is not just a buzzword but a powerful tool. Businesses that embrace AI-driven marketing strategies will find themselves better prepared to respond to changes in the digital marketing arena. AI can help you increase productivity, make data-driven decisions, and offer personalized experiences to your tech-savvy consumers.

WebEngage is well-positioned to help you with your AI technology needs. Request A Demo to explore what WebEngage can do to help you harness the transformative power of AI.

The Valentine’s season is steeped in the rich traditions of celebrating love in its myriad forms—be it the unconditional love for pets, the passion for gastronomy, the timeless romantic love, the celebration of queer love, or the camaraderie of friendships—presents an unparalleled opportunity for marketers to connect with a broad spectrum of audiences. Central to harnessing the potential of this multifaceted holiday is the strategic use of marketing automation by brands. This dynamic tool is indispensable for crafting personalized customer experiences that resonate on a deep, individual level. With automation, brands are positioned to maximize the holiday season. They can ensure that their marketing efforts are not only seen and heard but felt, aligning perfectly with the diverse and evolving preferences of their audience.

Now, automated messaging and personalized wishes are a breeze with WebEngage’s full stack automation system that is AI-powered to analyze data sets and automate the delivery of marketing campaigns as per the customer’s preferences and seasonal demands.

Brand-by-Brand Strategy Breakdown: Unveiling Valentine’s Day Marketing Automation Wins

Massage Envy’s Seasonal Messaging Mastery: Valentine’s Day Marketing

Massage Envy leverages the power of automated email campaigns to tap into the Valentine’s Day spirit, promoting couples’ massages and gift card options as perfect gifts for relaxation and connection. By personalizing these communications, they not only target individuals looking for meaningful ways to celebrate their relationships but also simplify the gifting process. Through carefully crafted messages that resonate with the desire to unwind and connect, Massage Envy effectively drives interest and bookings for their services, demonstrating how automation can enhance the appeal of wellness as an ideal expression of love.

OpenTable’s Love Feast: Curating Romantic Restaurant Lists with Valentine’s Day Marketing Automation

In an innovative partnership for Valentine’s Day, OpenTable and Bumble have joined forces to redefine the dining experience for love-seekers. OpenTable is utilizing marketing automation to effectively communicate its Valentine’s Day partnership with Bumble, aiming to transform the dining experience for those seeking connections. By deploying targeted email campaigns and personalized recommendations through their app and website, OpenTable is able to convey curated lists of romantic restaurants to Bumble’s community. This automated approach ensures that individuals looking for romantic, friendship, or networking opportunities have dining options that align with their preferences and intentions for Valentine’s Day. The integration of OpenTable’s dining expertise with Bumble’s social platform facilitates a unique service that simplifies the process of finding and booking the ideal restaurant, fostering new relationships and memorable experiences. Through this strategy, OpenTable and Bumble are making it easier for love-seekers to celebrate Valentine’s Day with the perfect dining backdrop.

Explore the secret sauce of sending bespoke messages to your target audience using WebEngage’s Personalization Engine.

Elevating Romance with Lelo: Valentine’s Day Marketing Automation through Sophisticated Email Campaigns

Lelo sets the standard for sophisticated email marketing by promoting luxury products that enhance the Valentine’s Day experience. By targeting consumers seeking an elevated romantic celebration, Lelo’s email campaigns artfully showcase their high-end pleasure products, emphasizing quality, design, and the promise of an unforgettable Valentine’s. These communications are tailored to intrigue and entice, offering exclusive deals and insights into how their products can contribute to creating a deeply personal and luxurious romantic occasion. Lelo’s approach not only highlights the allure of their products but also positions them as the go-to choice for those looking to add an extra touch of elegance and intimacy to their Valentine’s celebrations.

Speaking of self-love and intimacy, WebEngage joined hands with lingerie brand Clovia and helped them to achieve an 85% uplift in revenue using funnel analysis, helping them in customer retention and gaining loyalty.

Hallmark’s Heartfelt Approach: Personalizing Sentimental Messaging with Valentine’s Day Marketing Automation

Hallmark utilizes marketing automation to spotlight the special bond between children and their mothers on Valentine’s Day. Through targeted email campaigns and personalized social media ads, they offer curated gift suggestions like custom cards and keepsakes. This strategy taps into the deep affection children have for their mothers, providing them with meaningful ways to express their love. Hallmark’s approach not only diversifies the celebration of Valentine’s Day but also enhances the emotional value of their offerings, making it easier for children to convey their feelings in a personal and touching way.

Starbucks’ Sweet Deals: Brewing Love with App-Based Rewards and Valentine’s Day Marketing Automation

Starbucks, a global leader in coffee retail, has ingeniously leveraged its app-based rewards system to boost customer engagement and sales for Valentine’s Day specials. By offering exclusive promotions and rewards for their Valentine-themed drinks through the Starbucks app, they not only incentivize customers to try out new and seasonal beverages but also enhance customer loyalty. The result is a win-win: customers enjoy personalized deals and new taste experiences, while Starbucks sees a significant uptick in app usage and sales during the Valentine’s season.

Sephora’s Chatbot Charm: Enhancing Beauty Recommendations with Valentine’s Day Marketing Automation

Sephora, a leading beauty retailer, has seamlessly integrated chatbot technology into its customer service approach, especially in the lead-up to Galentine’s Day, a celebration of female friendship the day before Valentine’s Day. By employing chatbots for personalized beauty product recommendations and facilitating appointment bookings, Sephora offers a highly interactive and convenient shopping experience. This automation not only streamlines the process of finding the perfect beauty products for Galentine’s Day celebrations but also ensures that customers can easily book services for a pampering session with their friends. This approach reflects Sephora’s commitment to leveraging technology to meet the evolving needs of its clientele, making it easier for friends to celebrate their bond through beauty experiences.

WebEngage’s chatbot integration feature allows you to automate the creation and execution of chatbots for all your customer service and interaction-related functions. Interaction data is collected simultaneously and used to retarget audiences.

Chewy’s Valentine’s Day Love Fest: Tail-Wagging Deals Powered by Marketing Automation

Chewy, the esteemed online pet retailer, is embracing Valentine’s Day with an exclusive range of offers designed to delight pet owners and their furry friends alike. In addition to showcasing an exclusive Valentine’s Day collection for pets, Chewy is leveraging automated marketing tools to enhance customer engagement this festive season. Through personalized email campaigns and targeted social media ads, Chewy directly communicates with pet owners, offering them curated Valentine’s Day-themed gifts, heart-shaped treats, and customizable accessories tailored to their pets’ preferences. These automated messages remind customers of the special discounts available, ensuring they don’t miss out on the opportunity to treat their pets. The use of marketing automation enables Chewy to maintain a conversational tone with its audience, making the shopping experience more personal and responsive. From offering limited-edition plush toys to personalized pet tags, Chewy’s approach aims to celebrate the unique relationships between pets and their owners, making Valentine’s Day memorable for all family members, whether they have two legs or four.

Airbnb’s Romantic Getaways: Crafting Automated Travel Suggestions for Valentine’s Day

Airbnb has skillfully harnessed the power of automation to provide travelers with personalized travel suggestions, particularly focusing on special Valentine’s getaway promotions. By analyzing user preferences and past booking behaviors, Airbnb’s algorithm offers tailored recommendations for romantic retreats, ranging from cozy cabins in secluded woods to luxurious beachfront villas. These automated suggestions are complemented by exclusive Valentine’s promotions, encouraging couples to explore unique and memorable experiences.

WebEngage’s personalization engine analyzes customer interaction data and automatically designs marketing campaigns such as special discounts, offers, and recommendations delivered via omnichannel marketing tools. This maximizes conversions and aids customer retention.

Victoria’s Secret’s Seductive Signals: Email Campaigns and Targeted Promotions with Valentine’s Day Marketing Automation

Victoria’s Secret has utilized exclusive email campaigns to engage customers with targeted promotions for Valentine’s lingerie and beauty products. By crafting personalized emails highlighting their Valentine’s Day collection, including lingerie sets, luxurious sleepwear, and enchanting beauty items, Victoria’s Secret directly reaches its audience with curated selections that appeal to the romantic essence of the holiday. These targeted promotions incentivize purchases by offering special discounts and limited-time offers and also create a sense of exclusivity and anticipation around their Valentine’s range.

Automated email marketing is a breeze with WebEngage’s full-stack marketing automation features. Boost email conversions with personalized messaging using WebEngage’s Segmentation tool!

Etsy’s Crafty Love: Personalized Gift Guides and Recommendations via Valentine’s Day Marketing Automation

Etsy, the renowned online marketplace for unique and handmade items, has embraced
marketing automation to curate and deliver personalized gift guides and recommendations for Valentine’s Day. By employing advanced algorithms, the platform analyzes users’ search behaviors and preferences to showcase a selection of unique, handmade products. This approach provides a tailored shopping experience, enabling customers to effortlessly find and buy distinctive Valentine’s gifts, such as custom jewelry, handcrafted items, and bespoke keepsakes that embody a special touch of care and sentiment.

Celebrating Diverse Expressions with Marketing Automation

Patagonia and Bookshop.org are redefining Valentine’s Day celebrations through campaigns that spotlight environmental love, self-love, and the love of passions. Patagonia connects consumers with the planet through content promoting environmental conservation, sustainable products, and conservation participation, nurturing a love for nature. Meanwhile, Bookshop.org targets individual interests, offering personalized book and outdoor gear recommendations to celebrate personal passions. These efforts emphasize the inclusivity of Valentine’s Day, inviting a wider audience to celebrate love in its many forms, from environmental stewardship to the joy of personal interests, marking a shift towards a more inclusive and diverse understanding of love.

In this respect, the segmentation and user journey tools from WebEngage are extremely useful in streamlining the flow of relevant content to the targetted audience. Powered by AI, the WebEngage customer retention model can intelligently dissect huge heaps of information, sort them into datasets, and judge the best messaging platform and type for each.

Challenges and Solutions in Marketing Automation

Brands utilizing marketing automation for inclusive campaigns face challenges like generic messaging that lacks a personal touch, diminishing the authenticity of their efforts. To counter this, they are turning to advanced data analytics to tailor communications more closely to individual preferences, ensuring messages resonate on a personal level. Incorporating feedback loops also allows for continuous refinement of strategies, enhancing authenticity. These approaches enable brands to effectively navigate automation challenges, maintaining personalized and authentic connections with their audience even in complex, diverse campaigns.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Automated Seasonal Marketing

The future of automated seasonal marketing is poised to be transformed by AI and machine learning, enabling brands to deliver highly personalized and timely campaigns during holidays. With advancements in data analytics, marketers will better predict and adapt to evolving consumer preferences, ensuring relevance and engagement. The integration of dynamic and interactive advertising formats will make holiday campaigns more immersive, meeting the rising expectations of consumers. Success in this evolving landscape will depend on brands’ ability to blend cutting-edge technology with authentic storytelling, capturing the festive spirit while maintaining a deep connection with their audience.

Want to ace your Valentine’s Day automation strategy? Book a demo with us and explore hyper-targeted personalized campaigns that will elevate your brand and act as a customer retention tool.

With a mobile-first audience in 2024, it’s not just about sending messages; it’s about sending them at the right time, in the right sequence, and ensuring that each interaction adds value to the user experience.

App personalization has emerged as a game-changer, allowing businesses to tailor their user experiences and engage with their audience on a more intimate level.

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing you with the best app personalization stack, WebEngage is excited to introduce 2 new features:

Together, they amplify your ability to craft personalized, effective, and adaptive user experiences.

Let’s delve into both of these concepts individually:

Campaign Prioritization

The Challenge of Campaign Overlaps

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where multiple campaigns overlap, targeting the same sets of users? It’s a common dilemma faced by marketers seeking to optimize their outreach efforts. The question arises: How can you determine which campaign takes precedence and is sent to the user first?

Decoding Campaign Prioritization

Enter WebEngage’s Campaign Prioritization – a solution designed to empower businesses with the ability to decide the order in which their campaigns are delivered to users. This innovative tool allows marketers to take control of their campaign strategy, ensuring a seamless and personalized experience for their audience.

How it Works

Campaign Prioritization provides a user-friendly interface where you can effortlessly assign priority levels to your campaigns. This functionality allows you to set the order in which campaigns are presented to users, ensuring that the most relevant and impactful messages take precedence.

Moreover, if a user qualifies for multiple campaigns, he will be shown first the one that is prioritized. While by default, journey campaigns are given higher priority, with this feature, you can prioritize a standalone campaign.

Why Do You Need It?

Optimizing User Engagement: By strategically ordering your campaigns, you can optimize user engagement and increase the chances of capturing their attention with the most compelling messages. This feature empowers you to enhance the overall effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Campaign Lifecycle

We have added additional controls to our app personalization channels, i.e., in-app and in-line content, that will allow users to define campaign view limits, recur campaigns, etc.

The feature of strategic recurring campaigns is one with much potential, allowing marketers to reintroduce successful campaigns at intervals that resonate with their audience, maintaining interest and relevance over time.

This is an enhancement to our earlier ‘Max limit’ option. Configuring this Campaign Lifecycle allows clients to specify how many times a specific campaign should be displayed to a user and whether it should be repeated/recurred.

Here is what it looks like on the dashboard:

PS. The blue boxes underneath the campaigns help you decode exactly how long you’ve scheduled your communication for. Use them as your little helpers!

Why Do You Need It?

1. Preventing Campaign Fatigue: Define view limits to ensure users are not overwhelmed by repetitive messages, enhancing the overall user experience and avoiding potential disengagement.
2. Strategic Recurrence Patterns: Empower marketers to reintroduce successful campaigns at specified intervals, maintaining user interest and relevance over time.
3. Adaptability to Changing Dynamics: Businesses gain the agility to adapt to evolving marketing landscapes by finely tuning the lifecycle of their campaigns and responding to shifting user preferences and industry trends.

How it Works

1. The client can set how many times a notification will be viewed until it’s clicked once (similar to our existing ‘max limit’ option).
2. If the client wants to recur this notification, then they can tick the checkbox.
3. Once checked, the following needs to be configured:
   • Frequency: Define the frequency limit – Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly
   • The number of recurring cycles: Define how many times the cycle will be repeated. Either it can be set to a finite value or until the campaign ends.

To learn more: Watch our video here.

How is it different for in-app and in-line?

Simple.
For in-line, there’s a view limit.
This means you can limit how many times a user will view the campaign.
For in-app, if your user clicks on the notification once, it can be dismissed.

To summarize, with Campaign Lifecycle, you can define a cycle (how many times a campaign is to be shown until it’s clicked once), the frequency of repeating the cycle (daily, weekly, etc.), and the number of times the cycle will be repeated.
To understand further, refer the in-app Knowledge Base document (Knowledge Base for app in-line will be updated soon).

Please note:

1. For in-line campaigns, only the number of views is taken into consideration (unlike in-app, wherein clicks are also considered).
2. This feature would require core SDK updates: Android v4.6.0 and iOS v6.5.0.

Use cases:

Here are some use cases for your business that you can implement using Campaign Lifecycle:

E-Commerce:

Time-Bound Festive Coupons: Enable a weekly/daily nudge to incentivize users to make a purchase on the platform. Fetch user data or personalized discount coupons through the Catalog for an added level of customization for your users.
Suggested channel: In-app personalization

Edtech:

Course Reminders and Updates: Show periodic reminders about upcoming classes, assignment due dates, and important updates to students. This ensures continuous engagement and keeps learners informed throughout the duration of a course.
Suggested channel: In-app personalization

Travel & Hospitality

Rewards & Gamification: Implement Campaign Lifecycle to nudge users to collect rewards to purchase on the platform with gamification. With elements like scratch cards, spin the wheel, points, and more, create a holistic experience that keeps users engaged and retained.
Suggested channel: In-app personalization

BFSI

Insurance premium reminders: Remind users to pay the upcoming months’ premiums. For unknown users or users on the platform who haven’t converted into paying customers, implement the feature to sign up and transact on the platform.
Suggested channel: In-line personalization

Frequency Capping for In-App Notifications

We’re bringing you frequency capping within in-app notifications.

What does it mean?
Frequency Capping helps you control the number of views per session. This means you can control how many in-app notifications can be seen by a user within a session.

When enabled, this setting ensures a thoughtful and non-intrusive user experience by preventing back-to-back notifications when a user qualifies for multiple messages.

How it Works

Frequency Capping allows you to specify the time interval between displaying multiple notifications to a user. If enabled, this setting prevents two campaign notifications from being displayed back to back if a user has qualified for multiple notifications.

PRO TIP: You can also combine campaign prioritization and campaign lifecycle. Have fun experimenting with these!

Conclusion: Why Campaign Lifecycle should matter to you

The introduction of WebEngage’s Campaign Prioritization and Campaign Lifecycle features marks a significant stride toward a more personalized and effective approach.

Campaign Prioritization puts control firmly in the hands of marketers, allowing them to decide the order in which campaigns are presented to users. This not only ensures the most impactful messages take precedence but also adds a layer of customization that resonates with users on a more individual level.

Simultaneously, the Campaign Lifecycle feature provides a nuanced and adaptive approach to campaign management. With the ability to define view limits, recur campaigns, and implement frequency capping within in-app notifications, businesses can now navigate the delicate balance between visibility and moderation.

With Campaign Prioritization and Campaign Lifecycle, the future of marketing is not just about reaching users; it’s about reaching them with the right message, at the right time, and in a way that truly resonates.

Embrace the power of control, tailor your strategies, and unlock the full potential of personalized user engagement with WebEngage’s latest innovations.

For more information, check out the Knowledge Base here.
Get in touch with your Customer Success Manager or reach out to us at product@webengage.com.

This paradigm shift has made marketing in the hospitality industry more complex than it may seem at first glance.

In this blog, we’ll discuss ten common campaign mistakes in the hospitality industry and provide solutions to navigate this landscape successfully.

10 Campaign Mistakes in Hospitality (And Their Solutions)

Marketing is the cornerstone for hospitality businesses to survive and thrive. Many hospitality businesses struggle with their marketing efforts, making mistakes that can harm them. Whether it’s saying the wrong things or not keeping up with digital trends, these errors create issues. Knowing what to steer clear of helps businesses upgrade their marketing and make a mark in the bustling hospitality market.

So here is a list of 10 mistakes hospitality businesses make in their marketing campaigns, from which you can learn your lesson.

1. Not Being Present Where Your Audience Is

Most businesses make the mistake of sticking to a limited set of traditional marketing channels, such as print ads, brochures, and billboards. They assume that these methods alone are sufficient to reach their target audience. However, they overlook the fact that modern consumers engage with brands across a wide range of channels before making a purchase.

Solution: Implement Omnichannel Marketing

Hospitality businesses should embrace omnichannel marketing. This strategy involves establishing a consistent presence across various online and offline platforms, from social media and email marketing to mobile apps and in-person experiences.

One crucial aspect of this strategy is leveraging the best channel features to identify the most effective platforms for engaging with prospects, ultimately leading to better conversions and seamless user experiences.

With advanced analytics, hospitality businesses track customer interactions across channels, analyzing metrics like engagement, click-through, conversion rates, and feedback to pinpoint effective platforms for reaching their audience and driving desired actions.

Mr.Bilit, an Iran-based travel aggregator, harnessed WebEngage’s omnichannel marketing to achieve remarkable results. By utilizing Journey Designer, data analytics, and various communication channels like SMS, web push, and push notifications, MrBilit successfully increased user retention, correctly targeted search abandoners, and employed multiple channels simultaneously.

As a result, they witnessed a remarkable 19% increase in flight search abandonment retention, alongside substantial uplifts in bus and train search abandonment retention.

2. Not Deep Diving Into Customer Analytics

Many hospitality businesses fall into the trap of relying on outdated or generalized customer personas, assuming that once these profiles are created, they remain accurate. In today’s dynamic market, consumer needs and preferences are constantly evolving. Therefore, static personas are insufficient for effectively understanding and catering to your audience.

Solution: Utilize Real-Time Customer Segmentation

This means constantly analyzing and segmenting your audience based on their real-time behaviors, preferences, and interactions with your brand.

WebEngage offers robust customer segmentation capabilities, allowing you to create dynamic segments based on criteria like behavior, location, device, and more.

By leveraging real-time data and continuously updating your customer segments, you can stay on top of evolving consumer preferences and tailor your marketing strategies to provide highly personalized experiences.

3. Not Paying Attention to Customer Journeys

Another common mistake in the hospitality industry is assuming that customers follow a linear path when interacting with your brand. In reality, the modern consumer journey is far from straightforward, with various touchpoints and interactions taking place across different channels. Failing to understand and adapt to these complex journeys can result in missed opportunities and disengagement.

Solution: Implement Path Analytics and Customer Journey Design

Implement path analytics to gain a real, data-driven picture of how customers are interacting with your brand.

WebEngage’s path analytics capabilities help you identify gaps and opportunities in your customer journeys. Once you have a clearer understanding of these paths, you can use journey designer to create and optimize journeys that guide your audience smoothly from awareness to conversion.

By taking a more data-driven and dynamic approach to customer journey design, you can enhance the overall customer experience, increase engagement, and drive better results in the hospitality industry.

Yatra, the second-largest OTA in India, has been using customer journeys to create tailored experiences for its audience. This has helped the business increase its hotel bookings by 3.2%.

4. Not Focusing on Hyper-Personalization

Modern consumers have come to expect personalized content and offers tailored to their specific preferences. A recent statistic indicates that 80% of consumers are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences. Ignoring this expectation can lead to missed opportunities and customer disengagement.

Solution: Implement Unified Customer Profiles

The solution is to establish unified customer profiles using WebEngage’s Customer Data Platform. These profiles consolidate data from various touchpoints to create a comprehensive view of each customer.

With this understanding, businesses can personalize marketing efforts on an individual basis.

With customer profiles, you can segment your audience more effectively, deliver highly personalized content, and enhance the overall customer experience, increasing engagement and loyalty.

Goibibo, the famous OTA brand in India, uses hyper-personalization in their email communication. This has helped them increase their conversions by 11%, leading to positive business outcomes.

5. Not Focusing on Customer Retention

Many hospitality businesses put all their efforts into acquiring new customers, often overlooking the significant cost associated with customer acquisition. Neglecting customer retention is a grave mistake. Loyal and active customers are a valuable asset, and failing to nurture these relationships can lead to lost revenue.

Solution: Implement Customer Retention Campaigns

Hospitality businesses should segment their loyal and active customers and create targeted campaigns to keep them engaged.

Implementing repeat booking initiatives is essential. Post-stay emails can be an effective tool for maintaining guest engagement. Also, implementing loyalty programs, offering perks, and personalized treatment can transform regular guests into VIPs.

Providing exclusive incentives tailored to individual preferences encourages repeat bookings and fosters customer loyalty.

Travel Triangle uses an omnichannel marketing strategy created using real-time customer segmentation and data analysis. This has helped the company hyper-personalize campaigns, leading to 20% more returning users.

6. Not Seeking Customer Feedback

Neglecting to seek customer feedback is akin to having a one-way communication channel with your guests. This mistake deprives you of valuable insights into customer satisfaction, preferences, and areas that require improvement. Without this information, it’s challenging to refine your marketing campaigns and enhance the guest experience.

Solution: Automate Feedback Campaigns

The solution is to automate campaigns designed to solicit customer feedback.

Use email, in-app notifications, or SMS to reach out to customers post-stay or post-service and ask for their input. Analyze the feedback received to identify strengths and weaknesses in your offerings.

By fine-tuning your services and marketing based on these insights, you can improve the overall guest experience, address specific pain points, and show customers that you value their opinions. This, in turn, can lead to increased satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth marketing.

7. Not Emphasizing on the Website

Your website is often the first point of contact with potential customers, and if it doesn’t provide a compelling and personalized experience, you risk losing valuable visitors. A poorly optimized website can result in higher bounce rates and missed conversion opportunities.

Solution: Implement Web Personalization

Web personalization allows you to tailor your website’s content, offers, and user experience to match individual visitors’ preferences and behaviors.

By creating a personalized journey for each website visitor, you can enhance engagement, encourage longer visits, and boost conversion rates. A personalized website experience can significantly improve the overall effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns.

8. Not Focusing on Empathy-Based Marketing

Another common mistake is the lack of emphasis on empathy-based marketing. Businesses often fail to understand how their customers feel while engaging with their brand. Without this understanding, it’s challenging to create marketing campaigns that resonate emotionally with your audience.

Solution: Utilize Customer Segments, Journey Insights, and Feedback

To rectify this, businesses should develop a deep understanding of their customers by using the insights provided by customer segments, journey analytics, and feedback.

By knowing your customers’ preferences and pain points, you can infuse empathy into your marketing campaigns. Craft messages and experiences that show you understand and care about their needs.

Empathy-based marketing creates a stronger emotional connection, fostering trust and loyalty.

9. Not Focusing on Referral Marketing

Many hospitality businesses rely solely on their promotional campaigns and neglect the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Customer referrals can be a highly effective way to reach new customers, but companies often do not actively encourage or facilitate this.

Solution: Automate Referral Marketing Campaigns

By automating campaigns that target specific customer segments and request referrals, you can harness the power of your satisfied customers to bring in new ones.

Incentivize your existing customers to refer friends and family by offering rewards or discounts. A well-executed referral marketing strategy can help you tap into the extensive networks of your satisfied customers, expanding your customer base.

10. Not Experimenting With Anything Other Than Discounts

Many hospitality businesses fall into the trap of offering only discounts as a marketing strategy. While discounts can be effective, relying solely on this approach can lead to a devaluation of your brand and may not always be the most creative or engaging way to attract and retain customers.

Solution: Diversify Marketing Strategies

Experiment with a variety of marketing strategies beyond discounts. Consider content marketing, storytelling, experiential marketing, or themed promotions.

Use your understanding of customer segments, their journeys, and feedback to craft innovative and engaging campaigns that capture your audience’s attention. By diversifying your marketing strategies, you can stand out in a crowded market and build a more robust and enduring brand presence.

Conclusion

To wrap up, avoiding these 10 common campaign mistakes is crucial for successful hospitality marketing. Adopting a data-driven approach is key, and with WebEngage, you can unlock real-time analytics and create personalized customer experiences.

Book a demo today to start boosting your revenue growth with a strong data culture!

To help you harness the full power of these benefits, we’re thrilled to introduce some amazing improvements to our Analytics stack. Drumroll, please!

Introducing WebEngage’s Event Analytics 2.0

Event Analytics 2.0 is a brand-new toolkit designed to help you dive deeper into your event data, uncover hidden opportunities, and make amazing discoveries that can transform your business! Let’s embark on this journey together and explore all the incredible updates:

1. Multi-event Analytics

Ever wished you could look at data from multiple events all at once? Well, now you can! With multi-event analytics, you can analyze up to 10 events simultaneously and get a complete picture of user behavior patterns, correlations, and trends aligned with your business goals.

How to Use

1. Select any combination of system and custom events for analysis.

2. Each event comes with its own customizable filter options, allowing you to fine-tune your analysis based on specific needs.

3. The ‘over’ category remains consistent across multiple events, ensuring reliable insights.

Practical Use Cases

• User Onboarding Evaluation: Keep a close eye on user actions during the initial stages of using your app or platform. Identify any potential friction points or drop-offs in the onboarding journey and make necessary improvements.
• Browse-to-Purchase Pathway: Dive deep into events such as product views, cart additions, and checkouts to understand the most common path users to complete a purchase. Streamline this journey to improve conversion rates and boost sales.
• Promotion Effectiveness: Track key events such as email clicks, purchases, and other actions associated with your promotional campaigns. Analyze the effectiveness of different campaigns and optimize future campaigns accordingly.

2. Segment and Static List Filter

Move over standard filters; there’s a new sheriff in town! With the segment and static list filter, you can now analyze events for specific user groups based on attributes or behaviors. Whether you’re segmenting users based on their product category affinity or creating static lists of VIP customers, the possibilities are endless!

How to Use

1. Click the filter button and choose from a range of user lists in the dropdown, including CSV lists or refreshing lists.
Note: The analysis automatically removes duplicate users from selected lists and displays the total number of users.

2. Perform multi-event analysis after applying a list filter. Analyze event occurrences and correlations for users in selected lists.
3. Add or exclude lists from event analytics for comprehensive segment analysis.

Practical Use Cases

• Product Category Affinity: Segment users based on their affinity for specific product categories. Customize product recommendations and marketing messages to match users’ interests, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
• VIP Customer Recognition: Generate a static list of high-value customers based on their purchase history. Offer exclusive discounts, early access to promotions, or personalized customer support to reward and retain them.
• Subscription Tier Targeting: Create static lists based on users’ subscription or membership tiers, such as free, basic, and premium. Ensure each subscription tier gets relevant content, upgrades, or incentives aligned with their membership tier.

3. User Attribute Filters and Common Filter

Get ready to take your analysis to the next level with custom user attributes and the common filter. With custom user attributes, refine your user data based on specific attributes, while the common filter simplifies analysis by identifying shared attributes among selected events.

How to Use

Navigate to the Filters section and take the following steps:
1. For User Attribute Filters: Click on ‘user attribute filters’ to access the accordion. Here, you can apply filters related to user attributes, whether system or custom attributes.
2. For Common Filter: Click on ‘common filter for events’ to access the accordion displaying the common attribute present in all selected events.

Note: If a selected event is removed, the common filter will continue to apply to the remaining events.

Practical Use Cases

• New User Welcome: Leverage user attribute filters to target new users who have recently signed up. Send them personalized welcome messages, introducing them to your platform and guiding them through onboarding.
• Occasion-specific Offers: Segment users by specific occasions, such as their birthdays or anniversaries. Send personalized offers to celebrate the occasion and incentivize continued engagement with your brand.
• Seasonal Campaign Effectiveness: Compare the performance of various seasonal marketing campaigns. Find out which campaign consistently delivers the best results so you can fine-tune your marketing strategy and maximize returns.
• A/B Test Impact Assessment: Use the common filter to assess the impact of different A/B tests. Determine which test variations drive the desired user actions and conversion rates and optimize your strategy accordingly.

4. Export to Static List

Last but certainly not least, from our Event Analytics 2.0 toolkit, we’re thrilled to introduce the ability to export event analytics data to static lists. This enhancement bridges the gap between analysis and action, allowing you to integrate insights into your marketing toolkit seamlessly.

How to Use

1. Access the required data when event analytics are ready by clicking on it.
2. Choose ‘series of data’ or ‘data points’ to create a list.

3. Select list type and customize details like name, period, and refresh frequency.

4. Once done, create the list. The created list will be accessible under Segments>Lists.

Practical Use Cases

• Event Attendee Engagement: Export event analytics data for attendees of your webinars or conferences and send them post-event surveys, special offers, or content related to their interests for post-event engagement and feedback collection.
• Product Launch Promotion: Export a static list of users who engaged with teaser campaigns leading up to a product launch. Send them exclusive pre-order invitations, ensuring a successful product launch with a ready and engaged audience.
• Membership Renewal Reminders: Export data for users whose membership or subscription is due for renewal. Use this list to send timely renewal reminders, special loyalty offers, or incentives to encourage users to renew their memberships.

Wrapping Up

With WebEngage’s Event Analytics 2.0, understanding and harnessing the power of your event data has never been easier. From uncovering hidden patterns to fine-tuning your marketing strategies, these new features open up a world of possibilities for businesses of all sizes.

So why wait? Dive into Event Analytics 2.0 today and unlock the insights you need to drive meaningful engagement, enhance user experiences, and propel your business toward success!

In a bid to enhance email security and user experience, Gmail and Yahoo have embarked on a mission to fortify email security and elevate user experience through revamped guidelines for bulk email senders. In their new email guidelines, they are turning what was once considered best practices for email authentication into mandatory requirements—and senders who don’t comply with the new requirements may start facing delivery issues in 2024. Enforcement of these guidelines, slated to take effect by February 2024, aims to streamline email communication while mitigating spam and ensuring user control. If you’re utilizing bulk emails (more than 5000 emails per day) as a means of communication, it’s essential to understand these new requirements to maintain effective outreach.

Here’s a breakdown of what these guidelines entail for our clients at WebEngage:

1. Ensure that your email is authenticated

To help ensure that your messages are delivered as expected, set up strong email authentication for your domain. In 2022, Gmail began requiring senders to adopt some form of authentication, which resulted in a 75% drop in unauthenticated messages received by Gmail users. To minimize instances of spamming & phishing, it is recommended to always set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC policies. These policies protect your organization’s email and meet the authentication requirements.
Authenticating your email will prevent spoofing, phishing, and messages from being marked as spam.

Note: Verify that your ESP’s authentication methods meet the requirements mentioned in Google and Yahoo’s sender guidelines.

2. Ensure the Spam rate is below 0.10% & never beyond 0.30%

As an industry-first initiative to combat spam and enhance user experience, Google and Yahoo have established definitive thresholds for spam rates. Exceeding these thresholds will not only affect the delivery of emails but also impact the reputation of the sender’s domain, subsequently influencing the placement of future communications in recipients’ inboxes. This proactive measure aims to minimize inbox clutter caused by unsolicited or irrelevant emails, ensuring a more relevant email environment for users. Refer to our blog for guidelines that will help you stay below the spam threshold, including:

• Regularly clean email lists
• Avoid using spam-triggering words in Subject Lines
• Use double opt-in to verify subscriber consent
• Refrain from buying email lists
• Maintain Sender Reputation

Enable One-Click-Unsubscribe

Saying goodbye to unwanted emails should be a breeze, not a hassle. With the One Click Unsubscribe Button, Gmail recipients can bid farewell to emails they no longer wish to receive. The placement of the unsubscribe button is strategically designed for easy identification, positioned next to the header for Gmail recipients. Large senders are now required to implement this feature and process unsubscription requests within two days.

To adhere to this, we have added the One-click unsubscribe support for the following ESPs:

By default, all emails sent using these ESPs would have One-click unsubscribe.

What if clients are using other ESPs?

In this case, they need to check with their ESP support team for further assistance, as these compliances are applicable to their ESP’s service.

Note: Ensure you send the ‘Unsubscribed’ event data to WebEngage in real time so that the user reachability information is up to date.

Conclusion

As email continues to be a cornerstone of modern marketing communication, both senders and providers must adapt to evolving standards. What was once considered good practice has now become an essential hygiene practice in email communication. These new email guidelines from Gmail and Yahoo signify a pivotal shift towards ensuring not only the security but also the relevance of emails reaching users’ inboxes.

“No matter who their email provider is, all users deserve the safest, most secure experience possible,” says Marcel Becker, Sr. Director Product at Yahoo. With the implementation of these changes now, it’s crucial to recognize that the landscape of email communication is ever-evolving. Hence, it’s incumbent upon email senders to adhere to best practices continuously, ensuring maximum inbox placement while prioritizing the safety and experience of email users.

Have you got more questions? Don’t hesitate to reach out. Contact your Customer Service Manager or write to product@webengage.com.