What is harmony? You know it when you hear it. The perfect blend of notes that catches your attention and sends chills of joy down your spine. It’s hard to define, but easy to recognize. We think of cross-channel marketing the same way. There’s an art to seamlessly connecting marketing channels—like going from email to mobile and back again—and creating a cohesive customer experience. When it works, it works—it’s unmistakable.
In our latest ebook, we take four go-to marketing campaigns—Welcome and Onboarding, Promotional, Abandonment, and Re-Engagement—and tear them down to the studs to understand the various elements that make each campaign effective.
By looking at what the campaign is, why it matters, what instruments are needed, and tips for elevating each campaign, we set out to answer the question, “What makes the experience of this campaign harmonious?”
In each campaign we highlight some events of note—actions users can take that trigger these campaigns. Below is a preview of the four campaigns and how the events of note tie back to each of them.
Events of Note
Welcome and Onboarding Campaigns
Welcome and onboarding campaigns are when your users are most engaged. You should plan to initiate these types of campaigns around first-time interactions with your brand.
This includes:
- Account Creation
- Free Trials
- First Login
- App Downloads
All of these events of note are the perfect actions to trigger a welcome or onboarding sequence. Account creation and Free Trials are perfect for a welcome campaign that introduces the user to what your brand is all about. First logins and app downloads are a perfect time to send onboarding campaigns to help users get familiar with your product or interface. Plus, sending emails after an app login or download is the perfect example of a cross-channel experience—you’re recognizing the user regardless of the channel they choose.
Promotional Campaigns
Promotional messaging is generally the bulk of how brands keep ties with customers, so it’s imperative for marketers to make the most of promotional campaigns to get a share of a user’s attention. Promotional campaigns should be sent when users are in the mix with your brand—they’re not new and they’re not churning.
This includes:
- Discounts
- Launches
- Recommendations
- Upsells
These events of note are less trigger-based and more about maintaining engagement with exciting new opportunities. Promotional campaigns keep customers in the loop. So, when your brand is offering steep discounts or new product launches, loyal customers should be the first to know. Discounts, in particular, can be timely, so, in addition to emails, using push notifications to alert customers quickly creates a cross-channel experience—playing to each channels’ strengths. Recommendations and upsells can also feature dynamic content, curated for each individual customer, not only keeping them informed, but personalizing the experience.
Abandonment Campaigns
Abandonment campaigns remind customers of left-behind items or actions needing completion before a conversion event. We all know you should remind customers to complete an action with cart abandonment or browse abandonment campaigns, but what about other abandoned actions?
This includes:
- Near transactions
- Account upgrades
- Incomplete signups
Abandonment campaigns don’t always have to be tied to a shopping cart. Sure, launching an abandonment campaign when a customer is close to purchase is effective, but there are even more opportunities to use this type of campaign. If a customers’ trial or intro-level account membership is about to lapse, you can remind them to upgrade. Or, if a customer has started filling out a form on your site to create an account but leaves, this is another good opportunity to introduce an abandonment campaign—have them pick up where they left off, regardless of whether they started with your app or desktop site.
Re-Engagement Campaigns
Lastly, re-engagement campaigns focus on eliciting engagement from subscribers experiencing waning interaction and activity levels. Re-engaging customers can be a hard hurdle to overcome, but knowing when to initiate a re-engagement campaign, based on certain user events, can make the process easier.
This includes:
- Lapsed engagement
- Feedback gathering
- Winback
Re-engagement campaigns are essential in a cross-channel marketing strategy because they can be used on a channel-by-channel basis. If a customer is showing lapsed engagement on a certain channel, you can trigger a re-engagement campaign specifically designed for that channel. So, if they haven’t been opening emails, try a push notification or an SMS. Re-engagement campaigns are also great for collecting feedback—zero-party data. Why is the customer engaging less? What content would they engage with more?
And, even though re-engagement campaigns generally bring users back on specific channels, when channels are combined, you can use re-engagement campaigns to win back a customer and rebuild the relationship as a whole.
Each Campaign is Essential in a Cross-Channel Orchestra
You’ll notice in the ebook that each of these campaigns has been assigned an orchestra section. While each campaign could be used on its own, true cross-channel harmony comes from all of the campaigns being woven together for a consistent and seamless cross-channel customer experience.
For a more in-depth look at each campaign, download the full ebook.
