As the native mobile space matures, the biggest app-related issues that brands face are growth and monetization. The first decade of mobile apps (2008-2018) was largely defined by building and launching a native experience with a great user interface. This was a great first step, but only the starting point.
We have seen a shift in the second decade (post-2018) as most brands have a mobile app in market. The focus in the second decade has largely been defined by improving the existing mobile experience and driving growth by reaching new market segments, increasing customer retention and driving engagement through creative messaging campaigns.
The best experiences we see link creative, cross-channel campaigns to app features that make customers feel special and make their lives easier. Mobile experiences that put these pieces into place generate loyal customers that come back time and time again and share their experience with friends and family—bringing in new customers free of charge.
What’s a good example of a brand that’s driving mobile growth effectively with cross-channel messaging campaigns? Let’s take a look at popular pet care app, Rover.
How Rover Uses Cross-Channel Messaging to Up-Level Its Customer Experience
Founded in 2011, Rover is an online marketplace for people to buy and sell pet care services, including pet sitting, dog boarding and dog walking. Their mobile app has a 4.9/5 star iOS App Store rating with over 197,000 reviews. Their latest funding round was in 2018 for $155 million, and The Wall Street Journal estimated their valuation at $970 million.
Rover’s growth is supported by a great user experience that leverages cross-channel messaging campaigns that drive high customer satisfaction and engagement.
At Bottle Rocket, we often talk about new apps we’ve experienced to keep up with trends in the market. Rover was one of these that my colleague recently shared with me and explained to me why she liked it so much.
After scheduling a sitter to watch your pets while you are on vacation, in-app text and video messages keep you updated with how your pets are doing and what the sitter has done for them during their visits.
An in-app message from one of Rover’s pet sitters.
SMS messages also notify users when a new update is available, driving them back into the mobile experience.
An SMS update that links back to the Rover mobile app.
After you come back from your trip, Rover follows up by email with a video that combines all of the in-app text and video updates together so you can replay your pet’s experience.
An email sharing a Rover Reel of a pet-sitting experience.
When you’re not using Rover’s pet care services, the business re-engages you with regular nurture emails, including ones that contain your pet’s horoscope.
A Rover nurture email with 2020 dog horoscopes.
These messages make customers feel special and make their lives easier by creating an experience that is simple and fun. Further, their service increases brand advocacy by encouraging customers to share their experiences with others, referring new clients (like me) at no additional cost.
Rover effectively leverages cross-channel campaigns that are linked to key digital touchpoints, which creates a growth loop that reaches new market segments, increases customer retention and drives user engagement.
How to Drive Mobile Growth With Cross-Channel Messaging Campaigns
Cross-channel messaging is built upon user profiles that host customer data from all channels in a single location. This data informs automated, personalized messaging campaigns that get triggered through these channels, including email, mobile and web push notifications, in-app messages and SMS to name a few.
In order to set your mobile app up and start delivering cross channel messages to your user base, follow these four steps which will set you up for success:
- Define and develop marketing campaigns that link back to valuable features in your mobile app
- Create a tracking plan which will outline the data needed to create personalized messages
- Invest in a cross-channel growth marketing platform and integrate it into your mobile app
- Experiment on a small segment of your user base, learn, iterate and expand
Leveraging an industry-leading platform like Iterable and integrating it into your mobile experience is the most important step to giving your marketing team the ability to achieve individualization with your users.
Iterable serves many of the world’s largest brands and has enabled them to dramatically grow their mobile apps through cross-channel messaging campaigns. For instance, popular online ticketing business SeatGeek used Iterable to increase their revenue from email and push by 3x and increase their customer reach from push by 50%.
At Bottle Rocket, we always advocate for our clients to use a cross-channel messaging solution like Iterable to help grow their mobile app and improve their user experience. Increasing a brand’s monthly active user base or customer retention rate by even 1% can lead to substantial increases in revenue.
Resources to Get Started
Enabling your mobile app with cross-channel messaging might seem intimidating, but it’s not as difficult as it looks.
The Iterable Blog is a fantastic resource, with numerous articles that can help start you off on the right foot:
- 4 Mobile Marketing Channels to Integrate With Email
- 5 World-Class Ways to Increase Mobile Engagement
- Everything You Need to Know About Push Notifications
- The 5 Steps for a Great Mobile Preference Center
You can also sign up for a custom demo to learn why leading brands trust Iterable to enable their mobile experience with cross-channel messaging. Reach out today!
