Memories Partners With Iterable to Create Treasured Reflections in Times of Loss

Memories, launched in 2020, is a digital memorial provider where users can capture, share, and save cherished memories and other reflections with friends and family in a private, secure place. When people are separated by distance or unable to physically attend a funeral or memorial service—which was a common occurrence during the pandemic—Memories is invaluable during a difficult time.

Now serving customers in 195 countries, they’ve hosted 500,000 online memorials and preserved 1.9 million memories that uniquely celebrate a life legacy for families, friends, and future generations. They’re also the partner-publisher of digital tributes for leading news mastheads in the United Kingdom and Australia, the digital memorialization partner for more than 250 funeral services in Australia and New Zealand, and part of Memories Group, the operator of FutureMe—a self-reflection product.

When planning a memorial, people are often overwhelmed by the to-do list. There are higher-order tasks to manage (e.g. deciding between a burial or cremation) and supporting the emotions of loved ones, while processing both grief and loss. In such sensitive circumstances, Memories focuses on thoughtful customer engagement by considering how and when they distribute customer messages, the receptiveness to those messages, and users’ actions to plan and create their memorial for someone close.

A few years ago, Memories Group went through a significant relaunch, but wasn’t equipped with a customer communication platform that could support their B2B2C messaging needs, including personalized communications for each audience and individual user. For example, they couldn’t connect emotionally with their users during this sensitive time and journey of loss because they were unable to activate and segment customer data. This resulted in generic communications that were insensitive to a user’s grief— leading to lower engagement and a disconnect with their brand. They couldn’t test communication tactics either, which made it more challenging to know what resonated with users at each point of the customer lifecycle.

Memories’ distribution strategy is two-fold—via direct selling or partnering with resellers, such as White Lady Funerals, who may set up a Memories memorial on behalf of a client. This adds complexity to their communication needs. “It’s a true business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) distribution model, where we need to communicate with different audiences at the same time,” explained Lachlan Davidson, Chief Marketing Officer at Memories Group Limited. For example, there’s direct communication to end-users and as well communication to the resellers about actions a user takes to create their memorial. 

The combination of these challenges, plus the desire to closely collaborate with partners who share their “growth” attitude and trajectory were factors in Memories’ decision making and selection of Iterable—a like-minded partner to build their new communications.

Memories is focused on purchase and continued engagement, which makes “welcome” communication critical. Since the welcome journey combines administrative and marketing communications, Memories spent time evaluating and refining their approach to send the right messages at the right times so customers have positive experiences from the beginning. “If someone’s not using our product, they won’t get value from it, and we want to understand why, which means testing and retesting dozens of journeys and different communications,” shared Lachlan. 

Memories performed A/B testing using Iterable Experiments to improve the welcome communication series, looking at these variables:

• Timing – They factor in whether someone recently experienced loss and is planning a service or if they’re retrospectively compiling memories. Respectfulness is key, regardless of timing, so Memories tested communication outreach before, right after, or several weeks following a service, and settled on gradually-increased communications based on users’ actions in the platform. 
• Content and messaging – Depending on direct-to-consumer selection—through the website or a mobile app—or introduction through a reseller, unique customer communication is key. Memories found that with existing brand awareness, a straightforward welcome email with inspirational call-to-action (CTA) content had higher engagement. For customers unfamiliar with Memories or introduced to it through the funeral service provider they used, a welcome email required more Memories background, co-branded messaging, and CTAs to help someone know what to do next. 

By running these A/B tests, Memories improved the performance of their welcome email series sent after reseller introduction—75% of emails are opened activating users to create their first memory. This resulted in a 50% increase in open rate and this performance has influenced customer volume from resellers and incited the creation of 500,000 memorials across more than 190 countries. What’s more, as a result of cross-channel communications, Memories has seen a significant impact to their bottom line with revenue doubling year-over-year.

While their “welcome” communications strategy initially focused on email, Memories is starting more cross-channel engagement in Iterable. Mobile push notifications are first, and then they plan to try in-app messages to improve the number of mobile users creating memories. Then, they want to add SMS to support a concierge service intended to collect direct customer insights and give users the chance to voice feedback with a service representative.

From the “Welcome Series” journey, Memories hopes that customers take two steps as contributors that improve activation rates with memorials: 1) add their memories or 2) invite and then prompt friends and family to contribute by adding photos, videos, or sharing their life story—perhaps on a loved one’s anniversary, birthday, or the date of their passing. This way, the memorial grows at the beginning, evolves over time, and extends Memories’ lifetime value. 

Memories relies on Tealium to manage its event data, which informs behavior-based messages and outreach that help with customer engagement and retention. Lachlan explained that “behavior is what we thrive on and personalizing our communications based on this resonates emotionally with our users.” Iterable easily integrates event data from Tealium with a flexible model to inform and strengthen marketing communications with all of their audiences, in-turn improving their activation rates.  

To further personalize each experience, Memories is adding digital funeral elements to their welcome series. For example, a short tribute video that was created by a Funeral Director or family gets sent to their customer database and is uploaded into The Memorial, creating familiarity straight away and providing comfort and the knowledge that the memories a user has created of their loved one haven’t been lost. Additionally, a user may receive a message that shares an update on how many people have signed the digital guest book for a loved one’s funeral—prompting them to log in to see more details on who has signed. Memories has found that sending personalized content increases how many users  create memories, and their trust in and emotional connections with the brand.

Memories regularly measures user interest, engagement, and brand trust by collecting feedback during monthly concierge sessions with customers, tracking the users who take that first step in creating a memory or inviting others to participate, and reviewing weekly customer feedback reports. In the concierge sessions and feedback reports, they specifically explore details of users’ experiences, the influence of cultural or secular norms, if communications feel appropriate or inappropriate, and how these variables support more personal, impactful, trusted experiences with their brand. These different inputs give them indicators of how best to approach future marketing campaigns, plus their communication strategies and tactics. 

As the user base grew and their front-and back-end data architecture evolved, Memories was confident that Iterable could handle these changes, and others. There were instances where Memories was connected with highly-technical Iterable specialists who dug into their product, understood it and the unique data setup, and then provided solutions. 

The level of support and responsiveness from the in-market team makes Iterable feel like “an extension of the small Memories team,” and having a reliable partner that addresses any questions or concerns was “absolutely critical” for Memories.