The 5 Biggest Benefits of Running Personalized App Marketing Campaigns

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Your app users move too fast to stop for static experiences.

Mobile isn’t just a channel, it’s a lifestyle. It’s how your customers move about their days, and how they choose to interact with your brand. If you’ve spent the time to develop and launch an app, you’ve already invested in mobile behavior.

So, why stop with a static experience and app messaging campaigns that don’t live up to your users’ expectations? You’ve made the jump into mobile; now follow the trend, identify what your users are asking for, and take the plunge with personalization.

Most marketers have their reservations about the benefits of personalization, particularly at the expense of user privacy. But when done right, you can create app messages that match your users’ individual interests, needs and wants, providing the app experience they want and ensuring repeat usage.

Still not convinced? It’s easy to brush off personalization as a risky trend that’s bound to pass, but when it comes to app marketing, your users are looking for the apps that best suit their needs. Without personalization, you risk overlooking those needs and losing users.

Here are just a few of the ways your marketing (and your wallet) can benefit from personalization:

1. Drive more purchases

All online and mobile shoppers are guilty of browsing products, taking the step of favoriting them or even adding them to their cart, and then dropping them like a hot potato. This is often the #1 conversion problem we see in mCommerce apps. As a marketer, you know you can’t send a push or in-app message to all users encouraging them to checkout – not all users actually have items in their cart, and some users may not have opened your app for weeks. Use data from user behavior in-app to narrow down the segment of which users to target, and then use demographic data to determine what kind of offer, content or products interest them most.

Your Campaign: Send female users between the ages of 20-25 who have added an item to their cart in the last three days a free shipping coupon or discount code.

2. Retain users

If your app works on a subscription basis, retaining users is particularly important. Retaining users isn’t just about keeping them engaged with your content, or incorporating easy social sharing, it’s also about eliminating obstacles in their renewal process, and making it worthwhile to make the investment again and again. Personalizing your campaigns to users based on their reading patterns and subscription status helps you pinpoint users in danger of dropping off.

Your Campaign: Send males who have read a sports article in the last week and need to renew their subscription in the next month a special renewal offer.

3. Boost engagement

Your app shouldn’t just provide users with the bare minimum – it should work to inform them of elements they might be interested in (and are currently missing). Exposing users to the nooks and crannies of your app features ensures that they see the big picture, and find what they’re looking for. But you can’t do this by assuming all of your app users are interested in everything your app offers. Take popular music streaming services Spotify, for example: their user base consists of a wide array of music tastes, favorite artists, and playlist preferences. Without personalization, there’s no way to pinpoint which music to share with whom.

Your Campaign: Send people between the ages of 20-40 who have expressed interest in Indie music a link to discover and listen to new Indie artists and songs.

4. Build loyalty

Your relationship with your app users exists across a variety of channels – so it makes sense that their loyalty to your brand is influenced by and changed with each of those channels. I consider it a mortal marketing sin to send your user an offer that’s not applicable to her, or worse, to overlook her history with you when deciding what kind of marketing she might be most interested in. Loyalty happens when customers feel that they are important, and your marketing should reflect that you’re not only invested in them, but that you know them. Gathering customer data from all channels creates a personalized profile which will lead to smarter marketing.

Your Campaign: Send people between the ages of 18-30 who are loyalty card holders and have made a purchase in-store in the last seven days an in-store credit or coupon code as a thank you.

5. Increase awareness

You want to do right by your app users and increase app usage, right? Personalization is a win-win. When you know what information your users are interested in, you can direct them to the right screen, increasing their awareness of events, teams, news, and more, and boosting usage. Plus, the more aware they are of things specific to their interests, the more likely they are to frequent your app (and make key conversions).

Your Campaign: Send people who are Boston Red Sox fans a link to the Boston Red Sox home game schedule or a link to a special Red Sox event.

So, how do you get started running these campaigns (and reaping the benefits?). By collecting the right data on user attributes and behavior from each and every one of your marketing channels. For this, you’ll need the right kind of infrastructure and a system in place to gather and interpret your metrics. For that, we’ve put together a comprehensive eBook on how you can use this data to create a personalized app experience!