Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: Advanced Personalized Messaging Tactics and Examples for Retail Growth

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the Moengage Catalyst Growth Maestros podcast. Super excited to have you guys listening. Uh, today, uh, this is where we delve into the heart of retail growth, uh, through the power of advanced customer messaging. So join us as, uh, we explore innovative strategies on how brands can personalize their messaging to fuel growth and to drive the best customer experience. I'm your host for the day, Nick Ipel, and I head partnerships here at Moengage for North America. And today we have a very interesting and unique approach to our podcast. So we're not joined by one, but two speakers from the amazing Fueled, an award winning technology consultancy that transforms businesses by generating ideas, building products, accelerating growth, and, and they're one of our leading partners here in the U.S. uh, thought leaders and experts in all things connected digital experiences. So get ready. Jessica, VP of Product, will share the nuances of how brands can best connect with customers and excel the retail game. And Alex here is a senior growth manager, will help share how brands can leverage messaging to make this happen. Jessica and Alex, welcome to the podcast. Jessica, uh, Alex, welcome. We're delighted to both have you on this podcast. So before we, uh, start diving into the issue, I, um, want the listeners to get a better understanding of who you guys are, what Fueled is, and what you guys are doing for Fueled. So Jessica, do you want to quickly introduce yourself?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love to. Thanks, Dick. So I'm Jessica Wagner, the VP of Product at Fueled, leading product management, strategy, design and customer research. So essentially I orchestrate the teams that define, validate and design the digital experiences we build for a whole bunch of different consumer facing brands across every industry out there.

Speaker A: Great. Thank you so much for joining us. And Alex.

Speaker C: Yeah. I'm Alexandra Gallas and I'm our senior Manager of growth. So I head up our growth team and we concentrate on taking those connected digital experiences and helping customers use their data and analytics to run faster experiments and move into growth marketing to connect better with their customers.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, we're delighted to have you both on the podcast. So thank you. Thank you so much for joining. Um, so before we get started discussing today's topic, I, um, want to just quickly start with Jessica. So, Jessica, you've had years, uh, of experience working with some of the leading brands here, um, in North America and Europe and other places. Could you share a little bit with the audience, specifically with design and products, like what your, your viewpoint is on how to best connect with their customers?

Speaker B: Yeah, I love this question and I'm really excited to talk about it because I Think there's an infinite number of ways to answer it that are very much dictated by the specifics of a brand, the industry, the customer demographics, the resources they have at their disposal, their values, et cetera. But the way we think about this at Fueled is by conceptualizing a toolkit of sorts of so, uh, a collection of different levers if you will, that brands can pull and strategies that they can employ to deepen the relationships they have with their customers. So I'll dive into a few of the ones that we find ourselves using the most. First and foremost, listen and learn. So pay attention to what your customers are saying on social media, in ratings and reviews and surveys, in notes from your customer service reps. Really any data you can get on what people are actually saying about you in the wild will help you understand the actual needs, preferences and pain points that your customers have. And you can then use that understanding to decide in a very data driven way what features to add or change in your digital products, how to improve the ux, what kind of messaging or marketing campaigns to run. And at field we achieve this by using a number of different research methodologies, but both qual and quant. And one salient example of when this was really impactful is when we worked with mgm. So they engaged Fueled actually years ago at this point to rebuild their mobile app that essentially did all of the things that a, ah, utility app for a hotel would browsing services, amenities, booking rooms, et cetera. But when we got to the hotel ourselves, we immediately noticed that the real pain point, the first visible pain point, was a giant check in line full of frustrated people just off a flight who, who really just wanted to get into their rooms.

Speaker A: I've experienced that myself, we all have.

Speaker B: So we started talking to them and we realized what would actually be impactful in an app wasn't a list of amenities at the hotel, but a way to check in on your phone and skip the line. So once we identified that and kind of gathered a bunch of data to validate it, we're able to actually pivot to add check in and digital key as a core feature in this experience, which made the end result actually resonate a lot better with customers. And it's a product that has really good reviews and really good ratings and gets really good feedback from people who use it. Last thing I'll note on this point is as a part of this listening and learning, it's also important to ensure that your brand values so what your brand stands for and its presence in the world really does align with Your customer's value and today's consumers connect with brands that they feel share their beliefs. And something we have seen again and again in the research that we do for retail and e commerce products in particular, is that with Gen Z users there's more of a focus on inclusivity and diversity than ever before. And they actually look for brands who share these values and, and actually have them manifest in their marketing, in their messaging and their product experiences, etc. Another strategy that we love is community building. So essentially leveraging the power of user generated content to create a community for customers. This lets customers talk to each other, right? Share advice, post photos, ask one another questions. It lets them self organize around your brand. And for many brands this already exists somewhere in the wild. Reddit forums, TikTok hashtags, other places on social. And what the strategy is about is bringing it in house, you know, taking it off of social media, taking it off of Reddit and bringing it into your own app or into your own website and building the social proof that it creates right into your e commerce experience directly. And uh, a uh, community space not only lets customers engage one another in the ways that I've described, but it also provides this two way channel for the customer to engage the brand and vice versa. So brands can actually do things like, you know, post a poll, gauging customer sentiment on an existing or soon to be launched product line, you know, what would you like us to make more of this summer? Or um, what, you know, what colorways do you prefer in XYZ product brands can actually capture that data firsthand from customers and then use it to dictate every single form of decision that they're making around digital and non digital experiences, around product or an inventory, et cetera. And it gives you this, this window of insight into what your customers are interested in, right? What are they talking about with other customers? What kind of questions are they asking? And it lets us think a little bit more broadly. How can we tie this, this qualitative data that we're capturing at scale to individual data that we have on our customers and their purchasing habits. So really, really compelling and powerful and borderline dangerous tool and a field. We've spent the last couple years actually making this happen with Victoria's Secret. So Victoria's Secret has always created a lot of content for social, but while most of their customers are women, the majority of their social followers are actually men. And as a result there, there isn't really a safe space out there in the wild for Victoria's Secret. Customers who want to talk about things like how a bra might fit. So we, we worked with Victoria's Secret over the last couple of years to conceptualize, design, build and launch a community space in the Victoria's Secret and Ping apps. And we, we prototyped and tested a whole bunch of different approaches. But this ultimately took the form of a, uh, Reddit style forum. So there's topical spaces for discussion around things like fashion, beauty, um, bridal style, maternity, et cetera. There's also a lookbook element for sharing photos on how um, you as a Victoria's Secret customer might choose to style a specific product, which is a behavior that we actually saw happening organically on TikTok and Instagram. So a good example of kind of taking this thing that customers are already doing in the world and bringing it unquote in house to their product. And overall community has been extremely successful. I think they have a, uh, little over a million active users and are getting a ton of good feedback about it. So strategy we love and would certainly recommend that retail and e commerce brands consider, um, a third strategy that I'll just breeze over because this is kind of a Pandora's box topic that could be a whole discussion in and of itself is personalization. So just broadly, by understanding a customer's preference, brands can tailor both communications and recommendations, really everything to be more relevant to their individual needs. And this just makes the experience of using a product or engaging with a brand resonate with the customer more, makes them feel like the brand understands them. It builds trust. Trust is a leading indicator of conversion. And beyond, uh, just tailoring the experience, personalization, uh, can actually enhance it. So when a clothing store recommends an outfit based on your past purchases or browsing history, you feel understood. But more importantly, the product feels more useful. You want to use it because it makes it easy for you to find and buy the things that you actually want. And you're thus more inclined to click, to engage, to buy, to transact and a little buzzwordy. But another strategy that's super effective when done right is, is creating the omnichannel experience. Omnichannel, multichannel, whatever, um, but weaving together the digital and non digital touch points. So apps, websites, um, in store experiences, messaging campaigns, social ads, really everything, just creating a smooth experience across all of these touch points, such that customers can super easily switch between channels in a way that doesn't feel disruptive. And creating this lets brands meet the customers where they're already at, engaging them every step of the way as they interact with your brand. And one application of this that we love but we don't actually see executed successfully very often is offering incentives digitally. So in your app or on your website to get the customers to come into the store. Uh, whether it's like, you know, buy online, pick up in store and get a free coffee at the showroom, or um, you know. Another one that we love is the virtual fitting room. So save the products that you're interested in on the website or in the app into some sort of a collection or a list. Uh, check that your nearest store has the products you've saved in the colors and sizes you need and then go in person and everything you've saved is waiting for you to try on and feel and touch and buy in person. Um, last, last strategy I'll touch on is targeted communications. So using uh, one to one messaging campaigns that actually provide value to customers and don't feel spammy if you will, and tailoring messaging to not only different customer segments, but actually specific individuals on a one to one basis based on their shopping and engagement behaviors through push email, SMS ads, social combo of all of the above, but in a way that's always predicated on using data to hit customers with the right message at the right time, um, is incredibly powerful. It increases conversion, it increases retention, it increases ltv, and most importantly, it makes customers actually feel like the brand knows them and what they want and need in any given moment in time. And I've talked for a lot, so I'll pause here and I will, um, hand it over to Alex to speak in a little bit more detail about the nuances of these personalized one to one campaigns and how a messaging strategy like this might actually manifest in the way a brand engages with customers.

Speaker A: Perfect. Thank you so much, Jessica. What amazing insights. Loved the topic of meeting customers where they are. Everything from the uh, importance of CX and utility to building communities. No, it was great, great insights. Um, so Alex, would love to hear your thoughts, um, right now as well. Really would, um, love to know in your experience, what does messaging look like in 2024? Right. What are brands, uh, now expect? Uh, and what our customers now expect in 2024 from, um, you know, more nuanced messaging strategy.

Speaker C: Yeah. And so we have the pleasure of working from the design and conception of an app or a product all the way through messaging. And so we really start thinking about it up front of how are we going to personalize messaging and what do users want? So what do users or customers want in 2024 and in the retail space? And Jessica touched on a lot of these, but it pertains to messaging as well. Right. They want convenience. Um, they want to have a message pop up when they are looking at a specific product or when they're about to check out and a coupon pops up.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Like those types of things become really, really important. So um, customers want convenience, they want you to be personalized and personalization no longer means just uh, their first name and an email. Right. They would rather have less messages that are highly personalized or hyper personalized to them that they, that make them feel like they, that you're, they're known to the brand and a brand that they've been loyally shopping at or maybe they're new to that brand but that you know where they're at in the customer journey. And they want two way communication and that can happen a lot of different ways. But that's definitely a topic of 2024 which is how to use uh, different technologies to have um, this two way communication channel open the, between the brand and the customers. Um, but we also know that customers want less of certain things in 2024 as well. So less you know, sales tactics that feel high pressured or extremely urgent where they're going to miss out. Um, less generic messaging. Right. And that generic messaging could be uh, not only just there's nothing in that email that pertains to them, it's not relevant, it's not seamless. But it also could be generic where you're messaging them on every social media channel that their email, their in app messaging, push notification and you're just batch and blasting to all hoping one of them lands. Right. Um, and they want less, less friction in the buying process. Um, this you know, pertains especially to the retail industry where if they're trying to purchase they want to be able to do that quickly. Um, we, it's, it's actually kind of funny when we look with clients, um, they always think, you know, session length is really important that we have it be the longest session length possible. And I always question do we want session link to be possible if someone's trying to buy something? Um, maybe that session link should be sure, right. If they can check out quickly, it's frictionless. Um, they get the help where they need it and it's not a long duration. That could be a positive thing. Right?

Speaker A: 100%. That's so great insights. So from a, um, I would say from a design perspective, um, how are you really thinking about some of those key strategies for customer um, mess messaging and Personalization with those uh, design. Design strategies.

Speaker C: Yeah. So in our design strategies, ah, a lot like you would think, through building a product, um, we get to utilize, you know, user research, what the industry is currently, um, doing and uh, features that people want in that industry. But we also get to use any additional data that the client has. And when we think about design, we start for both. We start at the customer journey, right. Not only for messaging, but also building products. So what steps does a customer have to take through a product to reach their goal? And this is really the marriage of product goals.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: So maybe there's a product North Star, where in that specific product we want users to use the try on augmented reality, try on, uh, feature the business goals, which are oftentimes tied to revenue. Right. So we're looking at how many checkouts or average park order things like that. And when we're designing personalized messaging, we're looking at that customer journey. So we're mapping out the exact steps and then we'll zoom out to multi product. Right. So if you have a website, you have a brick and mortar store, you have an app. Now how do we know where customers are at in that customer journey and how can we hyper personalize those messages to capture them at opportune moments to convert? And that conversion doesn't always have to be tied to revenue. It could be a conversion into reaching their goal.

Speaker A: Perfect. And now that you're touching a little bit on brick and mortar experiences, what are some of the challenges or common challenges that those companies face when they're trying to integrate those brick and mortar experiences with messaging? Uh, journeys?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good question. This is one of my favorite topics, talking about brick and mortar experiences and their digital presence. Uh, we really concentrate on making a connected digital experience, but then broadening that out. And just how do we make connected experiences for customers?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: So that includes their brick and mortar stores. And this is oftentimes where clients will get hung up. Right. So brands get hung up on trying to marry this data. And so three of the top things that we will see is disparity in their data. Um, there's an in store disconnect and then they have a hard time with, uh, attribution. And so data disparity. Right. You don't have your offline and online data living in the same place. So they're often in silos. They even could be different teams own them. Right. So we're trying to get inside the brand. It's often understand where is a place. Maybe it's A CRM or customer engagement platform that can marry all this data together so that we can then understand the entire customer experience and journey and how customers interact with a, with the different products in your brick and mortar store. And it's interesting because dependent on the industry, you will oftentimes have someone start, you know, looking at something on their computer. They then move to their app, they're saving something into a favorites list. And then let's say it's furniture. We've helped the furniture, uh, retailer do this exact thing, which is we um, we looked at people were saving different uh, furniture items, maybe a couch into their saved products. And then they wanted to touch it or they wanted to see the exact color with the lighting. So they'd go into the brick and mortar store to take a look at that. And what a nice personalized messaging opportunity, uh, if they didn't buy that day. Right. You could have someone come in and uh, message and say free shipping to your house or here's a coupon for coming in.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And then the last one is measurement and attribution. Customers oftentimes uh, have um, trouble looking at the impact that they're messaging, their hyper personalized messaging or their email blasts and all those things happen, um, are sent out and then how it impacts in store sales. So when you start to marry and integrate that data together, you can see online behavior and offline behavior and how those personalized messaging and your marketing strategies are often impacting uh, customer behavior in the brick and mortar stores.

Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing, Alex. Yeah. And if we went even a little bit deeper, um, could you talk a little bit about like your views uh, on um, you know, marrying location data with brick and mortar and digital presence? How would you kind of work that or weave that into that whole design process?

Speaker C: Yeah, so this is an interesting one because I feel we always challenge uh, our clients with you know, our customers or their customers really. They are often giving feedback and information through the data we collect. And it's our job to take that data and responsibly turn it around to give them the message that they were expecting um, at the time they were expecting it and on the channel they like to receive it. And location just helps make that so much more possible and helps make a, ah, seamless customer experience and often leave a very positive customer experience when done correctly. And so a couple of the ways that we really like to use experience is one, you have geofencing, geofencing technology. And you can do this to help remind customers to maybe earn points for Loyalty. So they go into the store, uh, and maybe this is reminding them that they have their loyalty points to spend. Maybe they're getting a promotion or a uh, targeted incentive by going into that geofence, going into your store. Um, some of the other creative ways I like to see this done is maybe they can wait in line. Maybe you're a beauty retailer and there's a counter where they can have their makeup done. They can get in line without having to go to the counter. They could just do it in the app when they cross into that deal fence. But this can also work in the reverse. So we worked with a client that uh, points were earned by uploading your receipt. So when they would sit the Geo fence in the parking lot, it would remind them to upload their receipt before they forgot or threw it away. So that's an interesting way to use location, um, with the brick and mortar experience as well. Some of the other interesting ones are maybe you use weather, weather, uh, in that location to promote products. Maybe it's summer and you're showing customers how to get to a certain area of the store that has hydration packs if it's hot or something like that, um, versus gearing them toward a different area that may not serve them with the weather coming up or the weather they're experiencing today. And another interesting way is, right, like you can use it for inventory checking, uh, inventory check ins or finding their way. Maybe they did save something or like Jessica, ah, referenced. Maybe there's a product that they're looking at online and if they save it, it tells them where it is in the store, how they can find it. So some, definitely some interesting ways to use location, uh, to make the brick and mortar experience even better. Um, and one of our ultimate favorite ways, right, is the click and uh, click and collect. So someone orders something online. When you park at the store, it informs the store that you're here and then someone can greet you.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: Yeah. Curbside pickup is the famous one. Right. So that's just the, that's the, that's a great way that brick, uh, and mortar stores. And that's a oftentimes one where if you start there you're going to see a lot of um, benefit customer experience wise because ultimately you're saving them time, right. And you're able to greet them by name. They feel already like they trust this brand. And one of the things we focus on is what type of messaging is going to have a customer want to choose your store even if something's not on sale or there's some, uh, maybe it's more expensive than a competitor. And that moment is really when you've won the trust of the customer.

Speaker A: I love these location based use cases. Obviously everybody moved away, um, post Covid. How do we use location, uh, ongoing and the way that you described it, I mean the opportunities are endless. This is where really your creativity, uh, as a marketer can really drive some meaningful impact and customer experience. Um, and let's now let's zoom out a little bit. Right. And so um, overall customer life cycle, um, messaging strategy. If you could kind of share your experience, um, with retail and how you were able to design effective messaging strategies for customers that are in various um, stages in the customer life cycle. And just walk us through a little bit your philosophy and thought process there.

Speaker C: Yeah, our thought process on understanding the customer life cycle really stems from how we also think about building apps and websites and making them the most frictionless and seamless experience as possible. And so when we think about messaging we're not only thinking about where are they in the lifecycle, are they in the awareness stage or are they loyal customers, but we're also marrying that data up to what are they trying to achieve in that. So we think about this as there are steps in a customer life cycle as far as what they have to achieve in the digital uh, experience and or in the physical uh, location. Maybe it's that they're trying to check out and purchase um, their favorite type of shoe or something like that. But we're also marrying that with who is this customer? What is their Persona, what do we know, what data can we use to, to uh, better understand the needs of that customer, their likes and dislikes, their channel preferences and use all of that to create an audience, uh, to personalize that messaging. Right. And we see this with uh, our clients that they're trying to do all of this where they're getting very, very granular. But we always tell people, zoom, um, out a little bit, understand the data that you have available to you today and then you can make these hyper personalizer, these, these smaller audiences as you go. Right. So we think about it as if we understand your, you're in the awareness stage. We're tailoring our messaging toward education based messaging. We're not trying to get you to make a purchase yet. We know you're, it's your first time here. Ah. And so we're, we're giving you messages that are tailored around um, who are we as a brand? Like Jessica said, um, Gen Z really wants to shop from brands that believe in the same thing, that they believe in or express the same values. So that's what we're trying to do in the awareness stage. We're trying to help you understand this is who we are, these are our values, and this is how you can interact with us.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And then maybe we move to acquisition and we're trying to nurture that relationship into their first purchase. And so we're sending messages or special offers highlighting product benefits, um, and making sure that it's very easy for them to, uh, interact and get the information that they need to feel confident in that first purchase. And then we're moving into retention. So how do we keep customers engaged? Right. And I always think keeping customers engaged is also about staying one step ahead. I think some of my favorite brands are the ones where a, uh, message pops up and I'm like, that's what I was thinking. Right? Or that's exactly the next step that I needed in this journey. And so we try to think that way of, uh, how do you start to create these journeys that people can be nurtured along, um, to accomplish their goals in the product? And then one step further is the ultimate goal is turning your users and your customers into brand advocates. So much so that they want to tell their friend about the app experience, they want to tell their friend about the in store experience. Right. And then, and then turned into advocates. So they're posting on social media and maybe they're, they're actually participating in the referral program. They're an advid user of your loyalty program. Um, and so we're starting to map where are you in the customer journey, as far as where are you in the, the steps that you are trying to travel along married along with the, um, what stage of the lifecycle you're in.

Speaker A: Jessica, speaking of loyalty, so what are some of your views on adding those into, uh, product and design? Ah, strategies as well?

Speaker B: Yeah, so loyalty is a great strategy. Um, it's an incredible way to create a reciprocal relationship with customers. And I think when we say loyalty, people immediately think of a proper loyalty program with points or status tiers. But it doesn't have to be that even just using loyalty centric mechanics like a special bonus gift or birthday freebies can achieve the same effect, which is essentially making customers feel special and like they're getting something back for the time and the money and the loyalty that they're investing in the brand. And what this does is it incentivizes them to keep coming back. But perhaps more importantly, it can be a really great way to create those brand advocates we talked about earlier to get customers telling their friends about how they got early access to a sale or uh, an exciting product drop, which is not only the most trustworthy flavor of social proof, but it's also free marketing.

Speaker A: Perfect. Amazing. Amazing. Well, that is nearing, uh, the end here of time. So I would love to just quickly ask Jessica, uh, if you could share a couple of your maybe key lessons that you've learned to take away to any brand marketers out there. Anything that you'd like to hear about, some of the things you talked about today?

Speaker B: Yeah, so we just got into the weeds on messaging a bit, which was a great conversation. But to come completely full circle and recap everything that we've rambled about for the last 25 minutes, I think there's a lot of different ways that retail brands can connect with their customers, can create these brand advocates that Alex was just referencing can increase conversion and retention and LTV and grow. And you know, that encompasses everything from leveraging customer data and research, creating those UGC centric communities. I refer to personalization, the omnichannel mechanics, rewards and loyalty programs. Something we didn't talk about much but a really nice way to say thank you to your customers and incentivize them to come back for more. And of course the one to one messaging campaigns and the targeted communication. But I think the one real core takeaway here is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The best experiences employ a plurality of these strategies. So for example, a combination of personalization and rewards mechanics and a very robust messaging program to effectively connect with customers, to set themselves apart from the competition and to win in the market.

Speaker A: Amazing, amazing. And Alex, anything that you'd like to add there as well?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean one of the biggest things that I've taken away with our clients is that investing in an omni channel multi moment solution sooner rather than later ends up really getting them further down the journey of their marketing strategy a lot faster. So even if you're only using one channel and you're going to grow into two or three or we see this all the time when someone has a website and we're building their app and all of a sudden they're stuck in these siloed messaging where they employed sms, um, somewhere and email somewhere else. Now they want to add in app and push notifications and it all disjointed. And so in order to move along this um, this continuum of being able to truly personalize your messaging in the way that you envision. Start investing in an Omni Channel solution a lot sooner than you think you need to because it will really make you light years ahead when you're ready to deploy multiple channels. And then data is your friend. I think you have access to more data than you think you do. Um, even if it's less data than you'd like, you definitely have data that you can start using today. And I always encourage, don't wait, just start using what you add. Maybe you have a birthday, maybe a browsing history or purchase behaviors, and start using that to personalize your messaging today so that, um, you can really build and start building, uh, smaller and smaller audiences with more hyper personalized messaging as you go. So AB testing and multivariate testing is going to be your friend there.

Speaker A: Amazing. Well, Jessica, Alex, I cannot thank you enough for joining us for this podcast and sharing your experiences and best practice practices for the listeners to implement out there. I'm sure our listeners will greatly appreciate those valuable inputs and, uh, great examples that you guys gave, uh, to us today. So again, thank you all so much. Um, with that, we come to an end of yet another, uh, episode of our moengage Catalyst Growth Maestros podcast. So looking forward to seeing you all again on the next one.