How to orchestrate a loyalty-focused customer journey

As brands continue to navigate challenging global economic conditions, building loyalty with their customers is more important than ever. To orchestrate and run a highly effective customer engagement program capable of supporting long-term user loyalty, marketers need the right tools, tactics, and technology partners. Read on for insights into what it takes to execute a successful loyalty program and how leveraging these five key tools and tactics can help ensure that your customers feel seen and valued.

1. Segmentation

In its simplest form, segmentation makes it possible for marketers to group people by attributes they have in common, such as their region or age. Braze Dynamic Segmentation allows individual customers to dynamically move in and out of segments as they take actions or shift their preferences, rather than sitting on a static list. Let’s look at how segmentation might impact a customer’s experience at a (fictional) retail brand: 

Imagine that Flash & Thread customer Sam bought themself a new cashmere sweater on the company’s mobile app right before it went on sale. Instead of sending Sam a push notification letting them know about the sale, Flash & Thread could use Dynamic Segmentation to automatically move Sam into a segment of customers who recently made a purchase. With this information, they could trigger a personalized message to Sam that is relevant to their shopping experience, rather than one that highlights a discount they didn’t receive:

In this situation, a flexible messaging strategy based on Sam’s past activity avoids a frustrating experience and rewards Sam for their continued engagement with the brand. And it's all made possible by segmentation.

2. Personalization

In recent decades, the rise of the web and mobile apps has expanded what's possible when it comes to customer engagement and ushered in a number of new ways to deliver individualized content that consumers expect. These personalization capabilities leverage smart data collection and segmentation along with customization tools like Liquid personalization and dynamic content personalization to serve up relevant, responsive experiences. To better understand how personalization can support customer loyalty, let's look at how our friends at Flash & Thread might use the Braze customer engagement platform and API-first promotion engine Talon.One to orchestrate a personalized anniversary campaign leveraging these tools:

What seems like a simple anniversary promotion actually involves a system of technology and tools working together seamlessly to provide a great experience for Ella including:

By taking advantage of these tools and tactics, Flash & Thread can help make sure Ella feels appreciated by the brand and nudge her to take advantage of her discount and deepen her ongoing brand relationship.

3. Campaign Timing

Most digital marketers have probably heard the mantra, “Right message, right person, right time.” We’ve talked a bit above about the right message/right person bit. Now, let’s look at a few ways your tech can support the “right time” piece of the equation. 

Let's take a look at how Flash & Thread uses triggered notifications to support better customer experiences and deeper loyalty. Imagine that Marco visits a Flash & Thread brick and mortar shop in Chicago and buys some jeans. Because Flash & Thread has an API-triggered campaign set up, his completion of a new purchase and the addition of enough loyalty points to level-up his membership automatically triggers a personalized message via Braze: 

Under this scenario, If Marco’s purchase hadn’t qualified him for a new membership tier, the API-triggered campaign wouldn’t have been triggered and he would have received a standard “Thank you for your purchase” message. Instead, the qualification acted as an exception event, which canceled out the generic purchase message and allowed it to be replaced by a more relevant, personalized one. 

4. Messaging Channels

With all the different digital platforms available today, there’s no one messaging channel that can reach all of your customers. But brands can overcome that challenge by taking a cross-channel approach to engagement and leveraging tools like the Braze platform’s Intelligent Channel feature, which lets brands automatically leverage the channel that has the best engagement track record with each user, making it more likely that their customers engage and take action. 

To better understand how taking a thoughtful approach to your messaging channels can support stronger loyalty, let’s look back at how Flash & Thread engages with Marco after that initial push notification:

Here, Flash & Thread took into account the best channel for the content when building out this coordinated, cross-channel campaign. Email is used to send a message that contains larger amounts of information, while Flash & Thread uses Intelligent Channel to ensure that its follow-up message is delivered via Marco’s preferred channel—in this case, push notifications. 

5. Customer Journey Management

While it's important for brands to design loyalty campaigns that feel relevant and personal to the individual people receiving them, these campaigns can't achieve their full potential if marketers don't look at how they exist within each user's overarching customer journey. To make that possible, brands need access to cross-channel customer orchestration tools features like Braze Canvas Flow, an intuitive journey-building tool that allows marketers to compose messages, orchestrate journeys, and experiment in one unified, drag-and-drop interface. 

To explore how these kinds of capabilities can support stronger loyalty, let's take a look at how Flash & Thread might orchestrate a re-engagement campaign aimed at reactivating users who have gone a bit quiet: 

By leveraging a tool like Canvas Flow, brands can carry out sophisticated tests seamlessly within the customer journey management process. This allows them to identify opportunities to boost retention and to act responsively to opportunities that support stronger relationships and drive better business outcomes.

Final Thoughts

In challenging economic times (and even in prosperous ones), driving loyalty among customers should be top priority for brands. Customer retention can drive revenue, increase customer lifetime value, and convert customers into brand ambassadors. With the tools and tactics discussed here, brands can create experiences that are relevant, personalized, effective—and that keep customers coming back for more. 

To learn more about how Talon.One and Braze work together to drive loyalty, check out our exclusive customer loyalty guide.