Tag: Braze

Philippines – As MARKETECH APAC’s What’s NEXT conference returns to the Philippines, we are proud to announce that Braze has joined us as a Gold Sponsor and will be kicking off the discussion on how AI can help revolutionise customer engagement.

The company enables marketers to unleash their creativity through its customer engagement platform, which delivers relevant, cross-channel experiences. Additionally, it offers innovative AI functionalities like Sage AI, which assist in reinforcing the connection between consumers and the brands they love. 

Alex Crouch, Strategic Enterprise Lead, Hong Kong & The Philippines at Braze, will deliver a keynote presentation on the potential and significance of artificial intelligence in providing meaningful customer interactions in today’s dynamic era of engagement.

This discussion proves advantageous for brands and marketers. By leveraging cutting-edge AI innovations to fortify customer engagement strategies, they can achieve levels of personalisation and satisfaction surpassing those of traditional chatbots. Additionally, this streamlines tasks, enabling teams to concentrate on strategic and creative endeavours.

Teddy Cambosa, regional editor at MARKETECH APAC, said, “As we step into 2024, businesses must recognise that the currency of success flows not just through transactions, but through the bonds forged in meaningful engagement. In the symphony of commerce, customer engagement is the soulful melody that resonates beyond transactions, orchestrating loyalty and advocacy. As the curtain rises on this new chapter, businesses must tune their instruments to the rhythm of authentic connection, conducting conversations that echo empathy, innovation, and understanding. We look forward to what Braze will bring to the table in terms of imparting actionable customer engagement insights for Philippine marketers.”

MARKETECH APAC’s “What’s NEXT 2024: Marketing in the Philippines” conference is the third instalment of the What’s NEXT 2023-2024 Series conferences. It will feature a diverse lineup of industry leaders across multiple local and global brands including Adobe, Brandwatch, Cebu Pacific Air, Colgate-Palmolive, DITO, Emma – The Sleep Company, foodpanda Philippines, GoTyme Bank, Home Credit Philippines, UnionBank, and more.

Head over to the official event site to see the full agenda and roster of speakers of What’s NEXT 2024: Marketing in the Philippines.

Singapore – As MARKETECH APAC brings its What’s NEXT series to Singapore, we are proud to announce that Braze has joined us as a Gold Sponsor for this conference and will be leading the discussion on how AI can help revolutionise customer engagement.

The company empowers marketers to tap into their creativity through its customer engagement platform that delivers relevant, cross-channel experiences, as well as innovative AI features such as Sage AI that helps assist in reinforcing the connection between consumers and the brands that they love.

Through the conference, Yi En Chye, GM APAC & director, strategic consulting at Braze, will be presenting a keynote presentation that explores the potential of artificial intelligence in providing meaningful customer interactions in today’s dynamic era of engagement.

This discussion is beneficial for brands and marketers as reinforcing customer engagement strategies with the help of the latest AI advancements can ensure a degree of personalisation and customer satisfaction that goes beyond the effectiveness of methods such as traditional chatbots, as well as making tasks easier and more efficient for teams to focus on strategising and other creative efforts.   

Teddy Cambosa, regional editor at MARKETECH APAC, said, “Embracing AI to transform customer engagement isn’t just about innovation; it’s about forging invaluable connections. By leveraging AI technologies, we empower businesses to understand, anticipate, and exceed customer needs, thereby sculpting experiences that resonate and endure in the hearts of those we serve. We look forward to Braze’s presentation on aiding businesses to adopt more AI-powered solutions for their customer engagement strategies.”

MARKETECH APAC’s “What’s NEXT 2024: Marketing in Singapore” conference is the second instalment of the What’s NEXT 2023-2024 Series conferences. It will feature a diverse lineup of industry leaders across multiple local and global brands including Grab, HP, Kaspersky, Singapore Management University, Singapore Post, Standard Chartered Bank, StarHub, The LEGO Group, and more. Head over to the official event site to see the full agenda and roster of speakers of What’s NEXT 2024: Marketing in Singapore.

Manila, Philippines – With the majority of today’s businesses embracing the use of AI, it is no surprise that AI has placed itself as something that will be staying and breaking through even further in the field of customer engagement. Furthermore, in an industry where the demand for AI is consistently escalating, leveraging it to enhance customer engagement is now seen as a vital requirement for businesses to prosper in the digital era.

To help marketers unlock the potential of AI in customer engagement at a time when it matters the most, MARKETECH APAC returned with an exclusive webinar last January 24 titled “What’s NEXT 2024: Customer Engagement in Asia”, which aimed to impart valuable insights to marketers on how to properly integrate AI with customer engagement.

Kicking things off, Ranya Arora, senior strategic business consultant at Braze, highlighted in her keynote presentation that this impact brought about by AI in marketing has led businesses and marketers to adapt alongside it, with the emergence of AI-dedicated marketing teams as well as the prevalence of AI-powered campaigns, all to ensure personalised and streamlined experiences that greatly reinforce customer satisfaction and loyalty.

According to Arora, the significant rate at which marketing has adopted and integrated with AI has now transformed it into something that it is synonymous with, with 76% of CMOs saying that generative AI will change the way that marketing operates.

For her, there are three key roles of AI in customer engagement that marketers should focus on; (1) drive more relevance by making experiences feel personal on every channel by tailoring content to each customer based on their preferences, attributes, and behaviours, (2) drive more effectiveness by automatically testing and optimising campaigns for their best-performing version, and (3) drive more efficiency to assist with routine tasks to allot more time towards formulating strategies and creative approaches.

Meanwhile, Jia Ling Lim, assistant head of marketing and partnerships at BeLive Technology; Rolly Pane, managing director for Indonesia at Clozette; Saniya Dhingra Agarwal, head of customer experience at foodpanda Singapore; and Chris Martin Alarcon, head of content and community management at Home Credit Philippines also provided their industry insights on the benefits that AI can bring to enhance customer engagement strategies in a panel discussion.

The marketing leaders, from different industries and countries, also provided advice on how AI can be leveraged for following customer behaviour and personalisation through data insights, how to overcome obstacles in the process of utilising AI for customer engagement, as well as its future potential.

To sum it all up, the insights imparted by the webinar served as a guide for marketers to properly settle and get into utilising AI tools more effectively to improve their customer engagement strategies, paving the way for businesses and brands to flourish with the assistance of AI.

The webinar, titled What’s NEXT 2024: Customer Engagement in Asia is made in partnership with customer engagement platform Braze. It garnered over 100 participants all across Asia from prominent brands such as 2GO, Bounty Fresh, Carousell, Johnson & Johnson, Mercedes Benz, and Shiseido, amongst many more.
   
If you missed going to the event, you may register HERE to obtain your on-demand access.

As of 4th January 2024, Chrome has officially started restricting third-party cookies by default for 1% of Chrome browsers. Once a gateway to personalisation, cookies collected behavioral data that enabled targeted ads and allowed marketers to serve up personalised experiences. However, when Google announced the change in 2020 citing ‘greater privacy for users’, it posed a substantial challenge to marketers relying on third-party data as part of their marketing strategy.

The change necessitated a shift towards collecting first-party data instead, but according to a Deloitte report, commissioned by Google, despite strong support for recent privacy changes, privacy is yet to become as much of a focus for sell-side players in APAC as it is in Europe or the Americas. The top three reasons holding organisations back from investing were the future state of privacy being too uncertain (30%), believing that there is no need to do anything further until the timing of platform changes is made clear, (25%) and businesses thinking they cannot compete with large digital platforms on audience matching, (25%). 

Another strong belief was that the first-party data would never be good enough, (23%). And to some extent, this is true, as the problem remains that data is only valuable when marketers are activating it and deriving insights from it – in real time. Chances are, most brands are already collecting lots of first-party data, from transactions to downloads, emails, and website analytics. But with all that, as well as any new initiatives to collect more data, such as surveys and loyalty or reward programmes, how can they avoid this data going straight to the graveyard? 

It starts with equipping tech ecosystems for real-time data agility

Effectively tapping into the power of first-party data starts with creating a unified customer view. It requires access to tech ecosystems that are built for data agility and real-time behavioural insights that marketers can easily act on. Data agility enables a brand’s data to move at the speed of its business, giving marketers the ability to collect, analyse, and disseminate information quickly and efficiently to meet goals at scale. For the best results, a tech ecosystem should encompass all channels and allow for meaningful personalisation that will ultimately build loyalty and drive conversions. 

Additionally, first-party data strategies and supporting technology need to be compliant with GDPR and ever-evolving privacy laws on a global scale. By having the right data management solution in place, marketers can compliantly extract information from end to end and quickly incorporate it into their personalised, dynamic messaging strategy.

Generative AI tools also pose exciting opportunities for markers, with the potential to revolutionise customer engagement campaigns by providing creative and personalised experiences. These tools can power customer-centric interactions between consumers and brands by speeding up the delivery of campaigns and empowering teams with ideas and content to cut through the noise. They can help create versions of campaigns across multiple channels for more targeted and personalised reach, ensuring brands don’t miss out on opportunities to connect with their audience in the right way and driving value across every touchpoint.

To save the most time and drive the most efficiency, marketers should look for built-in AI capabilities among their existing tech stack, leveraging the real-time data already at their disposal and taking it to the next level.

But what does real-time really mean?

When chasing the North Star of having unified customer profiles, they must be made up of real-time data. True real-time data that’s accessible and up-to-date at any given moment—not when the system syncs, once a day, or every couple of hours. It’s not the same thing. And although the difference might seem slight, it can have an incredible impact on marketing efforts. Being able to reach people in the right way, at the right time, on the right channel with a relevant message, cannot truly be achieved with data that isn’t of the moment. 

An example of a brand that recognises the value of true real-time data is Picklebet, an Australian sport and esports betting site that paired Braze with their proprietary betting engine to build a solution that enabled the team to personalise and test offers to individual users based on their preferences across a mix of channels. As business needs evolved, it became obvious that they needed a platform that could support the real-time and cross-channel experiences that customers have come to expect. By leveraging Braze’s real-time capabilities, Picklebet increased sessions per user by 116%, increased retention by 13% and saw a 550% improvement in CAC payback.

Final Thoughts

As the privacy landscape continues to evolve, first-party data and data consent will become even more important. This makes having an agile, unified and real-time data platform the best way to stay up-to-date and relevant. Without this, brands risk slowing business growth and missing out on all-important customer engagement opportunities that drive revenue. Investing time, effort and resources into this area will drive flexibility and more profitable customer engagement strategies that are effective both online and off. 

What’s Next?

  • Conduct an inventory – Identify all the first-party data available in the organisation and check how it is analysed and used. 
  • Integrate AI – Determine which of your current tools are capable of integrating with AI or have AI capabilities. 
  • Mobilise teams – Teams can be brought out of silos and start working together on exchanging information to see the benefits and uses of current first-party data.
  • Discover new sources – Pinpoint gaps in your data and analysis processes and systems and prioritise the gaps you need to fill. Decide on how you can acquire this new data. 
  • Unify real-time data – Unify your data for a holistic view of each customer with a platform that can help you reach these customers as and when you need to. Check for real-time ability and make sure that data is actionable at any given moment. 
  • Connect and engage – Use your data to create effective campaigns. Connect and engage with customers, test and experiment for continued optimisation and enhancement of your first-party data and its effectiveness. 

This article is written by Shahid Nizami, VP, Sales, APAC at Braze

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2023-2024. What’s NEXT 2023-2024 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

Manila, Philippines – Businesses of today are increasingly recognising the paramount significance of customer engagement for sustainable success. In this pursuit, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools has emerged as a game-changer. Leveraging AI’s power to comprehend and anticipate customer behaviour, preferences, and needs, companies can forge deeper connections with their consumers, delivering personalised experiences and fostering lasting loyalty.

Moreover, as customer expectations continue to evolve, harnessing AI tools to boost customer engagement is not just a competitive advantage but a necessity for businesses to thrive in the digital age.

This is what Sarah Chan, regional account executive at Braze, has pointed out. According to her, despite about 64% of marketers believing that AI adoption will be critical to establishing a competitive advantage, only 27% of marketers have deployed AI/ML in an active customer engagement strategy.

For her, there are three key steps marketers should take note of: (1) be more efficient in terms of spending more time driving strategy by leveraging generative AI for content assistance, (2) supercharge personalisation by means of tailoring content to each customer based on their unique preferences and behaviours, and (3) optimise conversions by automatically testing any campaign for the best-performing version.

Meanwhile, marketing leaders Greg Anonas, international wine and food marketing director at Emperador Distillers; Francis John Chua, marketing director, head of digital sales channels at Globe Telecom; and Albet Buddahim, chief marketing officer at PRIMER Group of Companies also provided their industry insights on how to deliver personalised and targeted marketing campaigns at scale using AI. 

The marketing leaders, representing their own industries, also shared their advice on how marketers can properly utilise these AI tools to their advantage and use it to assist them in conceptualising and executing their campaigns at the most optimal time and place.

All in all, the webinar laid out the foundations and key insights for marketers to be able to utilise AI tools to improve their own customer engagement strategies, as well as demystify the purported complexity of these tools for marketing strategies.

The webinar, titled The Future of Customer Engagement: Harnessing the Power of AI is made in partnership with customer engagement platform Braze.

If you missed going to the event, you may register HERE to obtain your on-demand access.

Manila, Philippines – In today’s competitive business landscape, brands are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) as a powerful tool to enhance customer experience strategies. AI technology has revolutionised the way companies interact with their customers, offering personalised and efficient experiences that drive customer satisfaction and loyalty. But with AI still being an overwhelming technology for many in the industry, how can brands and marketers properly navigate existing and future AI technologies to help in their marketing efforts to improve customer experience?

To navigate the complexities of AI in customer engagement strategies, MARKETECH APAC returns with a new webinar this July 25. Titled “The Future of Customer Engagement: Harnessing the Power of AI”, the webinar aims to impart valuable insights to marketers to harness the full potential of AI and stay ahead in the ever-evolving landscape of customer engagement.

The webinar will host a panel discussion, tapping some of the Philippines’ leading industry leaders to impart their thoughts on how brands should implement AI-powered customer engagement strategies. The panel is composed of Greg Anonas, international wine and food marketing director at Emperador Distillers; Francis John Chua, marketing director, head of digital sales channels at Globe Telecom; and Albet Buddahim, chief marketing officer at PRIMER Group of Companies. The triad of Philippine marketing leaders will also share their advice on how to deliver personalised and targeted marketing campaigns at scale using AI.

Moreover, the webinar will also feature a keynote presentation by Sarah Chan, regional account executive at Braze, where she will discuss the evolution of AI technologies in marketing and how brands should check out the right channel and the right time to execute such a strategy.

The presentation will also discuss the following:

  • How does AI-powered automation help in delivering timely and relevant messages across multiple channels?
  • What are the benefits of harnessing AI-driven customer journey mapping to ensure seamless experiences at every touchpoint?

“​​The marketing industry is in a constant state of change, and AI has introduced both challenges and opportunities that can be intimidating to many marketers. AI isn’t new technology, but with its evolution–marketers can no longer ignore the potential it brings. Join us in this timely webinar to explore AI-driven marketing and how it can transform brand’s customer engagement strategies,” said Katherine Sy, regional head of content at MARKETECH APAC.

The Future of Customer Engagement: Harnessing the Power of AI is made in partnership with customer engagement platform Braze. Catch this webinar on July 25, 11AM (PHT) by registering HERE. See you there!

New York, USA – Braze, the comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers interactions between consumers and the brands they love, has announced the appointment of Astha Malik as its new chief marketing officer, effective 27 June. Malik joins Braze following the retirement of former CMO Sara Spivey, earlier this month. She will be reporting to co-founder and CEO Bill Magnuson and will join the executive leadership team at Braze and will oversee all global marketing functions.

A tech industry veteran, Malik brings more than 20 years of experience building brands, driving innovation, and accelerating revenue growth. Most recently, Malik served as chief operating officer of VTEX, where she oversaw the company’s global go-to-market strategy and operations, global marketing, global enablement, growth people operations and strategic alliances. Throughout her career she has also held leadership positions across a number of premier technology companies including Zendesk, Citrix, Sumo Logic, and PagerDuty.

Malik also serves as a board member for software companies Greenhouse and Everlaw. She is also an active advocate for diversity and leadership and has received the Stevie Award for Female Executive of the Year as well as the Business Leadership Award from the National Diversity Council.

In her appointment, Malik said,“I’m thrilled to be joining the Braze team and to lead marketing for a brand trusted by marketers at customer-centric companies around the world.” 

Malik added, “There’s so much opportunity ahead for Braze to keep shaping the future of customer engagement through its growing community of marketers, developers, and customer engagement teams. I look forward to joining the talented team and accelerating the momentum in the company’s next growth phase.”

Magnuson said, “Astha brings an exciting array of experience, perspective, and talent to our leadership team.”

“She has a proven track record of growing global, leading, technology companies and building top-performing teams. Her addition to Braze will be instrumental as we continue our next phase of growth as a public company,” Magnuzon added.

As we enter the post-pandemic period, we are now dealing with an entirely new consumer – desires, needs, and motivations that have transformed to adapt to the new phase of the ‘new normal’.

Last April 20, MARKETECH APAC, in partnership with Braze, gathered marketing leaders from brands Astro Malaysia, BigPay, bolttech, Hmlet, Philippines AirAsia, ShopBack, Zeemart, and Zenius. to discover how brands are implementing their customer acquisition and retention strategies in this period of unprecedented changes as well as how they are building a culture of experimentation and optimisation in each of their organisations.

Watch the highlights from the roundtable that roped in marketing leaders from brands Astro Malaysia, BigPay, bolttech, Hmlet, Philippines AirAsia, ShopBack, Zeemart, and Zenius.

Hybrid experiences to deliver high customer engagement 

When during the height of the pandemic, consumers and businesses were thrust to interact entirely in a virtual manner, the less restricted post-pandemic meant that brands now must take into consideration the dynamics of the engagement brought by the physical experience and integrating that with the uncovered powers of the virtual space.

Allenie Caccam, head of marketing of Philippines AirAsia, shared that in order to bring cohesiveness to your customer engagement, it doesn’t stop with what is done in the brand’s app or website, but almost always culminates with an on-ground activation or face-to-face interaction “to personify the brand as a lifestyle.”

“We do drive cross channel customer engagement by identifying the critical points of engagement and addressing it through hyper-personalisation and experiential marketing,” said Caccam. 

Priyanka Nadkarni, marketing lead of insurtech bolttech, echoes this and says that it is important to follow your consumers offline, as in their case, the discovery process for insurance products doesn’t stop within digital bounds. 

“We need to remember that we’re not only digital anymore…for us, it’s really about where [do these] insurance and protection products really make real sense for the customer, and it’s not always online,” said Nadkarni.

Meanwhile, fintech BigPay also agrees with the same marketing direction. Jia Nina, country marketing lead of the brand, said that they don’t rely on the app alone, and remarked that marketing also goes beyond the app.

Raymond Muliadi, head of product at edtech Zenius, shared, “Offline will always be there. And we will not be able to dismiss online or offline. So we want to make sure that we build an ecosystem where the learning is complementing online and offline.”

Tapping into the fundamentals to effectively retain customers

During the roundtable, industry leaders were in unison about how it is to effectively retain customers in this period and that is to bank on the powers of the fundamentals – knowing your consumers inside out, and activating marketing that genuinely aligns what they want and value.

BigPay’s Jia Nina also shared her insights on this and said, “We really listen to customers… effective marketing is always a conversation, it’s not just you talking to people.”

Meanwhile, Astro’s Norsiah Juriani Johari, its VP for product marketing, believes that to keep customers coming back to your product, you have to be able to deliver authentic value exchange. 

She says that we now live in a world of transparency and that customers “can see right through you” and will know when a brand isn’t upfront about what it promised to deliver.

“Listening to the customers and really holding true to our core values at these challenging times has really helped us a great deal as a business and as a brand,” she said. 

Personalisation also came out as a top strategy among marketers for customer retention. 

Edward Tan, the associate director for growth marketing at co-living space provider Hmlet, says that personalised engagement is what is able to draw customers back to the product. 

“One thing we learned when it comes to customer retention, for locals especially, is to shift from purely selling them the co-living experience to the need for consistent and personalised engagement,” said Tan. 

When driving that cross channel customer engagement, he says, “The most important factor to us when it comes to cross-channel engagement is definitely reaching the right customers via the right channel at the right time with the right messages.”

Shopping and rewards platform ShopBack, which is currently an adopter of Braze’s consumer engagement platform, also shared to employ the same strategy, which is leveraging the best channel for customer needs and then finding the right timing and triggers for your communications. 

Its Head of CRM Scott Tan said, “For us, it’s creating a meaningful cross-channel engagement. It’s really about setting up your platform to make sure that you can (1) anticipate user needs, (2) [have] the right channel, and (3) find appropriate triggers and timing.”

Building a culture of experimentation and testing

Now that consumers have increasingly become more nuanced and that the staying power of trends is going away at lightning speed, these have put down greater importance on brands’ practices in experimentation and testing. 

For Zeemart, an F&B procurement platform, and a pre-series A startup, it’s about encouraging a positive attitude toward ‘failing forward’.

“I think the advantage of being a startup is that you’re always building, learning and iterating,” said Tan.

“Develop this attitude of failing forward, because no one really knows the answers…facilitating feedback, gathering results and going out and fixing it, and testing it again,” he added.

Meanwhile, bolttech’s Priyanka Nadkarni summed it up briefly on the topic, “To be a pioneer, own it, link together and think outside in.”

As we move towards the post-pandemic period, virtual and digital are here to stay–but only better. Consumer experiences are set to become even more ingenious and innovative now that the period has enabled us to once again bring back physical engagement and interaction.

Among the insights the industry leaders shared, non-negotiable principles of marketing stood out, agreeing that no matter what the changes, marketing will always be and should remain experimental. We don’t get to the bottom of the ‘AHA’ moment if we stick to what has already been successful or what is deemed to be the best at present, as the future ahead will only become unpredictable and challenging for marketers but also groundbreaking with the emergence of unimaginable digital interactivity. 

Watch the highlights from the roundtable that roped in marketing leaders from brands AirAsia Philippines, Astro Malaysia, BigPay, bolttech, Hmlet, ShopBack, Zeemart, and Zenius.

Take a look at Braze’s latest marketing report, ‘2022 Global Customer Engagement Review’ which shares the top three trends that are shaping customer engagement in 2022 as well as opportunities companies can seize for growth by industry and region. The report is free to download here.

Singapore – MARKETECH APAC, the digital media for the marketing and advertising industry in APAC, has partnered with Braze, the global customer engagement platform, to launch the industry report on consumer engagement, ‘2022 Customer Engagement Review’, an overarching review of the current state of consumer engagement. 

Combining data from the Braze platform, with the results from a survey of 1,500+ marketing decision-makers across 14 global markets, the report unveils macro trends within customer engagement that emerged in 2021, covers how customer engagement has evolved over the past year, and highlights opportunities for improvement and growth for 2022. 

This is the second instalment of the annual report, and the latest edition assesses shifts in customer engagement trends over the past year, together with actionable insights on what to expect next year, and how brands can address evolving consumer needs, channel preferences, and privacy concerns. Furthermore, to inform the report, data were analysed from three different sources.

“The events of the past two years have fundamentally altered the way customers approach brand relationships. The bar for consumer expectations is at an all-time high,” said Bill Magnuson, co-founder and CEO of Braze.

Today’s brands are embracing customer engagement and it’s paying off. But as the bar for marketing experiences rises, how can your company keep up? The report breaks down findings across five different industries—financial services, health and wellness, media and entertainment, QSR and delivery, and retail and eCommerce—as well as regional breakouts for APAC, EMEA, and the US. Each industry and regional breakout also features a case study from a leading Braze customer, including Linkaja, The Coffee Club, and Mercari.

Notable findings include insights regarding the continued shift toward zero-party (i.e. shared by users) and first-party (i.e. gathered with user consent) data, the emergence of data management as a top challenge for brands, and the growth of brand confidence in their customer engagement abilities. 

“For brands to rise to the occasion, they must focus on establishing a personal connection through customer engagement, and provide seamless communication across their preferred channels and platforms. Companies that fail to provide coordinated, cross-channel customer engagement strategies risk falling behind on business outcomes and revenue goals,” added Magnuson. 

Shaina Teope, MARKETECH APAC’s regional editor, commented, “We’ve seen so many changes in the past two years since the pandemic began, and now that the ‘new normal’ has actually become our ‘norm’, we need to prepare ourselves on the challenges and opportunities arising from this new brand-consumer dimension. Overarching industry reports like the ‘2022 Customer Engagement Review’ are definitely a boon. Through this report, we will be better equipped on how to move forward in 2022, since the insights comprehensively look into the past, present, and future landscape of consumer engagement.“

Also included in ‘2022 Customer Engagement Review’ is the Braze Customer Engagement Index, a framework assessing brands in 12 competencies across two key axes—technology and teams—to put forward a model for best-in-class customer engagement. Each brand is then indexed on these factors and distributed across three maturity stages – Activate (least mature), Accelerate, and Ace (most mature). The index revealed overall positive momentum from last year, with many companies increasing their maturity and sophistication across all 12 customer engagement competencies.

Download your own copy of the report HERE.

Singapore – The global pandemic has challenged brands to rethink their existing digital marketing strategies due to the sudden shift in consumer behavior which has made online preferable to all other consumer channels.

With this in mind, customer engagement platform Braze and MARKETECH APAC, the dedicated news platform for the marketing and advertising industry in Asia-Pacific, have teamed up to launch the marketing guide, ‘Guide to Elevate Your Customer Engagement Strategies’, to offer brands a wide array of customer engagement strategies to elevate their campaigns no matter which part of the marketing funnel they’re looking to amplify – whether that’s to activate, monetize, or retain consumers. 

‘Guide to Elevate Your Customer Engagement Strategies’ features more than 40 customizable campaigns that have also been leveraged by the world’s savviest brands; this means along with fresh ideas to personalize, brands are provided with a broader perspective on a specific campaign with good examples of how other brands have applied it on their own. 

The guide is grounded in today’s fast-moving consumer landscape, providing each suggested campaign strategy with an estimated difficulty level, as well as the engagement channels that the campaign is best applied on, including email, in-app notifications, and social media advertisements, in order to capture consumers’ attention and retain them in the long run.

Strategies within the guide are divided into three main categories – for activation, monetization, and retention. The pandemic changed the game for each step of the consumer engagement cycle, and what it takes to activate, monetize, and retain consumers may be different than what brands were used to pre-pandemic.

In terms of activation, while free trials remain an effective way of drawing in customers, the guide provides new strategies that encourage experimenting with the channels, content, and timing of the messaging to more effectively underscore the brand’s offering. 

When it comes to monetization, meanwhile, the guide assists brands in taking advantage of cohesive and cross-channel campaigns to deliver promotional messages that effectively convert consumers.

And lastly, with retention, marketers can find informative and actionable insights in the guide that show how to leverage cross-channel messaging to highlight their brand’s value in providing existing and new products and services.

Bill Magnuson, Braze’s founder, said, “The secret weapon that differentiates exceptional, enduring companies is the quality of their customer engagement, encompassing the full set of activities through which companies build direct relationships with their customers.”

Taken together, these use cases make it possible for brands to determine the right mix of campaigns for their specific needs and business goals, and then to implement them effectively to make the most of their customer engagement efforts. By taking a methodical approach, marketers can ensure they’re not missing out on campaigns that could drive stronger customer loyalty or additional revenue.

Shaina Teope, the regional editor of MARKETECH APAC, commented, “No matter how seasoned marketers have become in a specific part of the consumer lifecycle, the changes brought by these strange times put us to square one, placing upon brands the need to revisit and reassess their consumer engagement. This comprehensive and no-frills guide will resonate well with marketing teams of all sizes.”

To access the guide, you may download ‘Guide to Elevate Your Customer Engagement Strategies’ here.