Maximizing the Impact of In-App Communication

The heart of what you do as a CS professional is promote customer value. Tools like In-App Messages and WalkThroughs have provided a new way to engage your clients and encourage success behaviors.

When working to drive success, traditional communication methods such as customer webinars or in-person training won’t always cut it. The most effective way to reach your users is to engage them while they use your product.

With two powerful tools at your disposal, you’ll want to ensure you’re using In-App Messages and WalkThroughs to the best of their abilities. Check out these quick tips on mastering the craft of In-App Communication!

Segmentation

When it comes to effective communication, it’s important to consider what content is relevant to you and the user. In-App Messages and WalkThroughs are no exception - ChurnZero customers who are most successful with these tools start with a robust segmentation strategy. This ensures they serve the right content, to the right person, at the right time.

When creating In-App communication, be sure to ask yourself:

• Who should receive this communication?
• What type of user behavior am I trying to encourage?
• When should this communication be triggered?

Keep these in mind to avoid generalizing your customer base. Deploying the same In-App messages or WalkThroughs to all users risks diluting the effectiveness of these tools.

By way of example, if you’ve moved to a new version of your product, or added a new feature, you should plan to create different variations of WalkThroughs for different segments. You can create one variation for users who are new to the product entirely, and another variation for users who have experience with the prior version. Your new user WalkThrough may be more comprehensive with multiple stages. Meanwhile your experienced users may just receive a simple popup reminding them of this product change instead of a multistep guide.

Segmentation is so important because in this case, newer users would have been left puzzled by a simple pop-up about the new feature. Meanwhile your seasoned users could be annoyed by a detailed walkthrough that they feel is an in-efficient use of time

Design

Another key to maximizing your In-App efforts is giving thought to design. These tools work best when they replicate the native look and feel of your product. Your goal is to create a seamless user experience, and design is a major component of this!

Consider working with your Product team to create basic templates for your In-App communication. Leveraging Product’s expertise will ensure the branding and design used on the templates branding matches your product. This is where you’ll want to leverage color hex codes, font types, and other design elements to create that uniform look.

Beyond branding, don’t be afraid to make use of images. That being said, be mindful of the relevancy and purpose when using images. This is particularly important with WalkThroughs, where a misplaced image can do more harm than good. Ill-fitting images will confuse your users rather than help them learn by doing.

Copy

We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king”. When it comes to your In-Apps, your copy matters!

As a first step, give thought to your headline and goal. What is your end goal? Headlines should be concise and reflect the content to follow. Clear headlines that convey an offer of value (“this feature will make your life easier”, etc.) are those that yield the most engagement.

Similar to headlines, the rest of your message should be short and sweet. Brevity is key – remember, you don’t have a ton of space. This is even more important if you plan to include graphics or images.

Additionally, one of the most important elements of your copy is your Call-To-Action (CTA). This is where you’ll want to prompt a specific response from your users.

• For In-App messages, you may not have a CTA. If you do have a CTA, the message may be along the lines of “Learn About our Customer Awards.”
• For WalkThroughs, the best practice is to always include a CTA for each step of your In-App Guidance. This won’t be a “Learn More” CTA, but rather something like “Show Me More” or “See Step 2.” Doing so creates a common thread between each step of your WalkThrough.

More best practices to create your Call-to-Action, and ultimately drive your desired customer response, include:

• Short CTAs with action verbs perform the best
  • “Teach Me”, “Show Me”, etc.
• Button CTAs out-perform CTAs that are plaintext, links, or images
• Your CTA should be large enough to draw attention, but small enough not to distract

Finally, when dealing with copy, keep your brand’s voice in mind. Ask yourself (or your product team!) whether your brand is witty, authoritative or fun? There’s a lot of value to maintaining a similar voice across all customer facing mediums.

Timing and Framing

As our marketing colleagues can attest, the timing and framing of messaging plays a big role in the effectiveness of the messaging. As it pertains to ChurnZero’s In App Communication, this can be thought of in a few ways:

Calendar Timing:

The day of week, month, and where we are in the financial quarter have a direct impact on In-App engagement. This is especially the case for B2B businesses where most engagement is Monday-Friday between 9AM-5PM. As a rule of thumb, avoid the start and end of weeks, months and quarters in order to drive the most activity. While your content may be compelling, a customer is least likely to take action during hectic times like these.

Consider these stats. While they apply to marketing emails, these findings also translate to the types of trends we see in In-App Communication:

• Email Marketers see the most engagement on Tuesdays (Campaign Monitor)
• Mid-morning if often the best time to send emails, although no one time is perfect for all users (MailChimp)

Another aspect of timing to keep in mind is scheduling In-Apps. If you’ve ever been inundated with too many emails, you know the feeling that over-communication can create. As a best practice, consider creating a shared calendar that shares when specific In-Apps are going out. Besides providing the entire team visibility, a shared calendar helps avoid sending too many In-Apps during a specific time frame.

Journey Timing and Situational Framing:

Also consider the timing of these in relation to the customer journey – this is another reason why segmentation is so important! Your messages need to make contextual sense whether based on your customer’s position in their journey or the specific actions they’ve taken.

In terms of the customer journey, think about both where specific users and accounts fall. Newer accounts and users should see different types of messaging based on the priorities of their lifecycle stage.

• New Customers
  • WalkThroughs: Focus is on new users mastering sticky features, achieving onboarding milestones, and maintaining momentum.
  • In-Apps: Focus is on celebrating milestones, encouraging success behaviors, and delivering customer communications.
• Existing Customers
  • WalkThroughs: Focus is on introducing new features to existing users, training users struggling with specific aspects of your product, or for on-boarding new users from existing accounts.
  • In-Apps: Focus is on reinforcing success behaviors and delivering customer communications.

Also think through what types of In-Apps can be triggered based on actions within your app. Think about these in a “If This, Then That” perspective.

• If a customer takes a certain action in your application, what do you want them to do next? Should they practice this action again or move onto another step?
  • IF my user creates an email campaign, THEN ask them to upload the recipient list.
• Did a customer use a new feature for the first time? Send a congratulatory In-App to re-enforce this success behavior.
  • IF my user tried our new feature, THEN send an In-App Message with a congratulatory GIF.
• Or if a customer is seemingly struggling with a feature, deploy a WalkThrough or In-App offering assistance.  
  • IF my customer has abandoned several sessions using a sticky feature, THEN deploy a WalkThrough offering guidance.
• Did a Segment of customers click a "tell me more" hyperlink in Step 2 of the WT or in your in-app announcement?
  • IF my customer did click “tell me more,” THEN enter them into the play for those who showed interested.
  • IF my customer didn’t click the link, THEN enter them into a different Play that slowly provides additional information.

Action based triggers also provide the opportunity to use the analytics and reporting from In-App Messages or WalkThroughs.  What’s exciting is that this data can be leveraged for future communications or even automated Plays that aren’t necessary in-app.

Test, Review, Repeat

Finally, let’s take one last page out of Marketing's book: the key to delivering effective messaging is to test, review and repeat. This is a continuous process that should be an ongoing part of your In-App Communications strategy. You will be surprised how quickly user behaviors can change.

. By segmenting your customers, you can easily create control and experiment groups as you refine your messaging. This can be as simple as breaking an existing segment into two (‘Financial Services Client Segment – Names A-M’ vs. ‘Financial Services Client Segment – Names N-Z.’)

When testing WalkThroughs, consider:

• Length of copy and the number of steps
• Sequence of steps
• Colors, fonts, and imagery used
• Screen placement
• Timing (calendar/clock based and action based)
• CTA (shape, size, copy)

When testing In-Apps, test:

• Length of Copy
• Colors, fonts, and imagery used
• Screen placement
• Timing (calendar/clock based and action based)
• CTA (shape, size, copy)

As you continue to test, be sure to monitor the analytics of your In-Apps. By monitoring stats like WalkThroughs completed and CTAs clicked, you’ll be on your way to refining your messaging and maximizing the impact of your In-App communication.

Looking for more ways to propel your ChurnZero Experience?

Stay on the lookout for future customer-only webinars and content in our weekly customer newsletter. Each week we’ll bring you tips, answer customer questions and provide new opportunities for you to engage and share with your peers. We hope you’ll join us!