Braze has released the Braze Inspiration Guide, an ebook intended to assist marketers in realizing the complete potential of the Braze platform. This guide acts as a roadmap to extend and enhance their marketing efforts, divided into three key categories: activation, monetization, and retention.

In the second episode our 'Thread the Needle' mini-series, Brittany Watson, Business Strategist, and Jessica Leeds, Director of Alliances, chat about the Monetization use cases in the BIG, including:

• How to identify your value to set yourself apart from the competition
• Thinking outside the box to create campaigns 
• How monetization connects to activation and retention campaigns

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Transcript:

Jessica:  Hello and welcome to our special ‘Thread the Needle’ miniseries where we're chatting about the use cases provided in the Braze Inspiration Guide and how we're seeing our customers actually apply them in their day-to-day marketing. The Braze Inspiration Guide is designed to help marketers unlock the full potential of the Braze platform, serving as a roadmap to expand and deepen their marketing initiatives.

Today, I've got Brittany Watson, Business Strategist at Stitch, and we're going to be talking specifically about the monetization use cases in the Braze Inspiration Guide. All right, Brittany, so these monetization use cases are the fun ones because we're actually getting customers to spend money with our brand.

So when you're coaching our clients on building engaging monetization campaigns like the ones in the Braze Inspiration Guide, what are you encouraging them to think about? 

Brittany: The biggest thing that I recommend a brand, is for them to really think about how they can be the first ones to come to mind for their customer's needs, in regards to the service or the product that they're actually providing.

So if someone needs a new shirt, how do we make sure that their app is the first one that that customer is going to open? What if someone needs to schedule an appointment, right? How do we make sure that we've built and maintained a relationship, that's strong enough that they don't really consider other competitors and continue to really just come to us?

You're never going to get away from competition in whatever area of business you might be in, so it's really important to focus on what unique value you guys really bring to the table. And then how do we make sure that your customers know of that unique value?  Yeah, that's really good coaching.

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‍Jessica: And so, when you're looking through all the great examples of the types of campaigns in the Braze Inspiration Guide, was there a specific type of campaign that jumped out that you see clients doing really well? 

‍Brittany: Yes.  So seasonal campaigns, which is on slide 25, are universally relevant to clients that I work with.

But I think a lot of times when people think of seasonal campaigns, they automatically go to Black Friday and Christmas shopping because as we know, that's such a money maker. But what about summer travel, back to school, cold and flu season, right? Those are non-traditional holidays that we can use in unique ways. So, using back to school as an example, right? Most people, when you think of back-to-school campaigns, think of shoes and school supplies and everything else that kids need. But I've worked with healthcare clients who use back to school as an opportunity to remind people to book an appointment.

One client in particular that I had really used the idea of pulling your kids out of school, for a dentist appointment, right? Isn't that ideal? So they formulated an entire campaign around the idea of like, bring your kids in before school starts. So that way you're not working around actual classes, but sports and clubs and all the other things that make life a little bit more chaotic in the back-to-school time.

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Jessica:  I think as we're sitting here in September, I think that's pretty relevant to anyone with kids back in school. So I love that example. What, like talk to me about results. What were they able to achieve from that? 

Brittany: They had great success, actually, especially on the orthodontic side of their business, appointments that seem more elective, right, like a consult for braces, people can easily procrastinate those appointments, so giving parents just one more reason to just book the appointment, get it out of the way before their lives are more chaotic was a really great tactic for them. On top of, you know, the specific client getting all of the extra appointments booked, they just had a higher rate of engagement in general. I think that people noticed the subject lines they used weren't normal for the communications they would typically get from a dental or orthodontic office. 

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Jessica: So the other two types of campaigns in the Inspiration Guide, activation and retention, can't really exist without monetization. So can you talk about how the three play together and how marketers should be thinking about setting up their monetization campaigns to ride off of the success of their activations and then ultimately go into the success of their retention campaigns? 

‍Brittany: Yeah, absolutely. So going back to what I mentioned at the beginning, it's one thing to grab a customer at that beginning stage of a customer life cycle, but there are so many options.

There's so much competition just to search away. It's really important to keep in mind: How do we make sure that our brand, stands out to customers long term? How do we make sure that we are memorable? I think the biggest thing here is to not only become someone who's providing the best product or the best service but is also being seen as someone who is providing value outside of just what someone can spend money on.

And I know we're talking about monetization, but if you are providing value, You know, outside of an actual transaction, people are going to stay familiar with your brand and you're going to stay top of mind. The other thing to think about is what if they refer someone new to your company, right? Do they get a perk?

Is there a bonus if you know, do they get 50 and I get 50 all of those ride on not only acquiring the new customers but more so rely on you putting in the effort to let them know that they are valued and also providing them ongoing benefits that just keep them coming back. 

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‍Jessica: Love it. Well, it was great to chat with you, Brittany, about these use cases. I love the examples you were able to give from your client's work. Thank you for your time. So if you were listening and you are eager to dig into these use cases, definitely check out the Braze Inspiration Guide, which is linked in the comments of this video, and have a great day. Thanks, Brittany.