To engage is to interact with the users. But sometimes, conversations become obsolete and one-sided, where the users ignore any sort of communication from the brand. That is the situation when businesses need to re-engage mobile app users more cautiously.

So, figuring out why the users were silent based on their behavior is half the battle. After understanding the possible reasons, re-engaging users on similar grounds and nurturing them to be active again should be the end goal for business leaders.

So how to devise a successful re-engagement strategy, and where to start?

Define inactive users

Every app has its window to consider users as inactive users based on their product category. For example, a social media app can view a user as inactive if there is no interaction in the last week. Whereas for a movie ticket booking app, inactive users haven’t booked a ticket in the previous six months. Thus every app has a different frequency of usage, and defining the window of consideration is very important to start the analysis.

Figure out the drop-offs

Irrespective of the time frame, users who are dropping off the conversion funnels need re-engagement at times. So, make a list of conversion and prime events and figure out the users dropping off before performing a conversion or running an equally important event. 

Segment

After building a list of hypotheses on “which sections of the user base need re-engagement?” –  create a segment for each of them. Ensure that the segmentation rules are not overlapping to avoid confusion and duplication of users across different segments.

Behavioral study

We sorted out our audience; now it’s time to influence their behavior from churning towards conversion. A deep study into the top 5% of converted users and their product interactions is crucial to set a path for these audience segments.

Figure out what the converted users were doing. Particularly – Their user flow, frequency of interactions, the time frame of conversion, and active engagements with the brand communications. 

A behavioral study is all about figuring out what the most engaged users are doing on the platform – so that later on, businesses can replicate similar kinds of experiences across different segments of users with variable frequencies and engagements to re-engage users at their best.

Compelling messaging

Re-engaging users is like a second chance to convince users to use your product or service. Thus, messaging should always be top-notch. Communicating relevant, personalized, to-the-point, and easy-to-understand messages from time to time without spamming is the key here. 

Engagement to action

Businesses adding “Call to Actions” wherever necessary makes it easy for the users to convert. Guided tours of onboarding, screen tips to navigate, and push notifications to remind users of an associated call to action are clever ways to re-engage users on their journey.

Re-evaluate with data

After nurturing users across different segments for a while, it is highly recommended to evaluate every change in user behavior. Again, from a metrics standpoint, behavior is nothing more than a rise in adoption for a particular frequency or frequency surge in interactions compared to the past. Re-evaluating the user base and their behaviors paves a new plan for future campaigns.

Seek Feedback

While evaluating the behavioral shift in usage data, you could find few users are still not motivated to adapt to the platform/product as expected. Every single user will have their reasons. To avoid the guesswork or fighting around the bush, it is always good to seek feedback from those users on “what makes them like/dislike the product.”

Such open-ended questions with space for free text replies allow users to share their experiences and feedback in an elaborate manner. Using such feedback would be great to personalize the experiences for similar users.

Wrapping up

One of the most brutal truths about running a business is that churn is inevitable. It’s almost impossible to retain 100% of customers in the digital age. The shifting costs have been reduced dramatically with cloud implementations. But, businesses can reduce the amount of churn with personalized communications and re-engagement tactics built on the foundations of customer behavior. To re-engage mobile app users might be a tedious process on the whole, but it definitely pays off.

About Upshot.ai

Upshot.ai is an omnichannel, user engagement, and gamification platform that helps digital product owners and marketers improve their product adoption and conversions. Fortune 1000 companies such as GE, UHG, Puma, Sony, ITC, and Tenet Healthcare are using Upshot.ai and observed a massive increase in product adoption and YoY increment in revenues.

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