5 Ways to Boost Post-Holiday Streaming

Holiday Listening Stats? Music to Our Ears

Whatever industry you’re in, marketers see an incredible uptick in traffic during peak season. Retailers see items fly off the shelves, travel and hospitality brands see vacation bookings take off, and media and technology marketers see streams flow in like never before.

But like most tentpole events, the massive increase in customer activity lasts for a short period of time if you’re not prepared. But by implementing these five strategies, you’ll be able to avoid the sharp drop-off and motivate customers to keep the streaming going all year long.

Recapture Attention

While the well-known croons of Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé are enough of a draw for listeners to stream more, marketers have to get a bit more creative once January hits. To get customers’ divided attention, adding a touch of gamification is a quick but effective method to do just that. Take a look at Global Radio’s gamified Advent calendar that deployed across email and mobile:

In this time-targeted campaign, the Global team sent out a new teaser each day in the 12 days leading up to Christmas. Every day offered a new opportunity to win various prizes, and recipients could also add the event to their calendars to ensure they never missed the latest drop. 

To keep this relevant, the Global team also included automated real-time updates, where the previous day’s number would be shown as “expired,” even when the customer accessed an older message.

As the Global team demonstrates, marketers can get really creative with their gamification tactics; and once they come up with a winning campaign like this, they can update it with new imagery and thematic elements for redeployment in the new year.

Support Multiple Listening Platforms

The mobile channel is critical to every industry, and this is all the more true for streaming services. Customers are often listening to music on the go or even watching shows on their commute. Engaging customers on this coveted channel is a must-have for retaining that holiday-worthy engagement. That’s why Rakuten Viki took an omni-channel approach to their FOMO-driving campaign:

Each of these rich push notifications used elements of personalization to get customers to tap in. They included first name personalization, countdown timers, progress bars, and tier expiration reminders—all automatically chosen based on the recipient’s current stage in the customer journey. Through these efforts, the team at Rakuten Viki saw an uptick in contributors. 

Recommend Their New Favorites

Gamification and urgency-drivers are invaluable quick wins, but to continue holding customers’ attention, media and technology marketers should turn to recommendations next. By introducing customers to their future favorite streams—whether that’s a song, show, game, or podcast—marketers will be able to solidify loyalty in the months to follow. Here, this brand adds game recommendations based on the player’s recent activity:

Not only are similar RPG games added, this brand also included price points and current ratings to further entice customers to log into a new game. By adding multiple layers of data points into a single message, marketers can quickly increase personalization and engage players all the more. 

Push for Re-Engagement

Recommendations are one way to re-engage customers, but marketers have far more options at their fingertips. Whether it’s reminding customers to complete a task, showcasing the value they’ve gained from interacting with your brand, or giving them a reward, marketers can choose from a plethora of strategies—or, if you’re Audible, you can use all of these tactics within one campaign. 

In a week-long series, Audible wrapped up their year with personalized push notifications displaying a new stat every day. Customers got a sneak peek at their activity—such as top genres, favorite authors, most active month, or total minutes listened for the year—and every notification arrived with the option to save and share those successes. After the push notification series, customers also received the entire year-in-review via email and mobile.

Summarize Successes

Personalized summaries, such as year-in-reviews, are the final touch media and technology marketers need to keep customers continuously engaged. While these campaigns are highly anticipated, it’s critical that marketers keep customers in the loop by sending them regular summaries throughout the year. Don’t wait until December for a personalized send; make every day with your brand feel like a special occasion.