While we all watched the outbreak of COVID-19 impacting economies throughout the world and play havoc, the mobile app economy is another matter, as mobile app session times and installs saw dramatic increases and decreases varying across industries.

Businesses –small, medium, and large– need facts, data-driven insights, and real-life examples of how brands are adapting to this change in consumer behaviour. It is time for organisations to look at revamping customer engagement methods.

MoEngage and AppFollow partnered to create a holistic guide to highlight engagement strategies for industries irrespective of their growth trajectory for brands across several verticals that need to essentially bounce back to pre-crisis numbers, sustain or accelerate their growth.

The paradigm shift in spending pattern

Customers are prioritising essential buying even with lockdowns getting relaxed in most countries around the world, the ways consumers are engaging with and consuming products and services have undergone radical changes.

For example, there is an all-time high for emotional spending on services ranging from entertainment subscriptions to online workout and meditation subscriptions, growth in loan applications to get through uncertain economic conditions, online shopping for groceries is becoming the new normal, etc.

Also Read: 5 ways you can improve your focus on customer engagement

New consumption patterns and digitalisation have and will change the rules of the consumer consumption game further.

What’s your app adoption trend: Grow, slowdown, or stagnate?

To understand the App Economy better, industry experts and leaders from leading global brands have provided their insights on how businesses might fare with lockdown relaxation on rebuilding their strategies to drive growth.

To map the right engagement strategy for your business, answering a Path Assessment Checklist consisting of a few questions that will help brands measure their milestones and take the right strategy forward.

Below are the three engagement frameworks to grow in a post-crisis world:

• Growth sustaining (for verticals observing unprecedented growth during crisis, viz. entertainment). Plan ahead by providing actionable strategies to define engagement flows, revisit and rework value propositions, curate relevant content, streamline marketing communications and re-evaluate spend. The key here is to streamline your approach by identifying channels that generate the most ROI and continue scaling up.
• Bounce-back (for verticals observing unexpected growth viz. travel & hospitality). Once you clearly understand which track defines your brand, the first step is to know how you can retain users and intensify your customer journey from the ground up. As a brand, you have invested in paid acquisition channels earlier so use that data to pursue paid activities. Pick up paid channels that offered almost 50-100 per cent ROI.
• Growth accelerating (for verticals with neither surge in growth nor heavy decline viz. BFSI). Strike a Balance between paid acquisition and organic channels and allow limited access to premium features- once the user realises the value of the features, they’d be willing to purchase the paid subscription. This also eventually results in stronger community relations.

Expert insights

Businesses striving to navigate and turn around their operations rely upon marketing experts and leaders from various global brands for success stories and how to nurture and grow in a crisis like this.

Also Read: 29 startups that are pros of customer engagement! (Part 2)

Each of these strategies above is accompanied by examples of brands that have successfully managed to turn around operations in the right way and enjoy growth during the crisis. For instance, marketing leaders from Asus Vietnam, OYO, and Aviasales give their take on crisis management and growth.

It is imperative for businesses to understand the changed consumer behaviour and accordingly realign and restructure their strategies for the future.

A key focus area for any business while handling a crisis should be – engaging and retaining existing customers. Once you have engagement and retention strategies nailed down, you can proceed with user acquisition.

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