Recently, one of Pushwoosh customers — a popular design app — has achieved incredible results. On average, they now convert 67% of their free trial users into paying customers with the help of Pushwoosh Customer Journey. Today, we're sharing some of the best practices for you to replicate the success.

Combining push notifications with emails for customer onboarding can multiply your revenue. Cross-channel message flows allow reaching those who ignore your message by delivering it via multiple channels, without spamming users. Such messaging is automated and personalized (aligned with every user's experience), so you can be sure that it's always timely and relevant. This is exactly what Customer Journey helps to achieve.

Our customers build message sequences that convert users into paying customers with 67,1% probability:

Convert from free trial users into paying customers

Behavior-based communication always gives the best results. In this post, we'll describe the typical steps of such journeys, and you'll be able to build an effective automated campaign yourself. Take a look at how easily you can plan and map it in the Customer Journey interface:

Pushwoosh Customer Journey Builder successful use case

Step 1: Welcome Message

First things first, all new users that have signed up, should receive a personalized welcome message letting them know they're appreciated. Should you send this greeting by email or a push? Before answering, you should consider the following: to start receiving push notifications from your app, your new users need to subscribe to them first (opt-in). If that doesn't happen, you can't send them a push, which could leave a segment of your users ignored. However, you can always send an email.

In Customer Journey, after choosing the triggering event (which is Signing Up in this case), you can then use the Wait For Event feature that splits the audience into two segments – the ones that have subscribed and the ones that haven't done it yet. Depending on the segmentation criteria (in this case, Subscribed/Not Subscribed), you can send different content via different channels.

Pushwoosh Customer Journey Builder success story

Emails would be the best option for your welcome message (they'll reach everyone), but if your users have subscribed to push notifications, you can choose to greet them with a push as well. Customer Journey will do it automatically.

In your message, greet the user and briefly introduce your app, giving tips on the first steps every new user should take in order to start using your service efficiently and without problems.

Step 2: Keeping Users Active

After you've welcomed your new users, you need to make sure they'll stay active. Once again, the Wait For Event feature will allow you to do that. It will keep track on whether the user has launched your app at least once within a specified period of time. Based on that, it will split your audience based on their activity levels and automatically deliver messages to stimulate engagement.

The first 2 weeks are the most important in keeping newcomers active. That's when around 70% of new users can potentially abandon your app if you don't remind them about it.

In this case, the design app uses push notifications to deliver useful tutorials to users that haven't opened the app for 3, 7, and 14 days. The delay period is specified for each message:

Pushwoosh Customer Journey Builder customer's use case

Examples of such push notifications:

"Make the most of [AppName]! Learn design in just a few hours or days. Try it now!"
"We miss you already! Want to chat with our best designers to learn their tips on creating masterpieces?"
"Consistency is the key to getting the most from [AppName]! Try a simple design tutorial today!"

Step 3: Discounts & Special Offers

Users that stay active and keep launching your app regularly are the ones that are more likely to purchase a subscription in the following months. Once you've retained dormant users and have your active userbase, you should consider doing promo for those that haven't made a purchase in the following month or so.

In the flow for your active users, use the Wait for Event feature to target those users who haven't purchased a subscription within a specified period of time. Use additional segmentation (Splitters), if you need it – for example if your offer doesn't suit all groups of users.

Pushwoosh Customer Journey Builder in action

Example of such message:

"Jack, thanks for using [AppName]! Here's your personal promo code for -15% off for upgrading your subscription!"
"Ann, your 14-day trial ends tomorrow! Enjoying [AppName]? Get 20% off your 3-month subscription here!"

After you've sent your special offer, check once again – how many users have taken your offer and bought a subscription with Wait for Event. If you feel like an additional special offer could help, you can send another one to free users after a certain delay. And that's how Pushwoosh customers achieve fantastic results in converting new users to paying customers.

Request a free demo to learn how Pushwoosh helps to boost conversions:

Or sign up now to try out behavior-based messaging for free: