Digital customer engagement is one of the key strategies that many brands use to attract and retain consumers today. The explosive rise of online use and mobile connectivity is making this an attractive and obvious strategy. However, the more brands that seek to leverage digital customer engagement, the more the market becomes flooded with a deluge of apps and loyalty program platforms, and this is creating strong competition across the space.
Even though brands understand that customers want to be engaged on this digital front, cutting though all the noise is becoming very difficult.
To increase engagement in this respect, it is paramount that digital customer experiences be relevant, meaningful, simple, and useful. And it is increasingly apparent that those that can succeed in these areas are commanding the attention of massive numbers of consumers.
Shopkick is one platform that is certainly helping to prove this theory of digital customer engagement. Shopkick is an iPhone and Android app that promises to make in-store customer experiences more rewarding, personal and enjoyable. And shoppers everywhere have obviously taken this promise to heart.
In fact, its user-base has just passed the 15 million mark, which is also a number that has actually doubled since last year.
According to Nielsen’s Electronic Mobile Measurement Panel, shopkick users also spent almost two hours per month using the app during this past July. And in terms of time spent using an app per person, this made it the leading commerce & shopping app.
This also adds up to huge revenue gains for shopkick’s more than 300 brand partners including Kraft, Pepsi, Macy’s, Best Buy, American Eagle, Sports Authority, JCPenney, and more. For 2015 alone, shopkick is projected to bring in almost $1 billion for its partners, which is up from the $1 billion it has already previously generated in the last four years combined.
To put this level of successful engagement in perspective, Cyriac Roeding, co-founder and CEO of shopkick, offered a startling analogy.
“If you stacked all of the gift cards that users have received from shopkick, the pile would be 18 Empire State Buildings, or over four miles, high,” Roeding said. “That’s 15 billion Kicks, or $60 million, that we’ve rewarded to shopkick users just for shopping how they want to shop. From saving time, money and earning rewards, to discovering the things you are looking for or otherwise would have missed without shopkick, we are reinventing the shopping experience by transforming a store, into your personalized store.”
It is this convenience and personalization that drives the app’s tremendous success.
Shopkick uses beacon technology to give mobile users real-time savings and rewards simply by visiting one of more than 14,000 stores. When a user enters a participating store, they automatically accumulate “kicks,” which can then be redeemed for various items and discounts. Kicks points are also awarded by scanning product barcodes and by making purchases.
What’s more, users can also receive immediate promotional updates based on their preferences and proximity to certain trending in-store items.
This is exactly the kind of real-time and relevant digital customer engagement that is working so well for shopkick. It is also a strategy that the company plans to continue leveraging on its mission to become the No. 1 online-to-offline commerce company in the world.