If you are starting your Storyly journey and still need to figure out where to start, don't worry, we have your back! I'm sure you already know the Story format and the power of this channel to communicate and engage with your users. The flexibility of these bite-sized content structures never stops to amaze our Storyly Community.
For 3 years, we have worked closely with marketers from over 350 apps and websites in 40 countries. Together, we created countless successful use cases and still learn something new daily!
Regardless of the business you have, thinking about all these fantastic experiences we generate with our customers and their users, I believe the tips and tricks below will drive you to success.
Don't have time to read? Watch this pre-recorded webinar where Dilayda and I share expert tips and tricks to maximize the potential of Storyly Stories.
1) Introduce Stories as your new channel
Storyly provides all the tools to customize and adapt the Story experience in the most native and seamless format for your brand. You are entirely free to use the colors and shapes you want. While you are working on it, there are two essential points you should consider. The position of the Story bar and the design chosen will make a huge difference!
We strongly advise adding Stories to the most premium part of the app or web page and choosing the most intuitive design for your users. It will maximize the users’ interaction with it!
After that, while your users are discovering the new channel of your brand for the first time, the first group you have should introduce Stories. The name of this group can be simple as “Welcome” or very explicit instructions like “Start Here.” In this group, you can create some expectations in your audience, letting them know what kind of content they will find in your Stories and giving them a reason to return for more. It’s also a great time to ask them what else they want to see and what kind of content they wish to consume. Thanks to Storyly interactive stickers, it’s super easy to ask, and your audience can also participate in the dialogue.
2) Use interactive stickers
As mentioned above, interactive stickers will represent a massive contribution to the success of your new Stories channel and user information is gold in this current zero-party data era.
With my experience, I’ve realized that users tend to respond more to questions about themselves. Getting to know more about the target audience is what all app and website owners want, right?
Scientifically speaking, this was already an expected behavior. According to TED, the reward centers in our brains are most active when talking about ourselves. In real life, people talk about themselves 30 to 40 percent of the time, stimulating the brain to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in how we feel pleasure.
Another rewarded behavior is when we have successful interactions. By using Storyly’s interactive stickers, such as polls, reactions, quizzes, questions, and comments, besides getting to know your users, you can create a game experience that will compensate for them in the end.
For example, let's talk about a common gamification use-case between the Storyly community. By using Story channel, some brands are turning their promotions into a social game. They announce to their audience they will be providing part of a promo code every hour or every day, which makes users curious and return to unlock an exclusive benefit. Consequently, as you can imagine, this strategy will keep your audience spending more time in your app or webpage and skyrocketing the number of impressions and stickiness to your Stories.
This is one example but there are thousands of possibilities. We have many gameplay elements that can help you to sell more, entertain, educate or get to know more about your user. Just let your creativity lead you!
3) Create audiences based on users preferences
In the current scenario, where customers come first, be sure to make your audience feel they are heard and taken into consideration. Your unhappy customers are your best learning source. And collecting customer feedback without plans to implement necessary changes can be a frustrating experience and might prevent them from sharing their opinion again.
After learning your users' interests, preferences, or favorite products, you can create special groups based on their answers and deliver more relevant content.
Think about this scenario. Through Storyly stickers, you can ask users which promotion or campaign they want to see, giving them multiple options. For instance, a retailer may discover that most of the app users want to see discounts on electronics, in which case the retailer could announce a promotion for electronics via in-app Stories in the next few days. Remember to use a countdown sticker to give an extra sense of urgency to your customers enjoying this promotion!
I also have some good news for you. If you already know your users, you can bring your existing audiences quickly to our dashboard and take advantage of that. However, if it's not your case, we have a solution for you too! We have a fantastic feature called Storyly Audience Builder. With this option and minimum technical effort, in our dashboard, you can quickly create an audience based on the user's interactions, such as answers or clicks. Next time, you can make more engaging content, target your new audiences based on their preferences, and ensure they will be more engaged with your Stories!
4) Learn from best performing Story groups
The best performing story groups have something in common and let me tell you what it is. Everybody loves a sales promotion. In Storyly, we have all you need to boost your marketing campaigns. Besides allowing you to get to know your audience preferences in advance, you can announce your products in a very fancy format by adding product tags, product cards, coupon codes, call to actions, countdowns, and much more. At the same time you are increasing your conversions, average order value (AOV) and revenue. You are also improving the relationship with your customer when they feel happy about their purchases and think they got the best value from their money.
Not surprisingly, as a trend, we observe that groups that mention sales, promotions, discounts, prices or best deals/sellers in their names are the ones that always perform better and grab the most attention of the users. So, my recommendation is to take advantage of this tactic by having these keywords in your campaign names. For example, Black Friday Deals, Dresses Under $20, Everything with 50% OFF, etc.
Another trend we observed is the popularity of groups announcing fresh news, such as New Arrivals and Updates. It can quickly become a habit for your users to visit your In-App or Web Stories to check these Story groups to learn all the latest info about your business.
Last but not least, you can enjoy the hype of special occasions and events to create related content or launch unmissable deals. Why not launch unmissable offers to your users to watch the Super Bowl with their family and friends? Or ask your users to evaluate the looks of Academy Awards Night in a fun way. In addition, they might be interested in learning more about the winners and their works. Try it out!
5) Track your data regularly
After you have made your strategies and have your groups live, it's time to follow your data closely to optimize your results. On the first page of Storyly Dashboard, you can already find a lot of quick insights ready to be analysed. Engagement rate, average click-through rate (CTR), average response rate, and top performing groups and Stories. Additionally, in the Analytics section, you can get complete reports about your In-App and Web Stories and also export users' interactions.
These reports can be handy in defining your next steps since you can learn which groups were more successful based on the number of reach, impressions, clicks, and opens. For instance, groups in the first positions naturally have the most open rates, reach, impressions and clicks. By checking these metrics, you can easily discover which ones are grabbing the most of your audience's attention. Then, considering the importance of your campaign, you can keep them between the first positions or even pin them to the Story bar. In this manner, you make it easy for your users to engage with them.
The same logic can be applied by checking each group's Story metrics. Some Stories have better CTRs or are being watched for longer than the first ones. In this case, reordering them can also contribute to the success of this group.
Talking about groups, here are some other golden tips for you:
- The ideal number of Stories inside a group is between 5 and 8; we realized the users' interest dropped significantly after this number.
- Avoid adding too many steps or Stories till the desired action. Keep your communication crisp and have the important messages in the first positions.
- Your users will come back for more, make sure you have your new channel up to date. Adding content every 5 days or at least weekly can be a great idea
As a big plus and more holistic view, I definitely recommend you to send Storyly Events to your 3rd Party Analytics Platform, which will offer the possibility to create funnels and measure the outcome of Stories like add-to-cart, purchase, subscription, form submission, or any valuable customer activity from your side. You can also have this metric in the Storyly dashboard. Remember that having this visibility will be game-changing in how you read your metrics and the contributions our team can offer to your business.
Do you have any questions? Contact us: engagement@storyly.io.
Stay tuned for our following Customer Engagement team Insights ;)
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