Showmax Used Smart Segmentation to Increase Subscribers by 204%

As the streaming wars heat up, it takes more than just quality content to earn viewer’s attention and loyalty. In order to stand out, Showmax, a leading South African online video subscription service, focuses on locally-relevant content that appeals to their mostly African audience. The company offers Kenyan- and South African-produced titles alongside U.S. and British movies and television, carrying content in several languages such as Afrikaans, isiZulu, SeTswana, and Sesotho.

That dedication to local, relevant content extends to Showmax’s customer engagement strategy.

Showmax Steals the Show with Braze

Showmax had three main objectives when designing their cross-channel engagement strategy. They focused on increasing:

• Conversions: After a 14-day free trial, turning new users into paying customers.
• Retention: Keep those customers watching, engaged, and happy.
• Win-Back: Get those who have cancelled to come back.

To accomplish these goals, Showmax created a complex and effective segmentation system, powered by Braze, to provide personalized and engaging cross-channel messages—including emails, push notifications, and in-app messages (IAM)—to their users.

For example, audience segments were organized by:

• Lifecycle stage: New users, existing users, churned, time spent watching content
• Content preferences: Movies and TV shows organized into over 600 genre-related metadata tags
• Points in time: Are customers about to finish a television series? What should they watch next?
• User characteristics: Device used, payment method, subscription length, etc.

Based on these different segments, customers will receive timely messages that are relevant to their unique activity and unique profile, providing a better, more custom brand experience.

Subscribers receive personalized recommendations based on their viewing history, lapsed users might get an email about a new title that just arrived, and someone that just signed up for a trial gets an IAM to add payment details for later. There’s a message for almost every situation.

Showmax Results: Increase in Subscribers, Win-back Rate, and Engagement

Through their tailored approach and data-driven strategy, Showmax increased their ROI by 37% and saw a massive 204% increase in subscribers.

They also saw a 12% increase in winback rate, 71% retention rate, 19% activation of dormant viewers, 4.4% conversion rate, and increase to 39% proportion of users highly-engaged.

*Although the segmentation is run across all territories, these results are based on South Africa only. They are calculated based on incremental subscriber revenue, less agency, segmentation and execution costs.

Final Thoughts

With a dedication to serving their audience with locally-relevant content personalized to their audience’s preferences, Showmax is able to drive high engagement and provide valuable communication.

To learn more about cross-channel strategies and how to make different messaging channels work for your brand, check out our cross-channel data report.

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