Read how to take communication with customers to a new level by knowing their city and favorite movie theater.

About the project

Multiplex is the largest cinema chain in Ukraine. You can find the schedule or purchase a ticket through the website or mobile application.

Task

With the network development and the geography presence expansion, new services and bonuses appeared for cinema visitors. As a result, there was a need for more targeted, segmented and personalized communication to provide really interesting and relevant offers.

Solution

Customer data collection

To send relevant messages to cinema chain customers, you need to know at least which city they live in and which cinema they prefer.

Multiplex collects data in four ways.

1. When first entering the mobile app.

Users should choose which city and cinema they are interested in.

2. When first visiting the site.

The browser determines the user's location and offers to select the nearest cinema. After authorization, the selected cinema is saved in the site settings and contact card.

3. At the time of movie premier subscription.

The system fixes the city or the cinema that the user is interested in.

4. After the successful ticket purchasing on the website or in the app.

Multiplex uses information about the city of residence / favorite cinema in automated and promo campaigns in four channels:

• Mobile pushes;
• Emails;
• Viber;
• SMS.

Email is used primarily for promotion, while other channels participate in automation: post-sale chains and service messages.

Automated communication

Knowing to which cinema and on what date the customer purchased a ticket, you can easily strengthen post-sales communication. And inform about:

• the upcoming party in the new cinema;

• a new type of chairs in the cinema hall;

You can also automate the sending of service messages about the upcoming moving-picture show:

• notify about the closure of the main entrance to the mall;

• inform about the features in the mall working conditions;

• warn about the need to have personal 3D glasses for the moving-picture show.

How automation works

Yespo receives an event with specific data about the purchase and the customer after each successful transaction: date and time of the show, city and cinema, film format, and the type of seats.

The event runs a workflow with a condition block that determines whether or not to run a service message for this contact.

For example, the chain with a warning about personal 3D glasses is implemented like this:

The condition block determines whether the FilmFormat variable matches the 3D pattern. In case of a match, a message chain starts for the buyer.

Also, if you know what cinema a person prefers, you can easily find out how to improve it. Just add a message to the workflow inviting customer to take the survey.

Promo campaigns

Promo campaigns are an important part of communication with customers. Multiplex uses segmentation by location when sending promo with weekly digests of top films, premiere announcements, special events, and other interesting offers.

Digest promos are assembled like puzzles to consider all the nuances of the cinema: each city has its own content. Somewhere ticket sales start earlier, somewhere there are no promotions, etc. In addition, some services are available only in selected cities: football and theater broadcasts, concerts and movies in the original languages.

On days when the repertoire is as diverse as possible, you have to make up 10-12 email versions for one campaign. Yes, a marketer spends more time on the such layout than usual. But such customer segmentation has a positive effect on several indicators:

• CTR increases;
• Subscribers’ loyalty grows due to personalized content.

Let's describe geo segmentation in the example of one Multiplex promo campaign.

It was necessary to announce the start of sales for hot premieres in the digest:

• four premieres were announced for Dnipro at once;
• three - for Kyiv;
• for other cities - only two premiere movies.

The difference in the number of city premieres arose because IMAX ticket sales start earlier than others, and there are such halls only in Dnipro and Kyiv.

Marketers made up three email versions for the respective segments.

Let's evaluate the effectiveness of three email versions using a click map and a CTR indicator.

Click maps looked like this:

As expected, the additional blocks caught users' attention and encouraged them to click and follow the links. Interestingly, the percentage of clicks was directly proportional to the number of announcements in the email: the more premieres, the more clicks.

The overall CTOR campaign indicators confirm this too. In an email with four announcements, this figure is 4% higher than in an email with two.

Customer segmentation also has positive sales results: emails with more offers generated 51.3% more sales with very little different traffic.

How customer segmentation works

When the customer buys a ticket, the corresponding event enters the system. The event contains, among others, the following parameters:

• CinemaId – unique identifier consisting of 10 digits,
• CinemaName — the name of the cinema.

The system defines cinema using the Condition block → Variable matches regular expression task name. Since the name check can give errors due to the sensitivity to spaces, register and additional characters, the system checks the identifier, not the name.

The Add to segment block adds contacts to the groups with certain cinemas customers after checking.

If a customer has bought tickets to several different cinemas for some time, they will receive a promotional digest with offers for the cinema they visited last.

Results

Using Multiplex as an example, we have shown how easy and effective it is to use contact data for segmented communication. Once you set up transferring events and create automatic message chains, you can take your customer service to a new level.

With segmented service messages, you can:

• take care of customers (closed entrance to the mall);
• minimize negative (warning about 3D glasses);
• receive feedback (an offer to take a survey about a new service).

Campaign KPIs speak volumes about the effectiveness of segmentation. Dedicated audiences receive more accurate movie and promotional offers and respond better to promo emails.

CTOR shows a 4% difference between general and segmented emails. More relevant content in emails generates 51.3% more sales with slightly different traffic.

Take this practice into your arsenal and use customer segmentation in your business communications.