Introducing 5 new Bonfire Community Groups
At the heart of customer engagement lies a fundamental truth: community matters. This principle drives brand loyalty and fosters shared experiences, and it’s no different for Braze! We are passionate about creating opportunities for you to connect, learn, and grow. In that spirit, we are excited to introduce Bonfire Community Groups—our first open groups designed to enhance your experience. Led by Braze team members, these new groups will focus on specific industries and roles, providing a dedicated space for members to connect and share insights. Similar to our Discussions, these groups will allow you to engage with fellow customer engagement professionals, discuss challenges, share ideas, and receive valuable feedback. Ready to learn more? Here are our new Bonfire Community Groups! Retail and eCommerce Join this group of Retail and eCommerce enthusiasts dedicated to enhancing customer engagement through innovative strategies, shared insights, and collaborative networking. Whether you’re a major brand or a small Shopify store, you’ll find others who share your passion for the Retail and eCommerce space. Financial Services Connect with Braze customers from across the financial services sector to share industry insights and discuss customer engagement strategies that foster trustworthy experiences. In a competitive landscape, it’s essential for brands to connect effectively with consumers on their individual journeys. This group is perfect for anyone in FinServ looking to learn from peers and find solidarity in shared challenges (and solutions!). Creative Collective This group is a space for innovators to explore and share creative strategies that push the boundaries of customer engagement. For too long, there’s been a misconception that creativity and performance are at odds. Research from WARC and Cannes Lions shows that the best brands drive customer acquisition, engagement, loyalty, and retention by leveraging award-winning, data-driven creative campaigns. Join this group to connect with others who are committed to marrying creativity with technology and setting new standards for innovation. Small but Mighty We’re bending the rules a bit with this one: Small but Mighty has technically existed since Bonfire’s inception. The big change? Now, anyone can join this group, which was previously private. By opening access, we hope even more small teams can leverage the collective power of the Bonfire Community and elevate their customer engagement strategies. Bonfire Expert Council While this group operates on a “request-to-join” basis, it plays a crucial role in shaping the future of Braze Bonfire! Apply to become a founding member and be instrumental in helping the community team build our roadmap, introduce new programs and features, and enhance the overall community experience. As a trusted member of the Bonfire Expert Council, you’ll also help answer questions, provide solutions, and share your expertise with the rest of the community. We envision these groups as just the beginning of many more to come. Visit the Community Groups page to find the group (or groups!) you’d like to join, and kick things off by posting a hello or sharing your thoughts on what you’d like to see in the future, or even a current challengeCommunity Groups you’re facing, or a question you have. If you’re interested in leading a Bonfire Community Group of your own, we want to hear from you! Reach out to us at community@braze.com , or mention one of our community managers in a reply on this post— MaggieBrennan, EmilyCalderon, and I are always here to help!Welcome to Braze Bonfire
Whether you’ve been a part of Bonfire since launch in 2019 or you’re just joining us, we’re so glad you’re here. Braze Bonfire is now a one-stop shop of customer engagement resources - strategies, best practices, feedback, and professional opportunities. Below are a few resources to check out to help you better navigate the Braze Bonfire community. Getting Started 1. Introduce Yourself - We want to get to know you. Head over to the Connection Lounge and introduce yourself. Complete the below and help us get to know you better. Learn more about how you can intro yourself from our Welcome to the Connection Lounge post. 2. Start a discussion or ask a question in The Forum. The Forum is the place to ask and answer all of those questions and discussions about customer engagement strategy, executing campaigns in Braze, and technical solutions for using Braze. 3. Share a campaign you’ve worked on or been inspired by in Campaigns That Made You Look. We know you build incredible customer engagement campaigns on the regular. Share something you’ve built in Braze with the community in Campaigns That Made You Look. Whether it’s a screenshot of a push notification you got, an email campaign you built, a creative SMS your team worked on, you name it - we want to see it. Friendly reminder that you should never share sensitive or confidential information. When in doubt, err on the side of caution. 4. Looking to hire talent or to expand your team - let us know about it in The Job Board. Great talent is critical to executing great customer engagement strategies. If you have an opening on your team or simply want to search open opportunities, post about it in the Job Board. You’ll be prompted to provide a location, description, and salary range for the job you’re posting about. None of those are required but are suggested as a way to help both those seeking new opportunities as well as those filling positions to quickly understand where and what the opportunity is. Helpful documents to review as you get started: Community Guidelines Terms of Use Guide to Ranks FAQs Privacy Policy Why “bonfire,” you ask? To us, a bonfire is an invitation to gather together and share our stories. It serves as an informal yet intentional setting where we can learn, share, and grow together. The more people who contribute to a bonfire, the greater and the brighter it burns… so be sure to contribute and get involved! 🔥Welcome to the New and Improved Braze Bonfire!
Hey Bonfire friends! You may notice things look a little different around here. We took your feedback over the last year to heart and have been hard at work behind the scenes to make your experience even better. These updates will make navigating our community simpler, more engaging, and a whole lot more fun.Follow the neon lights to Forge 2024
Big news, Bonfirers: get ready to go all in on customer engagement. This September, Forge is back for 2024 in a dazzling new place: Las Vegas! With success stories from big, innovative brands, tricks of the trade from industry experts, and networking opportunities galore, you’re sure to hit the inspiration jackpot. Forge is also the place to get certified, trained, and expand how you can use Braze in your day-to-day work. Come for the business, but stay for the fun—it’s not called the city that never sleeps for nothin’. We’ll keep the party going with activations, celebrations, and a few well-deserved awards. Mark your calendar for September 23-25, 2024, and check back in for a Bonfire-exclusive chance to roll the dice and attend Forge on us!Congratulations to the 2023 Torchie Awards winners
Congratulations to the Forge 2023 Torchie Awards Winners and Runner Ups! The annual Braze Torchie Awards is a celebration of the leading brands and marketers who are building the future of customer engagement. This year we’re pleased to recognize an exceptional class of award winners who are finding innovative ways to forge connections and strengthen relationships—one message at a time. We awarded eight total awards this year, six customer awards - Rising Marketing Star of the Year, Bonfire Community Leader, Marketing Leader of the Year, Creative Excellence Award, Collaborative Team of the Year, Campaign of the Year and two partner awards - Technology Partner of the Year and Solutions Partner of the Year. Customer Award Winners Rising Marketing Star of the Year Winner: Samara Halperin, Lifecycle Marketing Associate for Talkspace (Congratulations SamaraHalperin!) Bonfire Community Leader Winner: Kristijan Arsov, Lifecycle Marketing Manager for Lifesum (Congratulations Kristijan!) Marketing Leader of the Year Winner: Christine Miller, Senior Director, Global CRM Operations for Warner Bros. Discovery Creative Excellence Award Winner: Peacock Collaborative Team of the Year Winner: Grubhub Campaign of the Year Winner: Canva Partner Award Winners Technology Partner of the Year Winner: Census Solutions Partner of the Year Winner: Ogilvy To learn more about the winners and runner ups, check out the Torchie Awards Winners announcement HERE.Meet Elle @ Braze: Our Employee Resource Group for Women at Braze
Elle is the Braze Employee Resource Group dedicated to empowering women across Braze and our wider community. It is our mission to empower women and their allies through a platform aimed at advancing personal and professional growth opportunities.
Insights from Our Recent “Favorite Marketing Channel” Survey
Why We Ran the Survey Understanding which channels resonate most with your audience is crucial. By surveying dashboard users, we aimed to uncover favorite consumer marketing channels. Survey Results: Top Channels 1. Email emerged as the clear favorite, with 38% of responders selecting it as their preferred channel. Notably: - The leading industries represented were Retail, Media, and Technology. 2. Push Notifications ranked second, with 29% of total responses: - Retail, Media, and Tech again topped the industry representation. 3. In-app messaging/in-browser messaging was the third favorite, with 19% of responses: - The leading industries were Media, Technology, and Financial Services Actionable Channel Insights for Customers Below are some recommendations to get the most out of your channel mix: Prioritize email marketing: As the clear favorite and the most perennial marketing channel, focus on enhancing your email marketing strategies. A few ways to ensure you’re always optimizing and personalizing your email campaigns: Segmentation: Go beyond basic demographic segmentation by tailoring your messages based on your users’ behaviors for campaigns that resonate. Dynamic content: Take personalization a step further with customized product recommendations, special offers based on what your customers have recently engaged with on your site or app, share location-based event recommendations or regional products, and use real-time updates to share timely promotions. Testing and Experimentation: Experiment with subject lines, layouts, imagery, etc, to optimize email performance with A/B testing. Test sending emails at different times to find the optimal timing for your audience, and test different email frequencies to find the sweet spot for your audience. Clear CTAs: Avoid overused CTAs like "Learn More" and stick to action-oriented, specific language in your CTAs. Monitor engagement metrics: Track your open rate, click-thru rates, and conversion rates and use insights from these metrics to refine your email strategy continuously. Leverage Push Notifications: Push notifications are a powerful way to reach your audience directly on their devices, delivering relevant messages that capture attention and prompt immediate action with real-time alerts on web, mobile, wearable devices, and more. Explore ways to integrate Push into your marketing mix and optimize. Use contextual messaging: Send push notifications based on user context, such as location or time of day. For example, if a user is near a store location, send a notification about a special offer available only at that location. Rich media notifications: Use rich media like images or videos in your push notifications to capture attention. Explore in-app message or in-browser message opportunities: In-app or in-browser messaging is an effective channel for engaging your users at critical, timely moments while they are in your app or on your website. Guided help: Use in-app messaging to reduce friction and enhance the user experience with messages to help users navigate your app or website and discover new features, content, products and more! Gamification: Use progress bars or achievement badges to encourage users to complete specific actions or engage more deeply with your platform. Feedback: Use in-app message surveys to create feedback loops, asking users for their preferences on features or content. Surveys provide valuable insights and data to support future improvements – like the survey that powered this post! Did you know: If your brand already has the BrazeSDK integrated into your app or website, you have access to in-app or in-browser messaging! Use SMS/MMS to connect with your customers: The personal nature of SMS/MMS fosters a sense of connection and urgency, enabling brands to connect with customers on a more personal level. Deliver time-sensitive information, promotions, and updates directly to your users' mobile devices to drive quick action. Rich media in MMS: Use MMS to send rich media, like images, videos, or GIFs, to capture attention and drive higher engagement rates. Feedback: Encourage two-way communication by allowing users to reply to your SMS messages to gather feedback, answer questions, or even conduct surveys, creating a more interactive experience. Don’t sleep on WhatsApp: WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messaging app in the world, with over 2 billion monthly active users and heavy usage in Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe. WhatsApp is integrated into the everyday lives of consumers, making it perfect for marketers looking to connect with customers in a way that feels seamless and authentic. Two-way messaging: WhatsApp's unique capability of two-way conversational messaging is an effective way to drive users back to your app, for example, to complete onboarding, update their account, or conduct promotional campaigns. Content Cards - Your channel for app or website banners: In a separate survey, we recently asked Content Cards customers their most frequent use case for Content Cards. The number one response: As an app or website banner. Content Cards also act as a notification center, a promotions feed, an onboarding center, and more! To maximize engagement, leading brands use cross-channel campaigns that integrate multiple channels, especially combining in-product and out-of-product channels to reach users wherever they are! Research and experiment to find the right channel mix for your brand. Conclusion By understanding the channel preferences of your audience, you can create more effective and engaging campaigns that resonate. Thank you for being part of the Braze community. We look forward to hearing how you implement these findings in your marketing efforts!Get to know Sage AI by Braze
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have created new opportunities for brands to be more inventive, work more efficiently, and drive stronger ROI. And taking advantage of these capabilities in thoughtful ways gives companies an edge in competitive, crowded industries. So how can you and your team unlock the power of AI? Start with Sage AI by Braze. Sage AI by Braze lowers the barriers to exceptional customer engagement by making creativity, personalization, and experimentation easily accessible to all marketers. Sage AI by Braze is built into your existing workflows in Braze, so you can enhance your customer engagement campaigns with AI in a matter of moments. For example, did you know you can use generative AI features in Braze to instantly create message copy and custom images for your campaigns? Imagine how much time you can save by letting AI take on the heavy lifting of routine tasks. Plus, you can run more experiments by generating multiple campaign variants and using AI-powered testing and optimization features to quickly find the best performing version of a campaign. Sage AI by Braze powers generative AI copywriting and image generation features; predictive features in the Predictive Suite; and campaign optimization features like the Intelligence Suite, Personalized Variant, and Winning Paths in Canvas. Sage AI by Braze will soon power AI Recommendations, AI Content QA, and A/B Test Prediction. Braze has pioneered and continues to shape the future of AI-powered marketing. Learn more about Sage AI by Braze here.Torchie Awards 2023: Submissions Now Open
We are excited to announce that nominations for Torchie Awards are now open. We have six customer awards that will be awarded at this year’s Forge 2023: Campaign of the Year: This award recognizes a brand that demonstrates results which drive real, meaningful business impact in terms of customer activation, engagement, monetization, or retention. Marketing Leader of the Year: This award recognizes an individual who is demonstrating exceptional leadership within their organization when it comes to supporting customer engagement. Collaborative Team of the Year: This award recognizes a team who breaks down silos within their organization and exhibits excellence in collaboration in support of their company’s success. Bonfire Community Leader: This award recognizes a customer who demonstrates a passion for the Bonfire community, whether by asking and answering questions or showcasing how they're using Braze as part of the customer engagement efforts. Rising Marketing Star: This award recognizes an early career marketer who is showing promise as their career accelerates. Creative Excellence Award: This award recognizes a brand that’s pushing the limits in terms of creativity and innovation when it comes to their customer engagement efforts. The winner of this award is selected by the Braze 427° Innovation Lab leadership team. Do you have a teammate who seems like the perfect candidate for one of these awards? Do you believe your brand launched the campaign of the year? Submit a nomination here.
