Since the beginning of COVID-19, a significant change in consumer behavior took place worldwide which forced brands to reassess their marketing strategies and business models. Thrust into a state of isolation, we all had to adapt to a new reality, highly dependent on digital transformation and our local communities. While this global lockdown brought a lot of uncertainty to many businesses, some marketers recognized it as an opportunity to pivot and provide additional value to their users.

We’d like to give a shout-out to a few brands that have successfully reinvented their customer engagement strategies and aimed for long-term customer loyalty.

Health and Fitness

First, we take a look at Meditopia, a leading mental coach that helps users reduce stress, sleep well, love, and find peace in today’s hectic environment.

Offering more than 1K deep-dive meditations, Meditopia recently launched a new wellbeing-focused,  multi-channel campaign dedicated primarily to compassion. This simple act of care for its users encouraged over 96K people to meditate within a day after receiving the communication. Engaging in habits such as meditation has proven to be essential for more and more people, especially in times of COVID-19.

 

 

Travel

Travel is by far one of the most impacted industries by COVID-19. It is, however, inspiring to see examples of companies that managed to stay close to their users, answer their needs, and successfully transform their business strategies in a short period of time.

For instance, Virtuo, the car rental service dedicated to providing an unparalleled on-demand car experience designed for longer trips, launched a communication campaign focused on the users’ post lock down travel plans and preferences. Sharing results of its survey alongside mobility trends within its community helped Virtuo to not only engage better with its users but to also gain valuable insights and personalization opportunities for future retention.

 

 

 

Transportation

The biggest surprise comes from Beat, the fastest-growing ride-hailing app in Latin America. Beat quickly adapted its product to the dynamic local needs and introduced two new services; Beat Envío, a courier service for transferring goods, and Beat Mission, a service available throughout the State of Emergency to facilitate those in need to commute. Both services were launched in response to COVID-19 proving the company’s commitment to keeping its communities connected and safe while providing economic opportunities to its drivers.

Photo & Video

Among the many economic and humanitarian challenges that COVID-19 has brought on, loneliness and mental health are two of the main ones that we have all had to deal with. Happily, many of our favorite brands addressed this issue by undertaking personalized campaigns and giving back to their communities.

TouchNote, for example, the creative platform for personal communication that allows users to send custom-made, real cards straight from their phones, gave free cards to its users in order to stay connected and share some joy with family and friends. Having sent out 23K+ free cards, TouchNote showed how much it values its users and built an even stronger long-term relationship with them.

 

 

Food

When it comes to food, we cannot miss Too Good To Go, the world’s largest B2C marketplace for surplus food. The app enables people to purchase unsold food from restaurants, cafés, shops, and wholesalers to prevent it from going to waste.

Although COVID-19 brought some specific challenges to the food industry, it has been exciting to follow a value-driven brand like Too Good To Go and its campaigns engaging everyone into the mission of fighting global food waste.

A successful COVID-19 campaign provided Too Good To Go users with insightful tips on how to cook and organize their kitchens, as well as other lockdown-related habits.

 

 

Social

Last but not least, on the social front, we have been impressed by Zenly, the live map of your friends and family. As COVID-19 progressed, Zenly took measures to help protect its community of millions of users around the world.

To promote social distancing, Zenly developed a feature to incentivize people to stay home. The Stay at Home Challenge let you know how long you and your friends stayed at home and showed a leaderboard rank between friends. This feature also provided advice from the World Health Organization that was shareable to other social platforms.

Additionally, Zenly created a map lens to give users insight into the spread of the virus and suspended their popular Bump feature in an effort to promote social distancing as recommended by global health organizations.

Leanplum supports the creative strategies that our customers and other leading brands are deploying to keep their businesses and customers strong during COVID-19. We are committed to continuing to bring you valuable multichannel marketing insights and welcome your ideas and comments at press@leanplum.com.

Check out our article on customer engagement platforms for more ideas.