Audiobooks are on the rise—global listeners now number over half a billion, up 25% from last year. Storytel, one of the largest subscription streaming services for audiobooks and ebooks worldwide with over 500,000 titles, hopes to make the world a more empathetic and creative place by ensuring these stories are accessible to anyone. With the goal of creating local campaigns with global guidelines and adapting their communications to fit the local market, Storytel turned to Braze to support their growth goals.

Storytel Expands Communications With Braze

Storytel was beginning to feel the growing pains from their success. Already in 24 different markets with plans to move into 20 more markets within the next three years, they wanted to evolve their current marketing strategy that could empower their different teams across the world.

Although they had an already successful email program, Storytel could not automate localized messages, which was a high priority. For example, there’s a huge difference in knowledge of what an audiobook is in Arab versus Nordic markets. To better resonate with their users, Storytel set out to create local campaigns with global guidelines, and then adapt the communications to fit the local market needs.

Switching to Braze bridged the tech gap both in personalization at scale and collaboration between teams. Now, the CRM organization—which is spread across the globe with at least one member in each market—can create global strategies and guidelines with a local touch. They also have access to relevant data, which is added into Braze in real time.

As a part of their new strategy, Storytell deploys a cross-channel campaign with in-app messages, email, and push notifications to announce new app releases. The campaign also supports an enthusiast program that allows users to try new features ahead of their official release on the app. By including the user in the development of the app, Storytel is able to optimize new features and deliver more value to their users.

To further communicate with their users on a personal level, Storytel began using Braze Content Cards, a persistent and flexible in-app messaging channel. Content Cards allowed Storytel to tell individual users when books they’d be interested in were available as well as share updates relevant to their interests. From onboarding messages to book tips, Content Cards were a big step towards Storytel personalizing their in-app experience. Storytel used Liquid personalization to create an individually customized experience for each user.

Additionally, Storytel used Canvas, the Braze customer journey builder, to create personalized, multi-step experiences for customers. To create the ideal journey, Storytel segmented their app users into categories based on their preferences and where in the customer lifecycle they were. They further personalized these communications with the user’s location. In order to measure success, Storytel identified specific conversion events and set up control groups against each new communication they implemented.

Results: Storytel Achieved a Massive Increase in Subscribers

With these new strategies Storytel saw around a 20-30% view rate on Content Cards, which steadily increased every month as users became familiar with the feature. Furthermore, because Storytel was strict with a steady escalation of sends, they reached an all-time high with open rates on emails. These strategies provided Storytel with a big win of over 1.5 million subscribers.

"I was impressed by how easy it was to set up communications in Braze, and how small changes can have a significant impact on how we engage customers,” said Diana Boskoska, Global CRM Project Manager at Storytel. “By adding new channels, we're able to reach all our customers on the channels they prefer."

Final Thoughts

By leveraging Braze Canvas and introducing Content Cards to their customer messaging mex, Storytel was able to deliver personalized communications at scale to their customers across the globe. By communicating with users as individuals, they improved their email marketing while seeing an increase in subscribers overall.

To learn more about how a smart cross-channel strategy can boost the impact of your marketing program, check out the Braze Cross-Channel Guide.