Our Customer Success Managers recommend optimizing Journeys this month to prove your brand’s value and secure long-term loyalty.

April may start with a holiday for fools, but our Customer Success Managers (CSMs) are always sharing foolproof SMS and email marketing strategies and optimizations with their customers. We grabbed some time with Chris Nguyen, Lead CSM, New Verticals, and Laura Patrasso, Lead CSM, Strategic, to understand what’s top of mind for marketers as we head into April.

In this blog, we’ll share actionable advice for creating campaigns and triggered journeys that lead to lifelong loyalty, how to use storytelling effectively to drive conversions, and help you create clickable SMS and email sends for the upcoming April holidays, like April Fools’ Day, Easter, and Earth Day.

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April marketing benchmarks and action items

We ran the numbers to see how April has changed year-over-year in terms of sends and found that across our bigger accounts, there was a 20.3% increase in total sends comparing April 2024 to April 2023. We saw a bigger increase (29.3%) in Journey sends compared to campaign sends (19.7%), meaning marketers were focused on targeted, behavioral-based sends last April. This increase in sends led to an increase in revenue to the tune of 49.6%. 

We also wanted to look at our data to create these benchmarks for enterprise retail, food and beverage, and entertainment and media industries for their April SMS campaign sends. 

Now that you know what benchmarks you want to hit, how do you get those results? 

At a high level, our CSMs recommend focusing on optimizing your journeys by:

• Testing or creating subscriber-specific branches
• Personalizing and providing a VIP experience for SMS subscribers
• Using your brand’s story to engage and convert
• Updating and testing new messages in your journeys

When asked what marketers can do now in the spring to generate momentum and sales through the slower summer months, Patrasso told us, “With a lull in seasons, now is a great time to optimize your journeys. I recommend testing turning Smart Sending on or off for high-intent triggers like cart and checkout abandonment journeys. One of my clients turned it off for their cart abandonment journey and saw a 496% increase in conversions and a 411% increase in revenue.”

This is also a good time to audit your entry frequency, the minimum amount of time that must pass before subscribers can enter the journey again. Is there an opportunity to adjust to make sure that your messages are delivered more frequently to your high-intent subscribers via abandonment, back-in-stock, low inventory, and price drop triggers? 
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- Laura Patrasso, Lead CSM, Strategic at Attentive

Nguyen was quick to agree about using this month to reconfigure journeys. He recommends creating a branch in high-purchase intent journeys, like checkout and cart abandonment, and tailor messaging to subscribers who have never made a purchase before as it’s crucial to nurture that relationship to drive first-time purchases.

He also called out post-purchase journeys. By improving these sends, marketers can then use the summer to drive repeat orders. Many of his customers are in the Food and Beverage (F&B) space, and his examples included coffee brands pushing iced coffee products in the summer or restaurants highlighting lighter, summery, and fresh menu items to get customers to return later. 

He walked us through exactly how to capitalize on this journey. Set up a post-purchase journey and create a branch for “subscribers who have made exactly 1 purchase.” Welcome the customer and thank them for their first order, share your brand’s story to build trust, and tease upcoming summer promotions or initiatives to give these customers a reason to come back.

Tailor a campaign to first-time purchases throughout the spring so they’re aware of what’s coming down the line for the upcoming summer months.
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- Chris Nguyen, Lead CSM, New Verticals at Attentive

Lastly, Patrasso recommended some final spring cleaning on your messages. Do you have a journey that hasn’t been updated since 2024? Not on Patrasso’s watch. She said, “It’s time to refresh and test different variations of message copy to continue driving results and give that sense of newness to your subscribers.”

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To drive loyalty, you have to get personal and prove value

Earning customer loyalty has become more of a hot topic on customer calls as consumers become more price-conscious with talks of tariffs or changes in the economy. Patrasso and Nguyen shared some insight on what you can do to earn and keep customer loyalty. 

Nguyen highlighted the importance of multi-channel orchestration when nurturing new customer-brand relationships.

He shared how one of his clients creates specific journeys for customers who just made their first orders. FITAID includes a healthy balance of positioning their brand values and welcoming the new customer to the family, asking to be friends by encouraging the customers to follow on social and plainly stating what’s in it for them (the fitness tips, gym humor, and community built around fitness), and following up with an exclusive and well-timed offer to restock.

Get personal and be relevant if you want to win the loyalty of your customers. Recommend similar products or products that pair well with what they’ve purchased in the past. In the F&B space, I recommend surfacing menu items that tie back to past orders and preferences. For example, share fresh, light options to your subscribers who tend to order salads for lunch.
 
- Chris Nguyen, Lead CSM, New Verticals at Attentive

Nguyen added that marketers can take the guesswork out of timing these relevant sends by using AI Pro to target subscribers when they typically browse. Let AI take care of both your lunch crew and dinner crowd by sending them timely, relevant offers. 

Patrasso wanted to dive deeper into the timing aspect and how you can use it to your advantage to earn customer loyalty. She said providing exclusive and early access to new products or sales to your SMS subscribers (before sharing on any other channel) incentivizes customers to stick around for the long-haul. 

Her advice? “The more often you put this strategy into practice, the more your SMS subscribers will be conditioned to hearing about these exclusive updates on this channel. Be sure to call it out in the message copy so they know the value they’re receiving.”

Copy-and-paste messaging: ONLY FOR OUR TEXT SUBSCRIBERS: Preview & shop our newest collection before anyone else {LINK}

Nguyen shared that more F&B brands are playing around with value messaging by bundling instead of discounting. Instead of a 10% off offer, they’ll run a “buy two, get one free” deal or “get A, B, and C for just $20.” Or, for some brands, it could be sharing what value consumers are missing out on. Nguyen shared an example of one of his QSR clients who includes a consistent push to sign up for rewards by reminding them of what they could have received if they were a part of the loyalty program. 

What about brands that don’t typically discount or run promotions? Growth in the luxury industry has slowed, projected at 1-3% annual growth globally. Luxury brands need to focus on creating a differentiated value proposition. This messaging should be included in a welcome series as shoppers and subscribers are getting acquainted with your brand. 

Get social with your messaging by leveraging reviews or working with influencers to instill trust in your brand and its quality. Another approach is through social commerce to make luxury products accessible to shoppers on the platforms they regularly use. 

You want to keep your brand top of mind, but you don’t want to overwhelm your subscribers. How do you balance messaging frequency with driving high customer lifetime value? Patrasso shared her favorite metric to measure when figuring out the right campaign cadence, while noting it can vary by industry.

My general rule of thumb to measure loyalty is to evaluate Revenue per Send trends over time. As long as your Rev/Send remains favorable, continue your campaign cadence. If you see Rev/Send decline over time, add smaller, segmented sends to an audience that more closely matches the content of the message.
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- Laura Patrasso, Lead CSM, Strategic at Attentive

Patrasso added that you’ll want to share your campaign calendar with your CSM. It’ll help CSMs provide better recommendations around segmentation strategies.

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Make your customers a part of your brand’s story

Last month, we highlighted brands marketing their values and how that engages shoppers, specifically Gen Z shoppers. But, how are these brands sharing their values? The best way is through storytelling.

We love stories and remember them better than facts or data. Bet you could explain the story of a movie you liked but haven’t seen in years but wouldn’t be able to tell us the percentage we shared earlier in this post about revenue growth comparing April 2024 to last year. It was almost 50% by the way. 

Stories have the power to engage, inspire, and resonate on a personal level, making your brand’s message more memorable and impactful. By weaving narratives that reflect the values, challenges, and aspirations of your target audience, you can build a stronger bond with your customers—and become more relatable and trustworthy.

Types of storytelling:

• The Hero’s Journey: The hero (your customer) wants to achieve a goal. The Hero’s Journey is the blueprint for many case studies where they present the challenge the customer was facing and how a product or service helped solve their problem. This story can also be brought to life through user-generated content on social media or reviews. It makes your customers the main character. 
• A peek behind the curtain: A peek behind the curtain story brings your mission, vision, and values to life. It’s about the people behind your brand, brand partners, or the charities or organizations your brand supports. Maker Wine does this well with their Meet the Maker series as seen above. ‍
• A launch story: This storytelling tactic builds hype for a new product or service and paints a narrative around how and why this product came to be–and why your customers should care.

Email is definitely better for storytelling, at least from the fact that you have more real estate to play with. When brands use SMS and email in one platform, they can do storytelling through email but use SMS to drive conversions based on email activity. 
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- Chris Nguyen, Lead CSM, New Verticals at Attentive

Where you can find your stories:

• User-generated content or customer experiences 
• Your brand’s values, purpose, and history 
• Brand partnerships (like Maker Wine)
• Reviews and testimonials
• Employees’ experiences and stories

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Spring flings: Weddings and prom season are key moments for retailers

Both wedding bells and school bells are ringing this spring as consumers prep for wedding and prom seasons. These events are significant milestones that often come with substantial spending. 

Wedding season, typically peaking in the spring and summer, is a time when couples and their families are actively looking for a wide range of products and services, from wedding dresses and suits to venues, catering, and photography. Similarly, prom season, which usually occurs in the spring, sees high demand for formal wear, accessories, and beauty services. By tailoring campaigns to these specific occasions, you can capture the attention of an audience that has a high intent to purchase. 

Patrasso told us that marketers should use wedding or prom-themed messages as an opportunity to grab zero-party data. She mentioned how powerful conversational campaigns are for these marketing moments (like the Brilliant Earth example). Depending on how subscribers reply, you’re capturing that zero-party data and you’re providing a more personalized experience by adjusting the content for that specific subscriber. 

Tailor the tone of your message to your audience. Marketing to a student vs. a parent should look and sound different. Consider using emojis, slang, and acronyms for the younger generation. Use a more consultative tone and approach with parents, such as when to book appointments, 2025 trends, and collections based on varying budgets.
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- Laura Patrasso, Lead CSM, Strategic at Attentive

Not only do you want to tailor the tone, you want to tailor the timing of these messages. This is where AI can step in and segment your customers based on individual subscriber behaviors and past campaign success. Parents may be more likely to scroll and shop when their kids are asleep and teens shopping for prom might do so right before or after school. AI can learn these patterns and automatically schedule your messages to arrive when each person is most likely to be actively shopping and ready to buy.

Patrasso said April is a great time to surprise and delight your subscribers, and a great way to do that is to ensure no two subscribers receive the same message. With AI Journeys, each message is created in real time based on subscriber interactions, preferences, and purchase and browsing history. AI Journeys takes tailoring messaging to the next level, and then automates it. 

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April marketing holidays and examples

Lastly, we want to share some upcoming holidays that you can anchor your marketing campaigns around. And, don’t forget to update your sign-up units to speak to these holidays or spring promotions. 

Another consideration for your sign-up units is optimizing the load time. And with the changes you make to improve load time, you’ll also make your sign-up units easier to read and act on. Here are some quick things you can do to improve your sign-up units’ load time:

• Remove background images
• Replace custom fonts with Google web fonts
• Have clear contrast colors (dark font on light background)
• Enlarge subject lines and discount values
• Add a pre-engagement step
• Remove ‘no’ CTAs and rely only on the ‘X’

Now let’s move on to the holidays that you should create sign-up units and campaigns around.

Quick reference of April marketing holidays:

Women’s History Month

Month-long: National Pet Month

April 1: April Fools’ Day

April 1: Easter Sales (AU)

April 7: World Health Day

April 10: Siblings Day

April 14: National Gardening Day

April 15: Tax Day

April 15: World Art Day

April 20: Easter

April 21: National Tea Day (UK)

April 22: Earth Day

April 25: Anzac Day (AU)

April 26: Arbor Day

Let’s dive into some of the bigger marketing holidays in April and show some examples.

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April Fools’ Day

We’re not joking when we say April Fools’ Day campaigns pay off. Comparing campaigns containing relevant keywords from March 31, 2024 to April 2, 2024, our internal data shows an average increase in revenue per send of $.31 for April Fools’ Day campaigns. 

“Creativity takes the cake for April Fools’ Day marketing messages! This holiday is fun, punchy, and quirky. Don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd of messages flooding your customers’ inboxes by leaning into your team’s creativity,” said Patrasso. She shared a favorite example of a client texting subscribers with a riddle and the one-word answer was the offer code. Customers could redeem an exclusive discount by answering the riddle. 

Messaging ideas for ‌April Fools’ Day SMS campaigns:

• April Fools’ Day is here! Don’t be foolish and miss your chance to save 20%. No joke, use promo code FOOLS to snag this deal at checkout {LINK}
• Our new collection is no joke and you can save 25% off today. Shop now with code APRIL25 {LINK}
• We’re not fooling around! You can still save 30% sitewide. Shop now! Code: APRILFOOLS {LINK}
• You’d be a fool to miss today’s deal! We’re offering two free add-ons to all orders $100+. SHOP NOW {LINK}
• Don’t be fooled! This sale is the real deal. No code required to save up to 60% off your favorites at {LINK}
• Comfort is no joke and we aren’t fooling around. Today only, enjoy 20% OFF sitewide with code: NOJOKES. Shop now {LINK}
• Make your beauty routine foolproof with our April Fools’ Day Sale! Get 20% off sitewide today only. Use code FOOLS at checkout {LINK}

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Easter

Easter marketing campaigns tap into the festive spirit and increased consumer spending that often accompanies the holiday, even if not all consumers celebrate it. Easter is a time when many people are looking to indulge in treats, gifts, and family activities, making it a prime opportunity to promote products that align with these themes. By crafting campaigns that are inclusive and focus on universal values such as family, togetherness, and celebration, you can appeal to a broader audience.

If your audience is quite broad or even global, your strategy around this holiday might look a bit different. Highlight seasonal products, like spring-inspired items or family-oriented gifts, and offer limited-time deals in markets where this is common, such as the UK, to create a sense of urgency. For effective Easter SMS and email marketing, use a warm, engaging tone that resonates with the season and tailor messaging to different regions. Create clever, attention-grabbing Easter email subject lines to spark interest and stand out and drive engagement and sales across a global audience.

Messaging ideas for an Easter marketing campaign:

• A little bunny told us that Easter is around the corner. Celebrate Easter with our egg-citing sale! Order by {DATE} for guaranteed delivery for Easter. 🐰 Hop to it! {LINK}
• Easter’s almost here! Make sure your baskets are bursting with color with our new spring collection of {PRODUCT}. Save 25% with code EASTER > {LINK}
• Our Easter Egg Hunt starts NOW! Find the eggs on the site for exclusive savings of up to $60 off! {LINK}
• Hop into savings this Easter! Use code EASTER to unlock 15% off plus a complimentary gift! Shop now: {LINK}
• The hunt is on! We added some new styles to our Easter sale. Enjoy egg-cellent savings and fill your Easter basket by shopping at {LINK}
• Explore our curated collection of spring florals for sun-drenched brunches, warm April birthdays, and Easter weekend celebrations. {LINK}
• Hop into the Easter spirit with our adorable Easter Bunny cupcakes! These treats are sure to make your holiday egg-stra special. Get the recipe: {LINK}
• Easter is almost here! 🐣 Hop by your local store or shop Same Day Delivery online to fill up your basket {LINK}
• 🐰 The Easter bunny has come early! Treat yourself to 20% off sitewide. Use code EASTER20. Sale ends tomorrow
• EARLY ACCESS: Hoppy Easter, VIP! The Easter bunny dropped off an early gift for you. Enjoy early access to our Easter sale and save! Use code BUNNY for an additional 10% off at {LINK}

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Earth Day

Over the last few years, there’s been a growing consumer interest in sustainability and environmental responsibility. Earth Day, celebrated on April 22, is an ideal opportunity to showcase your brand's commitment to eco-friendly practices and products. Promoting holiday-related deals around Earth Day, such as discounts on eco-friendly products or special offers for recycling programs, can further engage customers and earn their loyalty. In the week leading up to and through Earth Day, we saw an increase of 19% in total sends for bigger accounts with a 57% increase in revenue. 

“Be very authentic about Earth Day campaigns,” said Nguyen when asked how marketers can tap into the power of the holiday. “Your brand’s mission and story should genuinely align with your Earth Day sends. This isn’t a time to be aggressive with offers. It is a time to help subscribers understand how their purchases goes towards an Earth Day-related mission, grass-roots effort, or charity.”

Messaging ideas for Earth Day SMS marketing campaigns:

• Celebrate Earth Day with our sustainable line of {PRODUCT}. Explore the eco-friendly collection and save 20% with code EARTH20 today {LINK}
• FLASH SALE: Today only, save 22% on all refillable products when you use code EARTHDAY at checkout. Shop Now: {LINK}
• Did you know our biodegradable {PRODUCT} keeps tens of thousands of plastic bottles out of landfills and oceans each month? Let’s celebrate by keeping 20% in your wallet. Shop the Earth Day Flash Sale: {LINK}
• Happy Earth Day! Meet our newest upcycled {PRODUCT} that’s perfect for warmer weather. Check it out and then check out as we only have a limited supply {LINK}
• Go green this Earth Day with our collection of earth-tone outfits and sustainable fashion at {LINK}
• VIPs: Today is your last chance to save 60% on our eco collection + we’re donating X% of every purchase to a charity of your choice in honor of Earth Day. Shop now: {LINK}
• Make Earth Day an everyday thing! Grow year-round with our fan-favorite garden kits or save 30% on seed pod kits to get started {LINK}
• HOURS LEFT: Stay eco-conscious past Earth Day with our new 100% plant-based {PRODUCT}. Shop now: {LINK}
• We don’t want to leaf you hanging! Take 40% off sitewide during our Earth Day Sale. Shop before midnight >> {LINK}

Check out our marketing campaign calendar to find key dates for campaigns, orchestration tips across your channels, and SMS templates you can copy and paste.