Vietnam boasts a vibrant start-up ecosystem and is among the top three most attractive investment destinations in Southeast Asia. Fonos, a Vietnamese audio content start-up, is a prominent player in this landscape. Since its inception in 2020, Fonos has experienced accelerated growth, offering subscription services for 1,500 pieces of original content, 200+ podcast channels, and 1,200+ copyrighted audiobooks. It is now the number one audiobook app on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Vietnam.
Challenges Faced by Fonos
Fonos faced significant challenges in engaging its busy user base and maximizing customer retention. The diverse needs of Vietnamese users, ranging from personal and spiritual growth to catching up on the news and reading to their children, meant high expectations from their audio apps. Despite recognizing the app’s potential to meet these needs, Nguyen Hong Nhung, Head of Growth Marketing at Fonos, and her team observed that users could stay longer and return more often. They needed a solution to help tailor personalized retention strategies and create new user behaviors, making Fonos the go-to learning and content companion for customers around the clock.
Solution Offered by CleverTap
Fonos chose CleverTap, an all-in-one engagement platform, to address these challenges. CleverTap’s real-time Recency, Frequency, and Monetary (RFM) segmentation underpinned omnichannel lifecycle marketing and automated, personalized communication.
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“Fonos, right from its early days, understood the importance of focusing on User lifetime value as a way to achieve its goal of being a ‘daily companion’ to its users. CleverTap serves as a robust, unified engagement platform, empowering us to engage users contextually in real time and use automation for enhanced efficiency,” said Nguyen Hong Nhung, Head of Growth Marketing at Fonos.
A Foundation for Tailored, End-to-End Lifecycle Engagement
With CleverTap as the cornerstone, Nhung and her team built a data-driven strategy to maximize customer lifetime value (CLTV). This was achieved in two ways: driving subscription sales throughout the customer lifecycle (install, trial, renewal) and simultaneously boosting customer retention.
- User Segmentation: Using CleverTap’s live unified customer views, updated with real-time user interaction data, Fonos segmented users based on user type (Free/Subscribed/Churn) and category of product (Audiobook/Ebook/Podcast). CleverTap’s RFM behavioral segmentation algorithm was then applied to create segments of users based on their activity recency, frequency, and transaction value.
- Personalized Engagement: From the moment customers download the Fonos app, personalized content suggestions were made in real-time. Conversion-focused journeys auto-triggered campaigns to engage inactive users post-sign-up with welcome onboard emails. Tailored journeys aimed to win back users about to cancel their subscriptions and reminded those with abundant credits to use them before they expired.
- Optimized Communication: RFM segmentation ensured that offers and customized messaging reached the right user on the right channel, consistently improving the experience. CleverTap also enabled the team to identify the ‘golden time’ of the day to engage users, further boosting effectiveness. Deeper insights from CleverTap helped streamline efforts, such as not focusing on users who used the app for less than 10 minutes a day in the first week.
Impact of CleverTap Solutions
The integrated execution of tailored journeys and lifecycle messaging from the onboarding stage led to significant gains for Fonos:
- Improved Customer Engagement: Fonos saw a substantial conversion uplift between 5%-10% and an appreciable revenue boost of 10% for user groups where CleverTap segmentation and tools were applied.
- Enhanced Retention: By leveraging RFM segmentation, Fonos engaged loyal customers and persuaded them to make referrals. High-value, at-risk customers were convinced to stay through customized loyalty programs, while loyal customers were incentivized to provide referrals.
- Remarkable Growth Metrics: Fonos’s initiatives had a remarkable impact on user engagement. The email open rate reached 20%, significantly higher than the industry benchmark, and the campaigns drove an in-app message open rate of 10%. The month-on-month MAU growth rate saw a 25% increase, and MAU increased 6x over six months.
Sidharth Pisharoti, Chief Revenue Officer at CleverTap, said: “In today’s fast-paced digital world, audio formats have surged in popularity, providing a convenient and immersive experience for users. This trend is particularly pronounced in Vietnam, which boasts the highest yearly podcast listenership in Southeast Asia, with about 70% of the internet population tuning in. Our partnership with Fonos is particularly exciting given the company’s accelerated growth since its inception and the booming audio space. By leveraging our advanced segmentation and real-time analytics, Fonos has been delivering tailored experiences that meet the unique needs of its diverse audience, fostering greater loyalty and driving sustainable growth. WithCleverTap, Fonos witnessed a five-fold increase in the absolute number of monthly active users over six months. We look forward to continuing this journey together, empowering Fonos to become the daily companion for millions of users.”
