Don’t Rent Reach: The Value of Growing Your Owned Audience

Growing your customer base is a challenge that keeps even the most seasoned marketing leaders awake at night. Every budget dollar is scrutinized, and every campaign needs to drive concrete ROI. With acquisition costs up 222% over the last decade and 60% of Google searches now ending without a click, the greatest opportunity and challenge lies in turning anonymous browsers into subscribers. 

This is where the value of owned channels like email and SMS come in. Unlike third-party platforms, these direct communication lines allow you to build and nurture direct, long-term relationships with consumers, creating a loyal customer base that drives sustainable growth. Read on to learn how you can maximize reach and enhance cross-channel orchestration with a more strategic approach to growing your owned audience.

What Does “Owning Your Audience” Really Mean?

Owning your audience means establishing direct, permission-based relationships with your customers on channels and destinations you control — dedicated spaces where you can communicate, learn and engage. 

Growing your owned audience is not about ditching social media or paid ads entirely, as these channels are still crucial for discovery and acquisition. Instead, it’s about converting those acquired customers into subscribers, making every dollar spent worth the investment.

The Business Case for Growing Your Owned Audiences

Growing your owned audience offers a range of benefits, from optimizing marketing spend to maximizing customer insights. Here are just a few of many to consider:

Show Up for Customers When and Where It Matters Most

Customers move across an ever-growing number of channels and devices within hours, sometimes even minutes. Research from Salesforce found that consumers interact with brands on average across nine different touchpoints. Maximizing SMS and email permissions early on enables brands to be present on two key owned channels, showing up when and where customers will be most receptive to their experiences. 

Each channel offers a unique advantage. Ninety-eight (98%) of SMS messages are opened and read within minutes of reception, indicating its ability to engage almost instantaneously for critical updates and timely interactions. With lower open rates, email remains consumers’ preferred communication channel, serving as a trusted and searchable repository for richer content and detailed information. This allows customers to revisit valuable communications at their own convenience. 

When you gain permissions on these channels, the more control you’re able to provide customers over when they hear from you, paving the way for deeper trust and a more equitable value exchange.  

Reduce Reliance on Paid Channels to Maximize Cost Efficiency

When you engage customers on channels you don’t own, you’re at the mercy of someone else’s business model. Their rules change, costs rise and access to customers can vanish overnight, hampering your ability to nurture relationships beyond acquisition, gather insights and drive sustained value. While there is an initial investment in owned channels and destinations, the long-term cost is significantly lower than continually acquiring customers through paid channels.

Future-Proof Customer Insights to Deepen Personalization

As privacy regulations evolve and third-party data becomes less reliable, nurturing your owned audience ensures you have the systems in place to capture trusted customer data over time. First- and zero-party data offer far richer, more accurate insights than third-party data ever could, allowing marketers to deliver the 1:1 experiences customers now expect. In fact, Airship found that brands using zero-party data to hyper-personalize experiences drove a 91% purchase lift.

Nurture the Full Customer Lifecycle to Drive Long-Term Loyalty

The mobile-first customer journey is often fragmented and ripe with opportunities for drop off. Direct relationships allow for continuous value delivery, transforming one-time buyers into lifelong advocates. From initial onboarding and activation to sustained engagement, retention and even retargeting, owned channels give you the power to guide your customers through every stage of their journey with your brand to get them where they need to be. 

Best Practices for Growing Your Owned Audience

Prioritize the Onboarding Experience & Early Engagement

Onboarding offers brands the first chance to showcase what customers will gain from ongoing use and opting into channel communications. Airship research found that apps running onboarding campaigns have 78% more identified users than category averages, highlighting key benefits or incentives at first app or web visit. Loyalty program prompts are also an effective way to capture opt-ins while offering concrete value to customers.

Make Channel Opt-Ins Effortless & Contextual

Customers shouldn’t have to visit a separate page or take an additional step to share their information. Subtle opt-in forms — embedded or interstitial — that fit seamlessly into the experience, rather than disrupting it, should be your top priority. Consider triggers by specific user actions or journey stages to align with the customer’s context and maximize opt-ins.

Offer Consistent, High-Quality Value

Today’s consumers expect clear, concrete value in exchange for their personal information, whether it’s relevance, utility or something else entirely. Real-time updates, exclusive offers and personalized recommendations are strong selling points for opting into communications. For example, brands can offer customers real-time updates via SMS or email on high-interest or out-of-stock items. 

A Simple, Integrated Way to Grow Your Owned Audience on App + Web

With Airship’s no-code SMS and Email lead capture forms delivered via Scenes, marketers can now convert anonymous web browsers or app users into identified customers in seconds — without lengthy development cycles. Our customizable forms simplify consent capture, empowering teams to quickly grow subscription lists with leads that are ready for segmentation and automation in real time. 

Once you capture a customer’s email and phone number, you can then ask them for their preferences and prioritize channels accordingly within the Airship Experience Platform. Email and phone numbers are registered to the same contact as the app or web destination on which the Scene is delivered, streamlining the building process of customer profiles. This enables highly personalized messaging and more refined audience segmentation. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can grow your owned audience quickly and seamlessly, reach out to your Account Manager or book a time with our team.