CHALLENGE

Need for an innovative channel to build conversational marketing campaigns

As a leading digital marketing agency in France, Digitaleo is committed to innovative marketing campaigns for their clients.  This commitment drives them to constantly seek out emerging trends and channels that boost engagement and drive better results. 

Their clients, in turn, were hungry for richer, more engaging customer conversations, demanding features like rich media in their marketing campaigns.

Recognizing the untapped potential of RCS early on in 2019, Digitaleo partnered with Infobip to be the first to use the channel effectively in France.

They knew this innovative channel, with its rich feature set and two-way communication capabilities, was the key in delivering conversational marketing campaigns for their clients.

“We got interested in RCS in 2018, and then we launched the first RCS campaign in France with Infobip in 2019. Our goal was to always be very responsive to emergent conversational marketing channels,” said Martin Briantais, Senior Product Manager at Digitaleo.

Digitatlio’s first RCS campaign was in France, with their client Beaux-de-mer Auto, a car dealership. At that time, the reach was lower due to RCS only being available on Android devices. However, in the span of a few years, the reach has greatly increased, and we regularly get 50% of reach coverage. With the Apple launch, RCS will prevail as an essential conversational marketing channel.

Village Motos: Making “Open Days” a commercial success

Village Motos, a high-end motorcycle dealership, approached Digitaleo to increase the commercial success of its “Open Days” by highlighting promotions and special offers. Digitaleo knew to make their “Open Days” a success they needed a messaging channel that would cut through the noise and deliver the message in a timely and impactful manner.

“We chose to launch RCS to create campaigns with richer and more impactful content than SMS, notably using carousels. The conversational aspect of RCS also interested us a lot in collecting data from customers who respond or react to the RCS messages they receive,” said Valentin Pennetier, Head of Communication at Village Motos

SOLUTION

Solution: A rich media, interactive RCS campaign to increase awareness and revenue

To run a successful RCS campaign, Digitaleo needed a partner with the right experience and relationship with Google that could support them with implementation and usage. Hence, RCS powered by Infobip’s conversational experience platform.

“And their support has been useful throughout the campaign management as they were able to answer technical questions quickly. In addition, their platform interface was simple to build campaigns and generate reports,” added Briantais.

The Village Motos campaign in action

The overall goal of the Village Motos campaign was to increase awareness in store traffic to their “Open Days” event.

Digitaleo deployed an RCS campaign with our help along with an SMS campaign in parallel. This way, they were able to compare the impact of each channel, and for customers whose phones weren’t RCS-enabled, SMS was the failover option.

Here’s how the Village Motos “Open Days” campaign unfolded:

1. Personalized RCS messages: Customers received a rich, interactive RCS message, personalized with their first name. The campaign was specifically targeted to recent Village Motos customers or those who had interacted with the dealership previously.
2. Interactive carousel: The message featured a carousel of four images showcasing the new store and directing customers to take specific actions.
3. Website link: One carousel card linked directly to the Village Motos website for more information.
4. Google Maps integration: Another card provided a direct link to Google Maps, pre-loaded with the new store’s location for easy navigation.
5. Digital catalog: A third card offered a browsable digital catalog of the latest models and special offers, all within the RCS message.
6. SMS backup: Customers without RCS-enabled phones received a traditional SMS message with the “Open Days” details.
7. Omnichannel approach: This combination of RCS and SMS ensured maximum reach and engagement.

“At Infobip, we found a partner with strong mobile expertise, proven technology, and responsive support. Thanks to the team, we were able to achieve our goal of generating incremental business for our client through an RCS campaign,” said Briantais.

RESULTS

Results: 3x higher conversion rate with RCS

The RCS campaign led by Digitaleo and Infobip’s partnership exceeded Village Motos expectations.

“The RCS campaign was a real success. It was a bit like our record edition this year, and the idea is to do even better next year,” said Valentin Pennetier, Head of Communications, Village Motos.

The rich, interactive campaign saw:

• 72% open rate: Significantly higher than typical email open rates (20–30%)
• 10% lower cost per click: RCS proved to be smart investment for ROI despite being priced slightly higher than SMS
• 3x higher conversion rate: Due to the rich capabilities of RCS, the conversions were higher compared to SMS.
• 40% increase in turnover: The “Open Days” event saw a higher turnover compared to last year which could be attribute to the campaign.

Due to the impressive results, Village Motos has entrusted Digitaleo to run their next “Open Days” campaign over RCS.

“What we want is to offer our customers more interactive experiences. RCS is one of the channels that is quite powerful for this. We will be able to offer different types of experiences thanks to RCS. We used a carousel this time, but there is also the conversational side that we would like to explore to create a direct interaction with our customers,”  Pennetier added.