OctaZone approached Mindbox out of desperation: they couldn’t find a suitable marketing automation service for mobile apps on the market. There were challenges right from the very beginning: long negotiations before connection, “crutch” solutions for data transmission, and the search for a CRM agency to configure communications. However, OctaZone has now launched 55 trigger and 7 bulk mechanics in mobile push notifications. These […]
Marketing Automation for the OctaZone mobile training app
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GoalIncrease the number of OctaZone customers with paid subscriptions
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SolutionsMotivate customers to pay for subscriptions through mobile push notifications and emails
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TeamCEO, OctaZone Product Manager, EMAILMATRIX CRM Marketing Agency, Mindbox Manage
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Term9 months
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ITiOS and Android mobile apps, landing page on Tilda, marketing automation platform
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Business scale500,000 customers in the database
OctaZone is a fitness training app featuring professional advice from European and world martial arts champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov

Arsen Ibragimov, CEO, and Founder of OctaZone
OctaZone approached Mindbox out of desperation: they couldn’t find a suitable marketing automation service for mobile apps on the market. There were challenges right from the very beginning: long negotiations before connection, "crutch" solutions for data transmission, and the search for a CRM agency to configure communications.
However, OctaZone has now launched 55 trigger and 7 bulk mechanics in mobile push notifications. These mechanisms help sell paid subscriptions and retain customers, and, most importantly, they provide revenue growth.
This case will tell you more about which segment of OctaZone customers is the most difficult to identify and why we need to send push notifications at 15-minute intervals.
Opinion
Overall, we are satisfied: we were able to establish communication with customers. We didn’t have regular communications via mobile push and email channels, and now, thanks to the platform, we do. We see that our messages motivate customers to pay for subscriptions and continue training. We also see an increase in revenue.
Opinion
We are now starting to create dashboards that can demonstrate the efficiency of communications. Even now, not long after we launched push notifications and emails, we are able to see from indirect indicators that our customers have started to train more. This shows that they are using our product and will continue to use it in the future.
OctaZone's Mindbox implementation and how the platform was adapted for the mobile app
Opinion
Sending different communications from a single window. We were looking for a platform that would allow us to send mobile push notifications and emails from a single window. Mindbox gives us this opportunity.
Focus on e-commerce. Initially, we were searching for automation software designed specifically for mobile apps – however, it turned out that all platforms are focused on e-commerce. Mindbox is also geared toward working with orders, products, and categories. In other words, these are areas that we don’t work with.
Due to this, we have to come up with "crutch" solutions. For example, we need to transmit information to the platform about how many times a client trained during the previous week. This kind of entity doesn’t exist in e-commerce, so we had to invent something.
Cost. When it came to other platforms for working with e-commerce, we chose Mindbox due to its affordability.
Integration is not self-service. Unlike in Mailchimp, you can’t just sign up, quickly integrate your product with a single developer, and get started.
We spent a lot of time negotiating with Mindbox before integration. First, we talked with the Mindbox sales department, and then with the managers. On top of this, we were given introductory master classes and virtual tours of the platform. Consequently, this delayed the launch. What’s more, in a startup environment, deadlines are especially important — we could die at any moment, and we have very little time.
The interface isn’t intuitive. We usually sort out work with any service inside the company, but in the case of the platform, we couldn’t set up communications ourselves and hired the EMAILMATRIX CRM Marketing Agency.
Visualization of communication sequences. It’s convenient to see what the mailing workflows look like on the platform and in which order push notifications and emails are sent.
Personalized communications that depend on the needs of the audience
OctaZone divides its customers into three segments according to their needs, depending on whether they want to:
- lose excess weight
- train actively
- keep in shape
There is also another group: those who use workouts as a means of meditation to reduce stress and relax. However, these customers have not yet been allocated to a separate segment, as they are more difficult to identify.
Opinion
We have connected the platform for two key tasks: customer acquisition and retention.
At the stage of customer acquisition, we separate our advertising content, providing each audience with their own message and offer. Then all customers "land" in a common funnel. In the future, we plan to bring each audience to a separate page in the App Store. This will allow us to personalize communication even at the acquisition stage.
Customer acquisition
1. Creative ad campaigns on Facebook and Apple Search Ads meet the needs of each segment:
2. Messages are sent to those who have downloaded the app but have not yet purchased a subscription.
These messages are sent in two languages. When downloading the app, the customer is automatically placed in their language segment on the platform, depending on their location. Customers from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan are sorted into the Russian-speaking market. The rest will be put in the English-language segment. Here's an example of what these messages look like:
A chain of three push notifications with a discount on the subscription to the app. Push notifications are sent every 15 minutes
Opinion
We tested which interval works best for sending push notifications. There is no significant difference between a small interval of about 15 minutes and a large one (for example, a day). Nevertheless, we noticed that the more frequently we contact the customer, the more effective, albeit only slightly, the communication becomes.
OctaZone chose this strategy because they believe that customers have a high motivation to train and they do not perceive these messages as spam.
Customer retention
OctaZone sends mobile push notifications and emails to those who have already bought a subscription. Here are some xamples:
1. Training reports help to maintain the customer’s interest, motivating them to continue practicing.
Monthly report for English-speaking customers

2. Push notification reminders regarding training sessions sent one day before, and on the day of the training session.
Opinion
It’s not exactly an abandoned cart message, but it looks like it. The idea is to get in touch with the customer, so that in a month they’re able to see the results of their training and choose to renew their subscription.
According to the metrics we're seeing, reminders have a very high open rate. People open push notifications, which helps them use the product and achieve their sports goals.
Workout Reminder

3. Collecting feedback in mobile push notifications and emails helps to understand how to improve the app.
Opinion
Right now, we’re only collecting feedback in mobile push notifications, but we’re not processing it as we’re waiting for enough data to accumulate. We plan to divide all feedback into blocks, which will let us see what customers leave feedback about, how often and what they complain about, in order to come up with solutions and improve our app.
In addition, we ask customers for feedback through a standard Apple pop-up. We show this after three workouts. This helps to quickly respond to any problems in the app. For example, we sometimes receive information that a function doesn’t work on a particular phone model, or we're asked to implement a new feature. We send these reviews to the backlog and correct them, and then inform the customer about it.
Collecting feedback among customers via mobile push notifications and emails
Opinion
Configuring mechanics on the platform is convenient thanks to communication workflows. They are more flexible than just triggers. For example, they allow you to create complex communication sequences with several mobile push notifications or emails on one screen.
Without communication workflows, it would take me 4-5 times longer to set up, for example, a chain of push notifications and emails.
Plans for the development of direct communications:
- Start reactivating customers in the pre-churn segment. For instance, those who haven’t practiced for a week. We've already prepared the messages for this.
- Reactivate the churn segment, i.e., those who have canceled their app subscription. To do this, we need to make the integration of the app with the platform more complete. This will ensure that the data about the cancellation of the subscription is transmitted to the platform.