20 Things You Didn’t Know About Braze
Today, more than ever the need for a digital customer engagement platform is a must if brands are to grow and prosper. After all, the recent pandemic created a global environment where people lived life from the inside of their homes. Indeed, everything from work to education was performed within the home. That’s where companies like Braze come in. Braze facilitates interaction between brands and their customers by creating digital tools to answer the needs of both. Braze is a highly recognized company in the field of customer engagement, known and respected for the solutions they offer their clients, to their involvement in the community and environment. While Braze calls New York home, they also have offices around the world, as the need for their unique services grows, so does Braze.
1. Braze Filed for U.S. IPO
In October of 2021, Braze filed for U.S. IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $100 million. Co-founder and CEO Bill Magnuson noted that the growth of digital tools, such as mobile apps, etc. was increased as a reaction to the pandemic, lockdowns, etc. “As consumers around the globe were staying at home, brands across all industries had to pivot their focus to delivering effective and engaging digital experiences. We are confident that the transformative impact from 2020 will echo into the future, further validating our founding vision.”
2. Forrester Research sites Braze as a Leader
The Forrester Wave Cross-Channel Campaign Management Q3 2021 has sited Braze as having the best score with regards to strategy. As awesome as this is, it’s not the first time Braze has been honored in such a way. Braze also received the Forrester acknowledgement in 2020 in two categories: Current Offering and Strategy. According to CEO Bill Magnuson, “The past year has demonstrated that forging direct relationships with customers through seamless cross-channel campaigns is essential to the success of all businesses.”
3. Braze Bonfire Slack Community
According to chief marketing officer Sara Spivey, sites tools such as the Braze Bonfire Slack community as helping to retain customer loyalty and engagement, “Since its inception in 2019, Braze Bonfire has been a great resource for building strong relationships between our customers.” She goes on to state how Bonfire was an effective tool during the pandemic when it came to sharing information and strategies.
4. Braze Steadfastly Believes that Customer Engagement is Key
When it comes to maintaining a healthy business, Braze strongly believes that client engagement is at the heart of a strong business. Sara Spivey says it best, “We’ve leaned heavily into content creation to offer marketers more resources to help them create strategic customer engagement campaigns that drive business results”.
5. Braze expands to Include Germany
Braze has made the smart decision to press forward with its plans for global expansion by launching in Germany. By making such a major, strategic move, Braze’s presence can offer support to current clients while reaching out to attract new brands. According to Marjorie Armitage, General Manager of EMEA at Braze, “Our decision to enter the German market reflects the momentum we are experiencing in the area and our ambitions for future growth. Braze has consistently had strong customer demand in Germany and the greater DACH region, fueled by our exceptional multi-channel offering and our privacy centric approach.”
6. Braze Experienced Unprecedented Growth in 2020
Did you know that in 2020 Braze acquired 100 plus new clients in EMEA. All tolled, this makes it more than 300 new clients globally. Among these new clients are Papa Murphy’s, Kickstarter, Uniqlo USA, and so forth. This means that Braze has been able to garner over 1000 clients total. Where there is such growth, there is always a rise in hires, and as such, Braze was able to hire more than 250 new employees in 2020.
7. Braze Now Offers Instructor-Led Courses
For the best in in-depth training, books and videos are nice, but you can’t beat a real instructor. With a real world instructor, you’re free to ask pertinent questions and gain a deeper understanding of the subject at hand, and Braze is currently offering you this. Braze experts will use actual, hands-on techniques to augment the theories presented in order to make your learning sessions as fruitful as possible.
8. Introducing Braze Content Cards
These content cards are one of Braze best marketing innovations. Regarding customer engagement, it’s all about making one another lives a little better, and that’s what Braze Content Cards do for their customers. By using a targeted stream of content your clients will be able to be a little closer to their customers as this targeted stream of content is delivered via their very own apps. It’s all about real-world, real-time solutions, custom made to fit their own particular needs. It’s tools like Content Cards which will make them feel connected. In other words, enhancing customer engagement.
9. Braze Announces its’ 2021 Global Customer Advisory Board
In April of 2021, Braze introduced its Global Customer Advisory Board, or CAB for 2021. What is CAB? Brazes Global Customer Advisory Board is proud to call as its members clients from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America, or EMEA and Asia-Pacific, or APAC. As Braze has secured a global presence in the world’s business community, it found it necessary to strengthen connections. CAB does just that. Braze CAB is a tool whereby Braze customers and Braze executives can attend sessions and provide one another with valuable feedback.
10. Braze Announced Arrival of Isabelle Winkles as Chief Financial Officer
In February of 2020, Braze acquired the talents of Isabelle Winkles to their Board of Directors. Ms. Winkles will act as a Chief Financial Officer, or CFO for Braze. Winkles has quite the impressive resume, which includes 18 years at Morgan Stanley, and performing as Chief of Staff at Cognizant. Winkles brings much to the table and states, “Braze is a standout enterprise technology leader that enables the world’s biggest brands to foster human connections with consumers. The future is bright for rapid growth at Braze, and I’m looking forward to leading the finance team as a strategic partner to the business, in order to support this rapidly expanding company.”
11. In December 2019, Braze was awarded AWS Retail Competency Status
AWS or Amazon Web Services Retail Competency status was given to Braze due to its strategic methods of customer engagement. These methods developed by Braze have proven themselves not only to be innovative, but imparting a technical mastery. AWS Retail Competency Status is only awarded to partners who have proven they have what it takes to provide retailers with the tools necessary to achieve prosperity and customer connections. This involves everything from customer engagement to advanced retail data science.
12. Braze is an AWS Digital Customer Experience Competency Partner
As an Amazon Web Services Digital Customer Experience Competency Partner, Braze has shown their mastery in giving customers solutions. In other words, the brands that Braze works with have benefited greatly by utilizing Brazes cloud computer platform. By doing so, these brands can engage in any and all digital work with great efficiency, even on a global level.
13. The Braze Alloy Program Launches in 2018
The Braze Alloys program can be called a technology ecosystem of sorts. Launched in 2018, it was followed closely with the launch of Braze Alloy Solutions Partners in 2019. Here, customers are encouraged to craft their very own, unique ecosystems based on the needs of their customers. The Braze Alloys program was met with such success that it gave birth to the Braze Independent Software Vendor (ISV) program. This new program developed due to the heightened response to positive reviews of the Alloys program, and was meant to take on more demands–to quickly and efficiently increase customer engagement with brands to a higher level.
14. Braze Teams Up with Data Warehouse, Snowflake
In June 2019 Braze teamed up with Snowflake, a “data warehouse”. This means that customers of both firms can enjoy the benefits of multiple sources of data by way of Snowflake Secure Data Sharing. Hence, brands can now study and understand the available customer engagement information. According to Jon Hyman, co-founder and CTO of Braze, “When we started using Snowflake, we realized the benefits of the company’s unique architecture through superior time-to-value, scale, and security.”
5. Brazes New Tool, Braze Benchmarks, Makes Customer Engagement Easy
Benchmarks is an interactive tool designed to provide your company access to real-world, real-time data on the following: app retention, user acquisition, message engagement and purchasing behavior. Here, clients of Braze will get a first hand look at the percentage of first time buyers as well as repeat buyers, weekly email engagement, monthly email engagement and so on.
16. Braze teams Launches Tech for Black Founders
Braze reported that just 1 percent of “venture-funded”startups are black. As such, in 2020 the innovators of Braze put their heads together to come up with Tech for Black Founders. This is a joint initiative which includes the fine talent from Amplitude, Branch, mParticle, and Radar. Braze states its mission as follows, “Creating an ecosystem that provides free resources and technology to a cohort of black-founded businesses, empowering them to drive growth and revenue.”
17. Braze is a 2021 Tech Cares Winner
Tech Cares Awards are hosted by tech review site, TrustRadius. The Tech Cares Awards sited 100 tech companies which use their resources to help out their communities when it comes to diversity, volunteerism, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI programs. They do this by contributing funds, environmental responsibility and concerns with workplace culture.
18. Braze Current Used to Capture Data
Braze Current is an innovative, new tool which works to grab real-world, real-time data the moment it becomes available. This allows marketers to react to the actions of customers on a moment to moment basis. Braze Current lets brands gain knowledge of their customer base and apply that knowledge to engagement campaigns.
19. Braze Offers Solutions for the Hospitality Industry After Covid
It’s no secret that the hospitality industry was one of the hardest hit during the pandemic. Braze initiated a study regarding the hospitality industry and how to rebound. According to Braze Chief Customer Officer, Myles Kleeger, “With strong signs of a rebound, travel and hospitality brands must prioritize customer engagement in order to connect with new and old customers alike to drive business growth. The report proves that timely, relevant, and personalized cross-channel engagement strategies are more critical than ever for an industry poised for a comeback.”
20. Braze Integrates With Shopify
In 2021, Braze integrated with online purchasing giant, Shopify, in order to help them deal with new situations in a post-pandemic business world. After all, no brand wants to be left out of the loop when it comes to dealing with purchasing hungry public at a time when the business landscape is in a post-pandemic flux. Kevin Wang, Senior Vice President of Product at Braze said it best, “While consumer spending is predicted to recover, preferences and behaviors have evolved and form the foundation of the ‘next normal’, consumers will expect companies to be able to adjust quickly to these shifting behaviors, and the introduction of these new features, enhancements, and integrations will enable brands to evolve their customers engagement programs to meet expectations.”
Final Thoughts
As we can see, Braze offers relevant solutions when it comes to helping brands develop solid relationships with their customers. Known professionally as a customer engagement platform, Braze ensures that whatever the brand, they will be able to establish meaningful relationships with their customers. If you’re concerned about the ‘human element’ being left out of the plan, don’t be. Consider the efforts of Braze just the first step in securing a solid connection with customers first. Then, the path is left open for more human-based engagement strategies later on. Remember, the ability to connect with people is often rewarded with positivity and prosperity.
