AI Is Disrupting Retail & Personalized Customer Engagement: Insights From Women in Retail Leadership Summit NYC
Updated on 18 Nov 2024
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On October 24th, I attended the Women in Retail On the Road event in New York City—a gathering designed to foster connections and bring together women leaders who are shaping the future of retail. There were three topics that were prevalent throughout the agenda and conversations on the day: AI, personalization, and the upcoming holiday season (which is practically upon us).
On the topic of AI, a recent McKinsey report predicts that Generative AI will drive productivity gains that exceed 10% of global marketing spending – which roughly amounts to $460 billion worldwide. It’s no wonder that leaders are rapidly exploring ways of integrating AI into their workflows and tech stack to enhance efficiency, and creativity and lead with data-driven decision-making—all to drive more growth. From the conversations on the day, it’s clear that AI adoption is a top priority across the industry and is only set to accelerate as we move into 2025.
During the event, I sat down with Amy Edens, Director of CRM and Data at Blink Fitness and a valued Insider customer. We shared our perspectives and real-life experiences on how Generative AI is changing how marketing and CX teams function. Amy shared some use cases of how Insider is helping her team to deliver on their mission of being the “gym for every body”. Amy also shared her own personal fitness journey and how that experience has formed her Ikigai and shapes her approach to customer data and creating customer journeys that drive healthier outcomes for customers and the business.
Here are some of my favorite moments from my conversation with Amy:
Guiding New Members with Personalized Journeys
During our session, Amy shared that her vision for customer journeys at Blink is to deliver customer experiences that are as unique as every fitness journey. Amy explained that customers’ goals and motivations differ, meaning every journey and touchpoint with Blink should be unique.
Blink leverages our customer journey orchestration platform, Architect, to create personalized, data-driven experiences that truly engage its members. One of the most valuable journeys the Blink team created with Architect, is their New Member Journey, designed to support every new member from the moment they join.
“We’re not just handing out membership cards,” Amy explained. “We aim to guide each member based on their personal goals, fitness levels, and what they are looking to achieve. With Insider’s tools, we use zero- and first-party data to build meaningful connections from day one.”
Amy shared that a customer who has never set foot in a gym before will need something completely different from someone who is maybe joining from a different gym, or already has an interest and experience in weight-training. Zero and first-party data is critical to ensuring that Blink provides the right value for every customer — their goal is to provide a tailored onboarding experience that empowers them from day one.
With Insider, Blink can deliver a tailored onboarding experience that empowers members from the moment they join, ensuring they feel supported and engaged. Leveraging behavioral insights and first-party data, Blink ensures it can offer unique experiences aligned with each member’s goals.
Driving Growth Through Optimization
With a background in data, Amy remarked that optimization plays a central role in Blink’s strategy, helping the brand to drive incremental growth across the entire customer experience and drive healthier outcomes.
Blink’s overarching goal is simple: to get as many people as possible to live healthier lives. By continually optimizing and enhancing their programs with Insider—whether it’s through better onboarding experiences or converting those on the fence about joining— they can drive better results and help more people take meaningful steps toward their health and fitness goals.
“With Insider, we are really delivering on that mission of “being the gym for every body,” said Amy. “It’s not just a saying, but we’re driving real business growth and results in line with it. We’re focused on breaking down those last-minute barriers because we want to make it as easy as possible for people to prioritize their health.”
A standout example of this was Blink’s focus on reducing its abandoned cart rates—when prospective members drop off during the online membership process.
“We used Insider’s Send Time Optimization capability to find the ideal time to send reminder emails,” Amy said. “The results were great—we saw a 7% improvement in abandoned cart conversion. That represents a huge number of individuals who were on the fence about joining but committed to their health journey.”
The use case highlighted how Blink’s partnership with Insider supports its mission while driving more growth.
Navigating the Complexity of Omnichannel Engagement
One of the key challenges in today’s retail landscape is managing the growing number of channels through which customers engage. Amy addressed this directly but it was also a topic of conversation from several retailers and brands in attendance.
The number of channels consumers interact with a brand across is growing. A research report from this summer also showed that 9 in 10 consumers use 4 channels, led by social media (93%), websites/apps (91%), digital ads (90%), and email marketing (90%).
That same report also shows that marketers are managing, on average, 10 different channels to engage customers. That’s a lot to manage!
Amy reinforced this point, sharing how Insider’s platform gives Blink the flexibility to connect with members on the channels that matter most to them. The brand uses email and SMS and is only two weeks away from powering its app experience through Insider, too, ensuring members can connect with the brand where and how they prefer.
At Insider, we’ve designed our platform to simplify this complexity by offering seamless, end-to-end orchestration across the broadest set of channels natively. The right technology should help, not hinder, which is why Insider has unmatched channel breadth and deep capabilities—allowing brands like Blink to engage with customers wherever they are.
Generative AI will revolutionize productivity—and change the way teams work
During our conversation, Amy and I explored the transformative power of Generative AI. The Blink team has already used the Sirius AI™ Copy Generation capabilities to create campaign content—such as personalized subject lines—in seconds using a prompt. The capability removes writer’s block and guesswork by leveraging AI to produce a result that is automatically customized to their customer cohort, the channel, and the required outcome.
“Insider’s AI tools allow us to create content tailored to specific customer segments,” Amy shared. “This saves time and frees up our team to focus on strategic initiatives that drive growth. And we’re only scratching the surface—there’s so much more we’re excited to explore.”
For most brands, achieving true personalization—offering a unique experience for every customer—remains a significant challenge. This is primarily due to two factors:
- Outdated technology that limits flexibility,
- The heavy manual workload required to execute customer journeys.
In fact, marketers spend 60% of their time on repetitive tasks like creating segments, writing copy, and building journeys, draining both time and energy. Generative AI has the potential to effectively multiply its resources by automating these time-consuming processes and alleviating marketing and customer experience teams. By reducing manual efforts, teams can make faster, data-driven decisions, leading to better results and higher growth. At Insider, we aim to make marketing teams feel unstoppable by freeing up their time to focus on creative, strategic work, unlocking their potential to drive smarter campaigns and meaningful customer experiences.
Preparing for a Different Kind of “Holiday Season”: January 1st
Unlike most of the retailers in the room, Blink’s busiest season isn’t throughout November or December. Unsurprisingly, it comes afterward in January. This is a critical period when people set fitness resolutions and join gyms in large numbers. Amy shared her excitement about leveraging Insider’s upcoming beta analytics tool to prepare for this busy season.
“Insider’s behavioral analytics will give us the insights we need to engage with new members more effectively and meet the increased demand during the New Year’s rush,” Amy said.
Our Behavioral Analytics offers real-time insights into customer actions, helping brands track engagement across multiple channels. With predictive capabilities, it enables smarter personalization and proactive engagement, boosting conversions and retention.
The Right Technology Partner Becomes Your Competitive Edge
At Insider, we know that the right tech stack empowers marketers to create meaningful customer experiences that drive both growth and impact.
Blink’s success is a shining example of this alignment. Before partnering with Insider, the Blink team struggled with Braze and Listrak. With Insider’s consolidated platform, platform in place, the team has everything they need within one platform and remarked:
“Insider is the best solution we’ve experienced so far, thanks to its seamless journey orchestration, personalized engagement, and easy-to-use tools.”
It’s partnerships like these that inspire us at Insider. With innovative tools and AI-powered solutions, we’re committed to helping brands like Blink create seamless, impactful experiences that resonate with customers and drive meaningful growth.
What’s Next?
This event was a powerful reminder that when purpose aligns with action, extraordinary things happen. I am grateful to Jennifer DiPasquale, Melissa Campanelli, and the Women in Retail community for creating this space—and to Amy—for continuing this meaningful journey with us.
Next up, I’ll be heading to San Francisco on November 7th for another exciting session at Women in Retail Leadership Circle: On the Road. I’ll be co-presenting with Christiane Pendarvis, Co-CEO at PATTERN Beauty, on how embracing individuality fuels growth through customer engagement and AI. I hope to see you there!
Finally, if you’re a retailer looking for some last-minute ideas to fill in any gaps in your holiday plans, check out our “Peak Holiday Season Power Plays” eBook. In the eBook, six industry players reveal their best tried-and-tested marketing strategies for boosting sales this peak season. Happy Holidays!
