How Pioneer helped shape Journeys in Pulsate Studio

Pioneer has used Pulsate to reach members in its banking app for about two years. Before Journeys, though, welcoming each new group of members meant pulling a list once a week, uploading it by hand and setting up a new Message for the right members each time. A new member could be a week into their membership before Pioneer’s first message reached them in the app.

Pulsate asked Pioneer to be one of the first design partners for Journeys in Studio. “We’d say, hey, no, this isn’t working. This isn’t what we wanted,” Jacob says. “We showed what worked, what didn’t, what needed to change.”

Jacob wanted to move away from “a broad message after broad message after broad message” and make the messages relevant to each member. “If they had the checking, they would get a different message than the person that didn’t have the checking,” he says. Members who had already taken a suggested step would skip that message. Others would have time to respond before hearing about it again.

Pioneer’s welcome messages ran for about four weeks, but members qualified for the Journey only during their first 14 days. That meant they could stop qualifying before receiving the whole series. Pioneer asked for members to stay in the Journey until they finished the series, and Pulsate added a setting in August to make that possible.

New members are welcomed in Pioneer’s banking app within days of joining, with a note that their membership is ready to use. What comes next depends on what they already have. Someone without checking hears what Perks Checking offers, like debit card points and no monthly fee. Someone with checking is invited to set up direct deposit, then to start with one everyday purchase on their debit card, like coffee, groceries or gas. Later, members in both groups hear about the Perks Visa.

“It’s running every day without us having to manually manage it. That gives us more time to focus on the strategy, look at how members are engaging, and make adjustments where we need to,” Jacob says. Pioneer now uses the same approach for Perks Visa cardholders who haven’t used their card yet.

“We’ve set this up recently, so we’re still feeling things out,” he says. He’s already noticed new members starting to “look at and ask about some of our other products” shortly after opening their accounts. “It helps our members, because they get to experience things they might not have heard at the branch or on the phone.”