One workspace to 150 cinema operators: INDY's lifecycle marketing growth 

Running lifecycle marketing for one business is challenging enough. Try doing it for 150 different cinema operators across three countries, each with their own audiences, preferences, and marketing needs.

That's exactly what Alexandra Harrower, Lifecycle Marketing Specialist at INDY Cinema Group, has been building over the past few years. In our recent "Director's Cut" webinar, Alexandra and Mark de Quervain, Head of Operations and Cinema Strategy, shared how they've scaled from supporting a handful of independent cinemas to powering sophisticated marketing campaigns for chains, multilingual audiences, and diverse cinema experiences—all with one lean marketing team.

When Alexandra joined INDY in 2022, the company was sending basic transactional emails from a single workspace. Cinema operators were stuck with generic messaging that barely reflected their brand, let alone their unique audience needs.

The first breakthrough was moving each cinema into its own Customer.io workspace, giving it control over its messaging and branding. But as INDY grew, so did the complexity. Chains started adopting the platform, bringing new challenges: bilingual audiences, multi-location campaigns, and the need for sophisticated segmentation across different cinema types.

The movie industry presents unique lifecycle marketing challenges that mirror what many businesses face:

• Infrequent, unpredictable engagement: Most moviegoers visit 1-3 times per year, primarily for blockbusters. Sound familiar? Many subscription services, retail brands, and seasonal businesses deal with similarly sporadic customer engagement patterns.
• Diverse audience segments: Cinema audiences range from weekly movie enthusiasts to once-a-year blockbuster viewers. Each segment needs different messaging frequency and content — similar to the way streaming services need to engage both binge-watchers and casual viewers differently.
• External factors beyond your control: Weather, competing entertainment options, and film release schedules all impact customer behavior, much like seasonal trends, competitor launches, and cultural moments affect consumer purchasing decisions.

Rather than hiring their way out of complexity, INDY built systems that let them scale personalization without having to scale their team.

One standout example is their API-triggered broadcast system for weekly showtime emails. Cinema operators upload movie schedules and basic information, click one button, and Customer.io automatically generates personalized weekly newsletters.

The emails include personalization based on users' watchlists ("This movie is in your watchlist") and clickable showtime buttons with WhatsApp sharing options—because not everyone wants to go to movies alone.

Their post-visit review system triggers 15 minutes after a showing ends, collecting feedback that gets stored back in Customer.io with rich customer data. This creates a feedback loop that improves targeting over time.

INDY uses behavioral triggers to prevent churn before it happens. Their "haven't seen you in 3 months" campaigns catch lapsed customers early, while membership tier notifications keep frequent visitors engaged by showing them when they're about to unlock new benefits or risk losing existing ones.

What sets INDY apart is how it has turned lifecycle marketing into a business intelligence system for its cinema partners.

Using Customer.io's automated link parameters integrated with Google Analytics, they track the complete customer journey from email open to ticket purchase. They've built Looker Studio dashboards that show cinema operators exactly how their email campaigns drive revenue.

They've created sophisticated discovery campaigns where users rate movie trailers via email, and those ratings feed back into Customer.io for retargeting when films go on sale. This creates awareness, captures intent data, and enables precise retargeting—all within their lifecycle marketing system.

INDY provides cinema operators with proven segment templates they can clone and modify. Instead of building everything from scratch, operators get working examples like "people who purchased popcorn in the last 3 months" and simply swap "popcorn" for "M&Ms" to target different customer behaviors.

Focus on high-impact opportunities rather than trying to optimize everything simultaneously. INDY’s approach: target small improvements across large customer segments rather than dramatic changes for tiny audiences.

Try temporarily disabling campaigns or features to see what actually moves the needle. Often, long-running activities that feel essential turn out to have minimal impact on key metrics. This approach helps identify which activities actually drive results versus those that just feel important.

INDY Cinema Group supports 150 operators across multiple countries with a core marketing team of essentially two people. They've done this by building systems that multiply their expertise rather than their workload.

Their approach works because they focused on creating frameworks and automation that let their customers succeed independently while still providing high-touch support when needed. The result is scalable growth that doesn't require proportional increases in team size or complexity.

Want to see how other companies are scaling lifecycle marketing without scaling complexity? Watch the full Director's Cut webinar with INDY Cinema Group.