What we're talking about this month — tips for knocking out the small stuff that gets in the way of big goals, the best Braze features from recent releases, our top resources, and more! ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏      Welcome to the January edition of Cutting Edge: the monthly newsletter for marketers who use Braze! New year, new goals — and somehow the same cluttered workflows, half-finished fixes, and “we’ll deal with that later” decisions are still along for the ride. January is peak ambition season. Bigger initiatives, smarter personalization, faster launches. But progress usually doesn’t stall because of a lack of ideas. It stalls because of friction. The small stuff that didn’t feel urgent last week/quarter/year? It now quietly slows everything down. This month, we're focused on clearing the path. We’re sharing small changes that unlock real momentum: practical prioritization & organization pro-tips, product updates worth your attention, and resources to help you work smarter as the year ramps up. No “new year, new you” energy here. Just a smarter, cleaner way to set yourself up for the year ahead. What we're talking about this month: 🧹 How to tackle the small things that get in the way of big projects 📌 Braze tips & tricks 🛠️ The most relevant updates from Braze’s recent releases 🪡 Resources you can use to hone your craft STITCH IN TIME All the small things 📝 Big goals get all the glory: new channels, smarter personalization, faster launches, better performance. But lurking behind those ambitions is a growing list of small, unfinished tasks — the ones that felt too minor to prioritize at the time. Individually, they don’t seem urgent. Collectively, they slow everything down. The reality? Big goals are much easier to hit when the “small stuff” isn’t constantly in the way. Here’s how high-performing marketing teams make progress without derailing big initiatives: 1. Schedule cleanup like it’s real work (because it is) Small fixes rarely happen by accident. The most effective teams intentionally carve out time for maintenance, whether that’s a dedicated sprint, a recurring monthly block, or a quarterly reset week. This is where teams tackle things like: Cleaning up unused segments, journeys, or campaigns Fixing broken or overly complex automations Reviewing tracking, events, and naming conventions These aren’t “nice to have” tasks. They’re foundational to moving faster later. 2. Reframe small tasks as goal accelerators If a task doesn’t clearly connect to a goal, it’s easy to deprioritize. The trick is making that connection explicit. For example: Data hygiene enables more reliable personalization Streamlined templates reduce campaign build time Preference center updates improve deliverability and trust When small work is positioned as unlocking bigger outcomes, it gets done. 3. Maintain a shared "Later List" Instead of letting small tasks live in people’s heads (or Slack messages from six months ago), keep a centralized backlog of optimizations and fixes. This gives teams an easy place to pull from when bandwidth opens up without having to re-discover the work. Pro tip: review this list regularly and ruthlessly prioritize what still matters. Not everything needs to come with you into the new year. 4. Lower the bar for completion Perfection is the enemy of progress. You don’t need to rebuild everything from scratch for it to be valuable. One simplified workflow. One retired campaign. One cleaned-up data source. Each small win reduces friction — and those gains compound quickly. The takeaway Big goals don’t fail because teams lack ambition. They fail because systems get cluttered, processes get brittle, and small issues quietly stack up. Making space for the details isn’t a distraction from growth — it’s how you sustain it. Fix a few small things now, and everything else moves faster later. - Brittany Watson Marketing Project Manager - Associate Director & Tina Fey Adjacent (I semi know her...) SPECIAL SURVEY Help us help you! 🤩 Help us make keep (🤞) this newsletter actually useful! Take our quick, 1-question survey and help shape upcoming Cutting Edge content. 60 seconds, tops. We promise. Give us your opinions > PIN IT Braze tips & tricks 📌 Happy New Year! This is your annual reminder to make sure all your dates have made it to 2026 — because nothing says “it’s January” like catching a © Copyright 2025 Insert Company Here footer in the wild. If you haven’t already, it’s time to update the year in the footer of your emails from static copy to dynamic Liquid. Future-you just removed this task from next January’s to-do list. You’re welcome. Here's the Liquid: - Hannah Tippmann Technical Producer - Associate Director & Aspiring Seamstress PATCHWORK Decoding Braze product updates 🛠️ Dynamic SMS messages using Liquid Braze now allows dynamic SMS responses based on the specific keyword a customer texts. With Liquid, you can assign a customized response to an inbound keyword (ie: "DEAL" vs "JOIN"). When an inbound SMS is received, Braze triggers a predefined response tied to that keyword. Simple as that! Why it matters: This new feature will make SMS feel more personal and less like a broadcast channel. Clients can now respond differently to "START" vs "JOIN" or even "HELP" and create interactions that feel more intentional and conversational. This can mean the difference between a customer choosing to stay opted-in or opting-out. Dynamic BCC This new Braze feature allows you to use Liquid in your BCC address with some limitations: It is only available in Email Preferences and not the campaign itself and only one BCC address per email recipient is allowed. Why it matters: This allows you to copy emails to different sources such as an account owner or support through user data. You can standardize across all sends since it is done at the Email Preferences level. New Integration: LILT Automate your global presence with the speed of AI using LILT's translation platform by directly loading multi language content into your email campaigns. By connecting via REST API, you can generate a tagging system that allows LILT to translate your email content. Why this matters: With this kind of lightning fast automation, you will significantly reduce the time to get your message out to a global market. Any time-sensitive marketing will benefit from this integration. Cowritten by: - Vinca Swanson Senior Technical Producer & Certified Sawyer (I can use a chainsaw in the woods...legally) - Mike Medrano Senior Technical Producer & Dog Trainer HONE YOUR CRAFT Our top resources this month 🪡 🎊 New year, new use cases. Our Braze Innovation Series resumes on February 10th. This will be the third installment in a series of webinars where we're cutting through the noise to bring you real-life use cases for how real brands are actually using Braze — today. No hypotheticals, no "ideas" that haven't been put into action, no fluffy concepts. Each webinar will walk through challenges, goals, and in-depth solution dives for cool sh*t that we've helped marketers build in Braze that has moved the needle in changing the way marketing gets done. Upcoming Session Topics: February 10th: How to build a 2-way SMS solution March 24th: Getting started with Braze Agent Console Register here >   🎮 Resolution: be more fun. Gamification can be one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s toolkit...but only when it’s built with intention. We've pulled together a 10-question checklist to help you pressure-test ideas before investing in build time, ensuring any game you launch is purposeful, user-centered, and capable of delivering real ROI. Read the article > 📚 What we're reading/watching What marketers are missing as loyalty drivers evolve: report Forrester’s 2026 B2C Marketing, CX, & Digital Business Predictions: One-Third Of Brands Will Erode Customer Trust Through Self-Service AI   LOOSE ENDS This month's VIP (very important pet) 🐾 Stitch, 830 Massachusetts Ave Floor 3, Suite 9, Indianapolis, IN 46204, USA Unsubscribe Manage preferences