Push notifications are alert-style messages that appear at the top or bottom-right corner of your web browser. On a smartphone, they appear at the center of your screen. Push notifications provide value and convenience to browser and smartphone users. Push notifications allow marketers to reach prospects and customers directly. I’m a big fan of push notifications both as a marketer and a web user. Push notifications let me become aware of major developments, messages or updates immediately. A push notification is sent from the server of the merchant, marketer or developer directly to the browser or smartphone of the user.
How does Push Notifications works?
There are three actors involved with delivering a push notification, along with a fourth, optional, component for advanced functionality.
- Push Notification Service: Each browser, including Chrome, Safari, and Firefox have their own notification delivery service. Chrome uses Google Cloud Messaging ( and now Firebase Cloud Messaging ), Safari uses Apple Push Notification Service ( APNS ) and Firefox uses MDN servers.
- Service Worker Registration: Developer must register the service worker on the browser. This is only for Chrome and Firefox. Safari does not support service workers.
- User’s Subscription ID: Subscriber ID is generated when a user opts in to receive notifications from a specific website.
Additionally, an SDK (OS client library Software Development Kit) can be added to a web app for extended segmentation and analytics capabilities.
Top Push Notification Marketing Strategies
Push notifications are an immediate way of correspondence with target audiences. Publishers should treat the capacity to correspondence with clients through website Push Notifications as a facility, not as a right. They must offer some benefit; on the off chance that they do not; push notifications will be disregarded or killed. A few clients will uninstall the application out and out.
Analytics and estimation are imperative instruments for enhancing your application’s execution. However, it is essential to compose convincing web page push notifications that are significant to clients and drive activity. Messaging systems and related strategies in Push Notifications should be measured. Push Notification Strategies, for example, boosting opt-in rates, guaranteeing new clients are appropriately on-boarded, and decreasing Client Churn Rates for your Application are all the keys to an application’s success. Noticeable Push Notifications’ Strategies are-
1. Easy Opt-In and Opt-Out Options –
Push Notifications are a strictly permission-based medium and the opt-in acts as the first touchpoint with a new visitor. Similarly, these notifications ensure that it isn’t difficult to opt out either. This way the subscriber feels empowered to have the choice of receiving or avoiding messages, and you can target only the interested prospects.
2. Outline the Objective-
Define the goal and objective you are trying to achieve from this campaign. Map out the desired actions that you want the visitors to perform. Start with identifying the user personas to communicate effectively.
3. Craft Compelling Messages-
How you craft your message and communicate it to your readers is important. That’s why your notification titles and messages should be unique and interesting. Write a catchy title, and keep the content crisp. Remember that your users can be in the middle of something and the notification will flash momentarily on their screens. Short and concise messages make it easier to connect. Power words and effective CTA can lead users to take the desired action that you want them to perform.
4. The right type of Notification-
You can send a notification that is informative, time-bound, or simply a reminder. With A/B testing, find out what type of Push Notification engages your audiences more. Hence, test and find out which Type of Push Notification best suits your business and users’ needs. This is important because you should send messages that your specific users prefer. Also, consider the type of products or services you have to offer. Make sure your message depicts the right emotion. Spread out your notifications according to the nature of the content.
5. Personalize and Segment-
Send Push Notifications to your users selectively. It’s been found that messages broadcast to all the subscribers result in low engagement. Adding a personal touch to your marketing plan always takes you an extra mile. Make your users feel special, promoting them the most relevant content. It’s important to convey the right message to the right audience at the right time. Segment your users based on different parameters, to help you categorize the subscribers and increase the engagement rate.
6. Timing and Frequency-
Look out for the best time to reach out to your subscribers. It works in two ways—understand the time-zone they belong to so that you can schedule the notifications accordingly. Secondly, understand the apt time when there is maximum engagement and you don’t end up disturbing them. It’s also important to know how much is too much. You would not want to bombard them with continuous notifications on a single day, annoying them. It’s noted that click rate declines with every next notification. We generally recommend not sending more than one Push Notification a day.
7. Segment your push notifications according to behavior-
The more tailored to its audience a push notification is, the higher its open rate will be. As such, segmenting is imperative. One effective way to segment your user base is through their behavior. Looking at the various ways customers interact with the app provides valuable insight into what they care about and how engaged they are with the brand. This, in turn, helps us understand how often we want to send them pushes and what aspects of the app to highlight when we do.
Potential customer segments that can be used to understand how engaged certain customers are with the app include disengaged, somewhat engaged and highly engaged. Let’s say you have a user who downloaded your app a couple of weeks ago, browsed once and hasn’t returned. Don’t flood that user with notifications; they’ll be more likely to see them as spam.
Advantages or Key Benefits of Push Notification Services
Stimulate user engagement
Push notifications can help you to attract more customers at certain touchpoints. They can help you send real-time updates and reminders that get your audience to regularly engage with your brand even if they’re not aware of it. Based on a survey by Localytics, users in 2017 were willing to receive more push notifications than users in 2015 before disabling them. That means marketers have a better opportunity to communicate with customers through mobile push notifications today.
Re-engage/retain users
Many mobile apps have a lot of potential users who have downloaded the app but don’t use it. Push notifications are a good way to turn these inactive users into active users. According to a study by Urban Airship, sending even more (high value) push notifications can increase app retention rates by 3 to 10 times. Actually, the retention rate for users who opt into mobile notifications is much higher on average. Through notification messages, you can provide your users with thoughtful reminders, personalized offers, and breaking news. If your mobile notifications can show direct personal value, you’re much more likely to retain users for the long term.
Increase conversion rates
Timely marketing messages are the best way to increase conversion rates because they can notify customers or create a sense of urgency. For example, La Redoute had a problem with abandoned carts. People added items to their carts but left the store before completing their purchases. In order to fix this problem and retrieve lost customers, La Redoute started a push notification campaign where users would be alerted if they left the store with an item still in their cart. With the help of push notifications, the company increased their retargeting click-through rate by two to three times compared to classic mobile ads.
With mobile notifications, you can trigger immediate purchases. Send your users informative messages and let them know about special discounts or limited-time offers in your online shop. In addition to this information, push notifications can offer instant purchasing with a single tap.
Target the right users
Mobile apps can ask for a user’s permission to access their location. If they grant it, you’ll get a great opportunity to personalize the customer experience with location-specific push notifications. A mobile app can send offers that are applicable to users in a specific region based on their time zone. You can target users according to the country, state or city. For example, Waze does a good job reminding its users of nearby traffic situations and providing gas station updates like the gas price. Moreover, you can alert users to discounts or specials when they’re in a particular location. Push messages based on a user’s location can help you engage users with a high degree of personalization and relevance.
You can also send push notifications to users based on their interests. Like Netflix, you can use the app and audience data to reach the right users. Netflix sends push messages to users who may be interested in a show. For example, you might receive a notification that a drama is now streaming while other people are alerted that a new season of Game of Thrones is up. It’s all about targeting the right audience.
Wrapping Up..
Push notifications can be focused on the particular segments of your client base, and even can be customized for particular application clients. This is a noteworthy advantage when contrasted with SMS text messaging.
Be that as it may, these website push notifications additionally require the management of user identification data along with some sort of interface for composing messages, focusing on them and sending them to ensure guaranteed conversions.
Once you’ve gotten users to download your app, push notifications are a great (free) way to increase conversions and revenue — but don’t abuse the privilege. Be thoughtful, be relevant, and be helpful, and your users will reward you by engaging.