Have you ever noticed the notifications popping up from your apps even when not in use? Imagine someone sending you a message on Whatsapp, or in a Whatsapp Group, and you are notified even with Whatsapp resting in the background. Similarly, you have got an email, and you are notified even with your inbox not open. This is the power of “Push Notifications.” Push Notifications make your life a lot easier since it doesn’t require users to keep their app open.
These are just a few examples of how push notifications can revolutionize your life. However, the advantages of using push notifications go much further.
Push notifications occur in the form of a sound, badge, alert, or a banner:-
- As a banner, it stays for seconds, and then vanishes.
- As alerts, they ask users to either accept or dismiss it.
- As a badge, it appears as a shape with a number shown inside, giving the amount of pending notifications.
- As sounds, they appear in different formats, notifying about a certain action.
Push notifications have a high tendency to engage users, by keeping them always connected with the app. This, in turn, leads to a high retention rate, with a consistent, or even increased traffic, even after a certain time period.
Push notifications are primarily targeted towards informing users about the newest product updates, helping businesses to constantly stay connected with their customers, even with the app in hibernation. It also helps businesses to provide the best customer service by increasing user satisfaction, when more features or functionalities introduced and informing them through push notifications. When potential users agree to accept your push notifications, they are officially allowing you to promote your products or services to them, enabling them to act as your direct prospective customers.
Reasons to use push notifications in your mobile app
Push notifications prove to be immensely useful, especially with a sale on, or offering heavy discounts and offers on selected stock or services. It has been observed that push notifications deliver more than 50% read rate, as compared to less than 14% in email marketing, with the former having twice as much CTR than that of the latter.
Summing up what we have discussed above, we have come up with these 4 explanations of integrating push notifications in your mobile app:
#1. Engage users keeping your app awareness alive
Apps have a common tendency to be downloaded and then forgotten about in the smartphone space full of other apps. There is a minimal possibility of those apps being used frequently enough due to other apps taking priority. Such apps can keep their users regularly informed through relevant and useful information, upcoming events, new services, or other informational stuff, in order to spark up recognition to encourage involvement and engagement.
#2. Keeps users in the driving seat and always having control
Updates popping up surprisingly from nowhere annoy users, ultimately frustrating them and forcing them to uninstall the app. However, when users have an overall control of accepting or denying push notifications, they receive notifications only if they want to.
#3. Allow businesses to gather user behavioral insights
Through push notifications, companies can access valuable information on how users behave when dealing with a certain notification. They do it by tracking the user engagement right after the notification message. While doing this, many factors are taken into consideration such as situation, platform, device, and the interaction time. It gives a clear idea of how, why, where, and when users deal with the app notification.
#4. Enable users to utilize app functionalities with ease
When you look at the push notification design, it appears to be a lot less messy than email marketing in terms of usability and interface. Push notifications are those simple messages, providing essential information. The best part about them is, users are notified regarding just about anything, without businesses incurring any messaging or marketing overhead costs.
Important tips to incorporate push notifications that are hard to resist
With the growing usage of apps, app developers are always looking for unique ways to capitalize on creating push notifications, capable enough to grab user eyeballs and enabling users to divert to your app amongst so many other apps. Because they are less interruptive, they bring in more customer engagement. However, it is very important that your app push notification does not lead to any negative thoughts related to your app perception, ignoring user expectations completely.
When push notifications are positioned well enough, they have a high tendency to build valuable connections and trust among your audience, establishing a strong connection of customers with your brand.
Here are four tips to building visually appealing push notifications, which your audience will find it difficult enough to refrain from:
#1. Catch the needs of your audience
Keep yourself in the shoes of potential users, and try to analyze what kind of notification you would expect from an app like the one you are offering. Deliver things that users want to see and hear from your app, through push notifications. Say, for example, a news app works best if push notifications are sent for every single breaking news. Another example is in the form of a traffic app, giving live updates regarding all road accidents or traffic jams, taking place in the city, through push notifications.
#2. Throw away messages when required
Analyze the best time to reach the audience and informing them about something. Notifications sent when users are asleep, will go completely unnoticed. Try avoiding sending push notifications during night time when people are asleep. Set push notifications according to the time zone of the user, so that they are sent only during day time.
#3. Know where your messaging will work best
Geo-targeting plays a vital role when taking care of this. Ensure that the push notification you are sending to a specific individual or a particular group of users is relevant or not. Imagine a restaurant app marketing their discounts or offers to people located in other cities, or countries. Or, an eCommerce app announcing about products or services to customers, where they do not provide shipping. Such push notifications will not only prove to be useless but will also irritate users for whom they appear to be completely irrelevant.
#4. Approach people directly after notifying them
Sending out a push notification and expecting users to revert back is a big mistake. Users get showered with so many push notifications during an entire day. It is hard for them to respond to every push notification. Hence, they prioritize and instead of responding to each message they cut down ones appearing to be less useful to them. Personalization is very important and a key to real success of push notifications. Reach your customers or users directly, right after sending out a push notification. This will not only make them feel special or important but also free them from the headache of responding back.
Images: ” businessman pushing button notification /Shutterstock.com“
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