How To Improve Your Push Notification Performance in 5 Steps
Mobile marketing always feels like an overwhelming task due to the growing competition in an already cluttered market, changing brand loyalty and decreasing returns on investment for most marketers. Push notifications have often taken the backstage but it is one of the most powerful marketing weapons for user engagement. There may be a possibility that you have not thought about this channel a lot or have not actively worked on it so now is the time to get on top of it to unleash the full potential of push notifications. 2021 is the year for you to change it all and make it right. Let us see how you can change your push notifications game in 2021.
Different Types of Push Notifications
We are sure that you are aware of the function of push notifications but all push notifications are not the same. There are different types of notifications which serve a different purpose based on what you want to notify the users about. The most commonly used push notifications are:
- Alerts – These notifications appear on the screen and compel the user to take an action. The action can be to open or to get rid of them.
- Banners – Banners are the ones that appear for time being and will automatically disappear in a few seconds.
- Badges – These notifications are the small red circles that you witness floating in the corner of the app’s icon.
- Sounds – It often comes along with other types of notifications.
Now that you have known about the common types of push notifications, let us talk about the top strategies to use push notifications effectively for your mobile app.
Make It Easy To Opt-In and Out
If you are not aware then we would like to highlight the fact that push notifications are strictly a permission based channel. An opt-in acts as the first point of contact for a new user. Hence, these push notifications also need you to make sure that opting out of it is also easy if it doesn’t serve their purpose. By doing so, you make the user feel empowered by having a choice of receiving notifications or avoid it as and when required. Moreover, it also allows you to target only the interested prospects. You should experiment with different timings of your opt-in message along with A/B tests to see what works well for your app.
Craft Powerful Messages
How you draft your message and how it is then communicated to your users is extremely crucial. This is the main reason why your push notification title and message should always be on point and unique. It is best to come up with attention grabbing titles and make sure the content is fresh and to the point. Please bear in mind that users may be involved and busy with various types of activities when they take a look at your push notification. Hence, try to use short and crips content to make it easier for your audience to connect with you. Powerful words along with efficient CTA will grab the attention of users and compel them to take action that you want them to.
Appropriate Type of Notification
As discussed in the previous sections, there are various types of different types of notifications. You can send a notification that is informative, time based or just a simple reminder. By taking help of A/B testing try to find out the type of notification that works best for your business and also images your audience the most. Selecting the right kind of notification that suits your business and user needs is critical because the effect of a message that is specific to what a specific audience prefers comes with added advantages. You must take into account your products and services on offer and ensure that your notifications show the right emotions required to increase the reach. The push notifications sent by you should match with the type of your content. One more thing to bear in mind is the time zones and how often these notifications are sent to the users.
Effective Personalisation
The same message sent to all users will definitely provide you low engagement and brands have tried doing this numerous times in the past. However, sending push notifications to users by segmenting them in specific groups has always worked. Just by personalisation, you can increase the conversion rate by almost three times. This is because it will help the users to connect with your brand more easily than taking actions. There are three parts which should not be definitely ignored like behavior, geography and preferences. You must take these into consideration if you wish to send personalized messages that your users are looking forward to receiving. Moreover, you must try to identify more parameters that would allow you to segment users better and send definite push notifications to the correct segment.
Tracking KPIs
The push notification KPIs should be in sync with your overall marketing strategy. It is best to always keep in touch with your strategies that have worked well for you and keep using those specific campaigns in the longer run. You must look to analyze the most appropriate metrics and see how your campaigns are performing. In order to do so, you need to measure the right metrics in order to quantify the performance of your campaigns. Moreover, you will also need to be vigilant about your subscriber count which will further allow you to have valuable insights on what made someone subscribe to you in the first place. Apart from that, you can also add engagement metrics, turnover and customer retention as your KPIs and test them periodically.
Final Word
To conclude the above points, push notifications have definitely become an integral part of marketing due to its widespread popularity and impact, personalisation and value. Hence, the best type of push notification is the one that considers a user’s preference and adapts accordingly. A push notification which deviates from the user’s needs will lead to abandonment and low engagement rate. Do you have more ideas on how to enhance the performance of push notifications? Get in touch with us today or let us know in the comments below.
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joining December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.