7 Best Ways To Use Push Notifications In Mobile Apps
The new and digital opportunities help businesses to grow and succeed beyond their expectations. It is now much easier than ever to reach consumers across demographics, oceans, cultures, continents, and nations even without calling them, let alone a personal meet, and the technologies also provide for a greater customer retention rate. Push notification is one of the most overlooked technologies that has immense potential for making a business more successful and likable by the customers.
Defining it simply, push notifications can be termed as the messages that automatically pop-up on the screen of a smartphone. This notification is delivered by the software application on the app itself to the mobile device, without the mobile user requesting for it. Push notification is, therefore, a notification from the server,which appears on the device even when it is in the sleep mode, and is connected to particular apps. A consumer can switch the “notifications” on or off for any app.
A push notification may also be customized/personalized for a user. For instance, the app may send a notification when the price of flight tickets for a particular journey route drop. This may be termed as the Advanced push notifications, in contrast to the behavior-based notifications that push messages on the screen on a mobile device to users on the basis of their actions and behavior. Push notifications do not require many efforts for their development and are also not expensive. They engage the customers better, enhance the user retention rate and make your communications dynamic, personal, and useful for the users. Below are 7 best ways through which App developers can use the push notifications in the applications for business purposes.
1. Notification That “Welcome” The Users
A recent study found out that if a user does not return to a digital application within the first week of installation or use, the user may not be coming back to it forever. Apps can develop a deeper bond with the users and are the best tools for making a long-term relationship. The Welcome message is one of the best ways to create your first best impression and to refer to the customer the value offers as well, at the start of the journey itself. Most of the successful business applications introduce a referral program or give a small discount to the user through the welcome notification that attracts and please the users immensely.
2. The “Gentle Nudge” Push Notification Message
Users may be preoccupied with a number of tasks and responsibilities, and therefore many of them leave a task or activity on the App in the middle of it. For instance, the user may leave the sharing of a message or photo on social media unfinished, or switch to some other task while making a purchase. The Gentle-Nudge notification and message reminds the user of the activity. In most cases, it has been found that the users actually do come back to the app to finish the activity when they are reminded of it. All the app developers should use this useful tool to ensure that the conversion funnel is completed and the user successfully pushes down into it. The nudge messages are also useful for you if you categorize the users on the basis of their intent and past behavior. The nudge notification and message can deliver the relevant content, which will successfully bring back the already engaged users to the application.
3. The “Nurture Lapse” Notification Message
A user may start not to be interested in your app because of reasons including stale content, cumbersome on-boarding, limited options for feedback, the absence of loyalty programs, and bad targeting of the notification, among other reasons. In most cases, the users are interested in apps for the first few months and only stick 2 applications that have done efforts for keeping them engaged.
The interesting and relevant push notifications can bring back to you the lapsed users. You can easily identify the inactive users for the user who is likely to be inactive by using analytics and monitoring tools. One of the most effective ways of drafting the push notifications is the personalizing of the message in accordance with the behavior content or past purchases of the user.
4. The “Location/Geo-Targeting” Notifications
Smartphones and apps can effectively lessen the gap that lies in between real-life shopping and online shopping and makes the digital shopping experience life-like for the customers. The location or Geo-targeting messages can target the location demographics and also integrate online and offline marketing campaigns and efforts.
When a user is in a strong relationship with you and trusts your business or app, you can use the Geo-targeted push notifications for these active users. But this notification use should be restricted to active and long-term users only. Other users who are new to your app, or generally deny your push notifications should not be geo-targeted as they may think that you are misusing the data and may opt out of the app.
5. The Interactive and Alluring Notifications like “Reward and Thank-You” Notification Messages
It is found that finding a new customer can be 5 times costlier than retaining an old one. You should show it to your users that their collaboration/partnership is very important for you, through the interactive messages and notifications. You can send your users reward notifications on the basis of their past actions, behavior, and purchases. Valuing your customer can be a more positive way to reach to your conversion goals and these notifications will also enhance the loyalty of the existing customer. You can also make their experience more seamless and interactive while prompting them to buy more from you. For instance, when a user buys movie tickets, you can thank him or her through the notification and can also send a discount voucher for the next purchase. Incentives are highly motivating for the end consumers and they also start to value the relationship and association because of the underlying benefits.
6. The “Transaction” Notifications
Most of the users are financially knowledgeable nowadays and have the budgeting tricks to save more while making purchases. Users like the notifications related to their transaction history. You can notify the users in areas including transactions, changes and recent updates, expenditures and other areas that they can use to spend their money wisely.
7. The “New Launch” Notifications
Leading companies today have the new and latest launch notifications for their users, which provide for a lasting relationship. These notifications are also liked by the users as they get access to information that is not easily available elsewhere. These notifications can bring to you much more sales while costing the least. The text/content should be tuned to generate the necessary curiosity and urgency, and the call-to-action (CTA) should be effective enough to prompt the user to at least see what the new offering is.
Push notifications should not work and be sent at random but should be in-line with the goals of your campaign. Knowing your users better and sending them concise messages at the right time can generate the necessary curiosity while also making the notifications alluring and useful for the users. Notifications are an important part of the ad monetization strategy and help increase the revenues when more visitors reach the advert pages. Personalized messages can only serve the purpose now, and the batch and generic notifications are to be avoided.
James Grills is a technical writer with a passion for writing on emerging technologies in the areas of mobile application development and IoT technology. He is a marketing advisor – currently associated with Cumulations Technologies a mobile app development company in India.