Engage Users with Push Notifications
In the simplest terms, a push notification is a short message that appears on the display of your phone from an app you have installed. The installation of the app is the only implied consent the app owner needs. Only Apple OS allows its users to give direct permissions or declines to the push notifications of an app.
As long as it everything is done within a safe boundary, push notifications are a great feature that benefits both users and app owners.
Boundaries not to Cross
· Do not overburden your app users with irrelevant pieces of information.
· Do not hijack their lives with your push notifications.
· Respect people’s privacy and do not share their data with a third party. Only use it to perfect the delivery of your products and services to them. Plus, not keeping the data only to yourself can get you into a lot of trouble.
Why Push Notifications?
Let’s talk numbers. According to Statista, the smartphone users will be over 5 billion by 2019. This projection indicates that shifting the focus to mobile can be a goldmine for a lot of businesses.
Yet just having a mobile app is not enough. Businesses need to find smart ways to engage with their users and make them keep the app on their phones. Here’s where push notifications come along. The short messages that appear on the users’ phones allow app owners to provide chunks of useful information to stimulate engagement. App owners can also get feedback via short surveys or inform customers about future products and services.
6 Best Strategies for Engagement
Personalize the Push Notifications:
Nobody likes a generalised message,as it feels like you are only trying to make sales. This puts users in a defensive mode and they are less likely to engage with your app and ultimately buy from you.
Instead, make your notification as personal as you can.Learn to use the relevant personal information you have gathered on your app. This is excellent leverage as it builds empathy and a feeling of trust. Users perceive that you understand their individual needs and that takes you under their sales radar.
Don’t be a Pest:
In other words — don’t just throw random push notifications at your users at every hour. That could get on one’s nerves. Plan your push notifications and send them at the right time of the day or even every few days.
Reward with Your Push Notifications:
It’s not all about marketing, businesses, and advertising. Sometimes it’s good to show your appreciation simply by rewarding your customers. Push notifications can be of great help with that. You can use them to inform users aboutadditional bonuses or tell them about the free services or products waiting for them in the app.
Make Every Push Notification Count:
When you send your short messages, make sure they are bringing real value for your users. If you don’t give them meaningful content, sooner rather than later, they’ll start ignoring your messages. Then they’ll stop using your app and eventually delete it.
Introduce New Ideas and Updates:
Introduce new ideas that your app user will appreciate. These new ideas may not necessarily be something related to your business or service. For example, you could give them updates on current trends or on something you think would interest them.
Prioritize your Messages:
Send our push notifications according to their hierarchy of importance. Send out the most important ones out in the morning or whenever your audience is most actively using their phones.
How to get the most of your push notification strategy
The answer is simple — think about what you want to achieve and plan carefully. If you just want to push general messages to your users, you can get your app done using a web or hybrid technology. Though, in this case, you will be better off just making a good mobile-responsive website.
If you want to have useful, personalised push notifications with no limitations, then you need a native app. In a nutshell, native apps provide the best UX for your users, including flawlessly working push notifications that you can customise in any way you want. The perception is that native apps are usually expensive to develop, and that’s not necessarily the case. Using our Appzio platform web developers can deliver native app within a matter of weeks.
(If that sounds like mumbo-jumbo, you can read about the difference between web, hybrid and native technology here.)
What’s more, it also gives app owners access to useful information that allows them to plan better for their push notifications. The dashboard displays a summarized number of active users and their whereabouts. This enriched info allows targeting the users in a particular area and sending tailored push notifications to them.
A final word
If you already own an app, you should consider paying careful attention to the push notifications you send out, as they are your secret weapon to keep your users engaged.
If you are considering the creation of an app, you may want to start with an estimation of the cost. We’ve made it very easy to do so here. Then once you start building your app, no matter who delivers it for you, you better start thinking about those push notification from the start if you aim for success.
Reference:
1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/
