An Uncomplicated Guide To Push Notifications For Fashion Bloggers
Powered by followers and social shares, fashion bloggers have become immensely influential and powerful. It didn’t take long for the world’s biggest clothing brands to grab this opportunity of having this formidable lot become their ambassadors, promoting their clothing lines and accessories. Fashion bloggers are not only earning good money but name and fame too. So, if you blog about fashion and are looking to increase your subscriber count and gain massive traction on your blog, then this post is perfect for you.
While your posts maybe brilliant, with the latest trend updates, your blog might be struggling to get the well deserved limelight. One reason for this could be the number of people getting the latest updates. How many subscribers actually click on your emails? You see, our generation struggles with cluttered inboxes, as it is.
This is when push notifications help you communicate with your subscribers, instantly. They are clickable, instant and unobtrusive. They are clutter-free and attention-grabbing.
In this post, we give you seven ways to keep your subscribers engaged with your blog using push notifications.
1. Find the connection between the role of Push Notifications and your marketing strategy
You can use push notifications to notify your subscribers instantly about your latest post, a webinar invite or an exclusive sneak peek into the Paris Fashion Week. There are numerous ways to use this channel. But before you do so, give a hard thought about how this channel will complement your other marketing mediums, for instance, emails.
To start with this activity, you would want to first take a close look at your target audience. Look at where they are typically from, what their age brackets might be and what kind of professions they are in.
Gather your analysis and start grouping your audience into various buckets. You can also segment them based on their on-site activity, for instance. While one segment likes reading about summer dresses, the other may prefer shorts and cotton shirts instead. You may segment based on geographies too, since your global audiences may be witnessing different seasons. For example, while subscribers from Australia look for summer staples in December, subscribers in the USA would be hunting for the best winter fashion. Hence, you can create different segments and even user personas based on your analysis.
Reasons to segment
With an array of segments in place, you can personalize your push notifications. This way, your audience will find the content relevant to their needs or interests. Take a look at the example below to understand this better.
Example: Send push notifications about festival staples to segments who’d be celebrating a music fest. You can then send this to people residing in areas where the festival is happening or based on their on-site behavior.
Similarly, you can send a push notification about winter wardrobe basics to the segment in cold regions. This way, you’ll notice a higher engagement rate when compared to pushing that notification to your entire subscriber list.
2. Write a crisp notification copy (like a crease-free blouse)
You may blog about achieving various looks that make heads turn. Similarly, your push notifications copy should immediately grab your readers’ attention. Though push notifications may have a character limit, your creativity is what boosts your click rate! Get playful by adding emojis to shorten the text, yet, conveying the right message across.
Like always, grammar and punctuation go a long way in demonstrating subtly the quality of your blog. Also, pay close attention to the tone of your message and ensure that it plays perfectly well with your content piece.
Example: Send a creatively written push notification about printed wardrobe pieces. Take a look at the example below.
A/B test to find out what kind of language and message tone your audience prefers. A simple way would be to look at the click rates on your notification dashboard.
3. Plan your opt-in request
Just like how we like to plan our look for the day before stepping out, have an opt-in strategy ready to ensure that your push notification subscriber list grows quickly. When the permission opt-in box appears on your visitors’ screens, they should be willing to allow push messages from your blog. Here’s a clever way to do that.
Set the opt-in box to appear on the following pages:
– Checkout page (if you have one)
– Upon clicking a “Download” button, maybe a quick guide or a tutorial
– After viewing a post for about 20 seconds
– After skimming through different posts or pages
For best results, play around with different opt-in messages and pages to zero in on what your visitors are more likely to respond to.
4. Use images to add the glam factor
Fashion blogs enjoy hordes of traffic especially when there are images included in each post (we love imagining how that outfit may look on us). Similarly, when you add images to your push notifications, you’re adding the glam and visualization it should ideally have and persuade the subscriber to click on it. Result? Better engagement!
You can add images in two ways. One, you can use Big Image (supported by Chrome 56 and onward). Two, you can use the default thumbnail image for your notification.
Example: Send a notification about your post on spring racing outfits. Add an image to emphasize your message.
5. Offer special incentives to drive more traffic
Our interests are piqued when our favorite items go on sale. And this in turn attracts huge crowds to shop till they drop (or go offline). So, you could apply the same strategy on your blog by offering your subscribers exclusive incentives. This could be a contest, a sweepstake or even discounted items. Send a push notification about the same. You’ll love the result (more traffic and more click rates!). We recommend you to mind the frequency of such incentives so as to avoid your subscribers having more expectations than you can handle.
If you’re giving your subscribers time bound offers, it’s crucial that notifications about the same are not sent once the offer has crossed the expiry date. Hence, we recommend you to set an expiry time to your push notifications for time sensitive deals.
6. Be watchful of your frequency and timing
A girl can never have too many clothes. But, send one too many push notifications about clothes and you’ll see them hitting unsubscribe. Also, ensure that your notifications don’t disturb a certain segment from their slumber (the result will be another unsubscribe). Hence, chalk out a frequency and timing plan for your notification as per your segments.
Here’s how you can do that seamlessly.
Ideal days to send notifications
According to our report, The State of Web Push Notifications, you should steer clear of sending notifications on Mondays. But, Tuesdays and Fridays are close to perfect to send notifications. The perfect day? Wednesday! Our report proves that Wednesdays can land you an average click rate of 6.21%. Still, we suggest you to play with the best days and times to send notifications that suits your target audience. For instance, send a notification on Friday about Party Outfit Ideas for those who love partying (segmentation is your North Star!)
Ideal times to send notifications
Our report indicates that a notification sent between 1PM to 2PM local time fetches great results (Reading and browsing the internet during lunchtime is fun!). 5PM to 7PM is also a good time to send notifications (most of us would be waiting to complete our work hours, you know). It’s important to avoid sending an inappropriate notification at the wrong time for a segment that might be sleeping or are preparing to hit the pillow.
Master push notification timing and frequency by scheduling your notifications as per local time for different segments. Remember to not send too many push notifications (you wouldn’t want to annoy your subscribers and come across as spamming them). Instead, send one notification a week. To stay safe, test and find out which days and what timings boost your click rate.
7. Use Call To Action buttons
Guide your subscribers to take the actions that you want them to take on your blog by using Call-to-Action buttons. These actions can be reading a new post, checking out an end of season sale or participating in a contest. Your subscribers can click on the notification itself or the CTA buttons that lead them to the same or different pages on your blog.
CTA buttons facilitate higher conversions, boost engagement, increase online visibility and contribute towards increasing your revenue. CTA buttons give your audience the choice to take an action according to their requirements as well.
Example: In the sample notification below, when your subscriber clicks on the notification itself and Buy the look button, they’ll be redirected to the same page, where they can buy the off shoulder top. In this case, having the CTA and the notification leading to the same page will emphasize on the purchase action. The CTA with More trends button can take your subscribers to a page that has a list of more posts on different trends.
Do keep these guidelines in mind when you’re using push notifications to get more traffic and keep your fashion blog subscribers engaged. More importantly, understand who your subscribers are, what they like and then, personalize your push notifications. And lastly, remember to experiment with the pointers we talked about to zero in on what works best for your blog and subscribers.
Originally published on The Marketer’s Last Mile — the PushCrew Blog.
(You can signup and start using PushCrew Web Push Notifications for free here.)
