Increase Engagement with Emojis in Push Notifications
We’ve come a long way in attempting to express emotions since the SMS era. We remember using :‑), don’t we? Those were the days of emoticons — expressing emotions with icons on our keyboards. Fast forward to the 21st century, this has evolved to emojis. The little yellow faces, and other emojis have become an integral part of our lives. This emoji, 😂 (“smiling face with tears of joy”), was even selected as the Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year 2015.
Let’s face it, with all the attention emojis have been getting since 2015, it was just a matter of time before a marketer figured out that this would be a great way to communicate with millennials.
The professional in you may be asking — why use this, when you have hundreds of other alternatives to grab users’ attention? Well, believe it or not, the emoji can prove to be quite a powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal, and it shows your audience that your brand is fun and approachable.
Emojis give a 🙂 vibe. Let’s explore the benefits of using these in your web push notifications to increase user engagement.
They make communication easier
The world is moving to a faster and easier form of communication. And emojis have already been found to be the fastest growing language in Britain. With a very large number of them being sent everyday, there is no doubt that emojis have indeed become a regular way of expressing emotions and words, without having to give an elaborate description. This helps in communicating marketing campaigns effectively.
Example: “The best places to ⛷ this winter.” Here, the message is easily understood. Emojis make communication smoother and fun.
They invoke Emotions
Scientists have discovered that, when a person looks at an emoji, the same parts of the brain are activated as when he looks at a real human face. We cannot deny the fact that every time we see an emoji, we feel a tinge of that emotion. This gives a human touch to your notifications. This provides a plethora of opportunities for marketers to form a meaningful rapport with subscribers.
Example: When you see this notification, you are bound to crave pizza and donuts, and end up clicking on the notification.
Increase open rates and conversions
A vast amount of research has been done on emojis and a majority of them found that using emojis in push notifications and emails can result in as much as 45% increase in open rates. One reason behind this could be that, as we said before, they spread a positive vibe in the message. Moreover, emojis also help reduce the impact of negative messages and even increase conversions.
Real time engagement with customers
Push notifications are a new and trending channel of communication. They are attention grabbing and can be used to convey your message in real time. When you combine them with emojis, a language spoken by 92% of the internet, you will see an increase in user engagement.
Example: “Stand a chance to 🏆 ✈️ tickets. Enter the contest now.” Here, you can see that the message is clearly understood and that your users are therefore likelier to click on the message. It saves them a few important microseconds of reading time.
Express more
All good things in life come with limitations, including the character count for push notifications. To fit in content that’s meaningful and effective, within 40–120 characters, may be hard sometimes. But, when adding emojis to your copy, you can express things better. Simultaneously, you cut down on characters. Take the example of a weather notification below.
Points to remember when using emojis
1. Emojis are powerful when they are relevant to your content. That’s why, we recommend that you only add them where suitable. Don’t overuse them. It may end up annoying your subscribers. Use emojis responsibly and you’ll see wonderful results.
2. Emojis have been around for quite sometime now. And emojis have evolved, with many new ones being added to an ever growing list. And with this, there may be a few of them that may have hidden connotations. A lot of emojis may be seen to have different meanings to different people. So make sure that you research meanings behind emojis before using them.
3. With the pace at which the world is moving right now, change is the only constant. This goes for emojis too. Their interpretations may change similarly. So make sure that, when you use emojis, you are upto date with what it may currently mean. Keep tabs on their changing nature.
Originally published on The Marketer’s Last Mile — the PushCrew Blog.
