Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
You know push notifications. The buzzing in your pocket when there’s breaking news. The message that pops up on your smartphone screen about a one-day sale (whether the app’s open or not). The haptic hum on your wrist alerting you to yet another flight delay. We’ve been sending and receiving these hot-now messages since 2009, and there’s no slowdown in sight. Recent innovations make push more versatile than ever, so it’s a good time to get a refresher on the basics.
As the first mobile-native messaging channel, push notifications have grown into a powerful engagement tool for cementing customer relationships and boosting revenue. Push is great at prompting customers to open apps, so it’s key if you’re looking to re-engage lapsing or inactive members. Use push well, and you can drive up engagement, conversions, and ROI, and hold onto customers who might otherwise slip away. Caveat pusher, though: poorly deployed push campaigns have a tendency to send customers running in the opposite direction.
2. WHAT’S UP WITH ALL THE PUSH?
When you think “push,” you may think smartphones and tablets. Innovative marketers, though, are already using web push notifications to reach customers through browsers and sending push notifications to wearable devices like the Apple Watch. As the popularity of wearables grows and more websites begin supporting push, these emerging channels will give you new ways to keep the lines of communication open between your brand and your customers.
Mobile Push
Classic push notification
The mother of all push. These messages make the most of the intimate nature of mobile devices, allowing brands to reach people no matter where they are or what they’re doing. That makes mobile push very effective in the right circumstances, but very annoying in the wrong ones. Like all push notifications, these should be used with care.
Wearables Push
Wearables push notification
Out of the pocket and onto the wrist. Push notifications sent to wearables are more intimate than mobile push, making them even harder for customers to ignore, but also increasing the chances that they will be irritated by irrelevant or too-frequent messages. If your organization isn’t thoughtful about the messages you send through this channel, increased opt-outs and uninstalls are likely.
Web Push
Web Push Notification
These newest of push notifications mean marketers can broaden their communication strategy to online visitors through urgent messages delivered through web browsers. This is still an emerging channel, so tread carefully—many people have never received a web push and there’s not yet much data on how consumers respond.
3. THAT’S RICH: ADDING VISUALS AND MORE TO PUSH
Rich push notification
If your vision of push notifications begins and ends with text, think again. Current operating systems on mobile and laptop enable rich push notification capabilities that you can use to surprise and delight customers. Pair short text with an arresting image, or even a gallery of products to choose from right within the push notification. The latest notification innovations give your customer a way to tell you what they want right now, with push action buttons. Watch this space, as leading engagement marketers explore these new communication opportunities.
4. HOW PUSH CAN UP YOUR CROSS-CHANNEL GAME
While it’s possible to send one-off notifications, push messaging performs best as part of a comprehensive cross-channel strategy. Your customers use more devices and spend more time with them, and understanding which push works best when increases the potential for further engagement. By pairing push with in-app messages, News Feed Cards, and/or email on a case-by-case basis, you will see results beyond what any one channel can achieve on its own. The direct, to-the-point nature of push notifications and their ability to reach customers beyond the app or website makes them a key part of any multi-channel strategy.
The newest member of the push family—web push—supports efforts to onboard, engage, and retain customers by giving you a fresh way to reach them on a channel that’s still a mainstay in their daily lives—the web. Like mobile app push notifications, web push notifications are best for simple and urgent content.
Push notifications in general are an especially effective tool to re-engage lapsing customers or to retarget people who failed to click on an email or an in-app message, giving your outreach a second chance to resonate. But push notifications power way past these two situations—used effectively, push can be a significant asset to nearly any kind of marketing campaign.
5. WHEN TO PUSH (AND WHY)
Since push notifications appear front and center on a device or computer screen even if the recipient isn’t using your app or visiting your website, the odds are good that your message will be seen. That means that when you absolutely, positively need to reach a customer, push may well be the best way.
Provide a Warm Welcome
Want to make sure that new customers engage with your app? Supplement the in-app messages that walk them through app-specific details with push notifications that target those customers who bailed before finishing the onboarding process. Use push to point out enticing content that will encourage those on-the-fence folks to get fully onboard with your brand.
Was It Something We Said?
Want to win back people who’ve stopped opening your app or visiting your website? A cross-channel campaign leveraging both email and push notifications ensures that you’ll reach the largest group of your inactive customers in distinctly different ways, engaging both the ones who respond to push’s direct approach and those won over by email’s rich content. And, of course, reviving abandoned carts with push is the kind of re-engagement that goes right to your brand’s bottom line.
Attention, Savvy Shoppers!
Have a big sale coming up? Put together a cross-channel campaign that alerts active customers with in-app messages and News Feed Cards and leverages email to highlight specific items to pique the interest of less engaged users. Follow up with push for a sense of urgency as your promotion comes to a close, encouraging last-minute purchases.
Time Is of the Essence
Looking to message around something that’s immediately relevant, like a heat wave or major holiday? Sending a push notification places your timely message in front of them when it matters. Add a deep link to send customers directly to a related in-app message or News Feed Card, and you’ll impress them with your real-time prowess.
6. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU'RE TOO PUSHY
Grab your customers’ attention. Reach them no matter what they’re doing. Get personal with the message. Sweet, right? So why not just use push as much as you possibly can? The answer is that sometimes, push notifications can actually undermine your messaging strategy.
Not Everyone Opts In for Push
You can’t send push notifications to customers who haven’t agreed to receive them. And plenty of people choose not enable push. That means that there may be a significant chunk of your audience who will never see the push notifications you send.
Not All Customers are Alike
Some people don’t check their email often (or at all). Others click past in-app messages and ignore News Feed Cards. The same issues crop up with push notifications. Engaging your customers is about determining what messaging channels they respond to and making sure you’re using each to its full potential. For customers who don’t engage with push notifications (or just don’t like them), an all-push messaging strategy means a lot of outreach will be ignored.
Too Many Push Notifications Can Trigger Uninstalls
Push notifications work best in moderation. And brands that overdo it are taking a serious risk—78% of customers will opt out of push notifications or uninstall an app entirely if they get notifications they’re unhappy with. Show customers you get it with a custom push opt-in rather than an automatic permission request when they first open your app. Tell them what’s in it for them: People are more likely to opt-in for the juicy benefits (and you’ll also be reducing the risk that they’ll opt out).
7. CONCLUSION
As you look into the new messaging opportunities that push notifications present, remember that your customers may have higher expectations for this intimate channel than any others that factor into your cross-channel strategy. Draw on existing user data to personalize each message—demonstrate that you understand by using customers’ names and taking care to be relevant to them in that moment. Explore the ways that Braze can help your teams make the most of push notifications’ close connections to your customers.