How to Get the Most out of a Push Notification Service

Even though push notifications have been around for a while now, only recently have mobile user engagement companies and push notification services come into the forefront of marketing in the digital age. As more companies begin to add push notifications to their roster, the need for well-crafted messaging continues to gain value.

In order to help your campaign, whether you are using a push notification service or doing it in-house, we have put together how to get the most out of this latest trend. With more companies adopting this method than ever before, it is a necessity to stand out and be different than all the others. Hopefully, with a few tips, you will have exactly what you need to do this.

Why sending good push notifications matters

Before we take a look at exactly how to create good push notifications, let’s first talk about why it matters. According to recent research, 71% of app installs are triggered by a push notification. Users who may not have ever uninstalled your app will be reminded to by a badly thought out push notification.

However, when done correctly, push notifications can help with customer engagement, retention, and overall satisfaction with your app or service. Knowing now why you need to focus on crafting these messages, let’s now get into exactly how to create remarkable push notifications and campaigns.

Keep timing in mind

As we just mentioned, the downside to a poorly done push notification is losing the user altogether. This is why our first word of advice for using a push notification service is to always keep timing in mind. There are certain times of day that your users don’t want to be disturbed. By sending a message at the wrong time, you risk catching them at a bad moment and losing them forever.

Use mobile app analytics to learn about your customers. Depending on the industry you fall within will change the scheduling of when you send out your push notifications. For instance, sending someone a push notification for coffee at 7pm will likely have a much lower success rate than one sent at 7am. Make sure that you are monitoring and scheduling with your push notification service for times that make sense for you.

 mobile app analytics

Use push notifications to meet users outside of the app

While there are many reasons to use a push notification service, the primary goal of most campaigns is to reduce churn rate and retain customers. You have spent a lot of time, energy, and resources to acquire the customers, now it is time to make sure they stick around.

Thankfully, push notifications are perfect for this type of brand messaging. Push allows you to meet your users outside of the app and remind them of the value that they offer. Most companies prove their value up front and expect it to last them through the customer relationship, but now that users have more choices, this simply won’t do.

Use push notifications to remind users of the value that you offer. Whether it be promotional or simply to remind them you exist, make sure that your push notification has a purpose and will add value to the user.

algorithm

Know what to measure

With any marketing campaign, measuring success can be done in a variety of different ways. After all, unless you measure how things are working, how will you know if you are being successful or not?

When it comes to push notification services there are three main metrics you should be monitoring to tell you whether or not your campaign is going well. These metrics are:

  •      Opt-in rates: the fact that someone has downloaded your app does not mean that you can start sending them push notifications immediately. Monitor your opt-in rates to make sure your messaging is on-point to ensure that you are doing all you can to get users engaged.
  •      App uninstalls: we mentioned this earlier, but this metric is critical to your success. If your push notifications are leading to higher app uninstalls, stop what you are doing and rethink your approach.
  •      Conversions: the most important metric with a push notification service is that the messages are actually doing their job. Conversions, after all, is the ultimate goal.

Take a long-term view when analyzing results

Now that you know the different areas to track, our next best practice involves the next step. As you monitor your results, remember to keep things in a long-term view. What this means is that often push notification services can take a bit to get used to, both with your messaging and timing. Along with that, your users will have to get used to receiving them.

The reason you should take a long-term view is that it is simply the best way to understand your results. For instance, many companies (namely Slack) have seen great results early on in a campaign, only to see it falter later. While others have stuck with a program that didn’t seem like it was going to work, but just needed time for the users to get used to it. Just remember to always keep the big picture in mind.

Push notification iOS

Give the user what they want

Earlier when we were talking about measurement, we mentioned conversions. Conversions mean that the user took whatever prompt or call-to-action that was in your push notification and tapped through to the next screen. This is very important to success, but the only way to have success here is by giving the user what they want.

Companies in the past have had great messaging with their push notification service but when users clicked through to find out more, they didn’t find what they needed. Learn from their mistakes. Set the expectations of your user so that you can meet them and give them what they want the first time.

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