How to get more from Push Notifications?

Finding the right way to utilize mobile push notifications is both an art and a science. If you have an app and you’re trying to goose users into action, push notifications are the way to go. Here I will break down the not-yet mighty push notification, general best practices, opt-in best practices, two main ways to segment your customers, timing best practices and push notification types.

General best practices:-

1.      Provide Value – What does your customer get out of interacting with your push notifications? Is it an exclusive sale? Whatever it is, make sure it’s clear and gives the user insider access to something that non-users won’t get.

2.   Make it visual – Adding pictures and videos to a push notification can result in more powerful storytelling by triggering emotional responses in users that plain text simply can’t. If you’re selling a product, that’s on sale, add a picture of the product. If a deal is expiring, add a clock.

3.     Personalize – If you’re communicating directly on the phone’s interface, include the user’s name to mimic the feel of a one-on-one conversation.

Opt-in best practices for Push Notifications – Before users take any action on your push notification, they must opt-in.

1.      Convey the value of your push notifications – Include value proposition that specifically focus on the benefits users will receive from push notifications. Ensure these value propositions are display under the app store description, as well as when users first engage with the app.

2.      Wait for right time to ask for the permission – Resist asking users to opt in right when they open the app, they won’t understand the full value of the service yet. Let users explore the app first, and then ask for permission when they are at a point where there is a clear need that push notifications could satisfy.

3.      Use a “soft-ask” approach - First, use in-app messaging to ask users if they want to receive push notifications. If the user says “yes,” then present those users with the official permission prompt. If the user replies “no,” allow them more time to find value in the app before asking again.

4.      Consider making an in-app micro-permission control center – In-app micro-permission control centers allow users to select the types of notifications they are interested in receiving.

5.      Leverage in-app messaging on customers who refused to grant permission – While you can only send the official permission prompt to a user once, you can leverage in-app messaging as many times as you want. Customers who answered “no” to official permission prompt should be targeted with in-app messaging that highlights the benefits of receiving pushes from the app. These messages should also include a link to “Settings” from which push notifications can be enabled.

Segment Push notifications according to Behavior – The more tailored to its audience a push notification is, the higher its open rate will be. As such, segmenting is imperative. One effective way to segment your user base is through their behavior. Looking at the various ways customers interact with the app provides valuable insight into what they care about and how engaged they are with the brand. This, in turn, helps us understand how often we want to send them pushes and what aspects of the app to highlight when we do.

Segment Push Notifications according to user Preferences – Another effective way to segment users is by their preferences, which informs strategy on which products customers care about the most. We can gain insight into user’s preferences by looking at their past engagement with products through the app and website and by defining their inclusive and exclusive traits.

1.      Inclusive Traits – When a user interacts with a product through the website or app, this indicates they have a positive preference towards that item.

2.      Exclusive Traits – When a user ignores promotions or emails for a certain product, this indicates they might have a negative preference toward that item.

Timing for Push Notifications – The effectiveness of any push-notification strategy is largely dependent on timing. The day of the week, time of day and frequency at which you send push notifications can drastically affect their open rates.

1.      Consider your users time zones – The last thing a push notification should do is wake a customer up in the middle of the night. Take time zones into account to ensure that all customers are receiving pushes at reasonable times.

2.      Avoid Scheduled blasts – Think about what times and days during the week your users typically engage and consider how this may vary by region, demographics and user behavior.

3.      Progressively increase the intervals between pushes for disengaged customers – Customers who are disengaged with the app must be dealt with very carefully, as sending too many pushes to someone who isn’t invested in the brand could easily cause them to delete the app. Use a push strategy in which you progressively add more time between each push.

4.      Never stop testing – While these guidelines may provide a nice starting point for a push strategy, it’s imperative to keep testing and honing your timing and cadence to find the optimal times to reach users.

Notifications Types – There are many different types of push notifications that can be used to accomplish a variety of goals, ranging from informing users of new promotions to providing them with industry-related entertainment.

1.      Welcome Push

2.      Preference based Push

3.      Cart Abandonment Push

4.      Delivery update Push

5.      Topical Push

6.      Promotional Push

   Once you’ve gotten users to download your app, push notifications are a great way to increase conversions and revenue – but don’t abuse the privilege. Be thoughtful, be relevant and be helpful and your users will reward you by engaging.

Customer Acquisition with your own Data

In the battle for customer acquisition, data plays an important role in marketing strategy, along with a desired product and excellent creative. There’s also the challenge of reaching a target audience where they spend most of their time, which today is within mobile apps and browsing social media. When we look at Google, Facebook and Amazon from the perspective of an advertiser, we see that they utilize much more data for their own benefit than they make available for audience segmentation.

While numerous data sources are available for targeting across most digital properties, one of the most effective ways brands can target is by bringing their existing opted-in datasets to social media. This frequently provides a competition advantage over the “walled gardens” of the major technology players, as your own data is typically much more relevant to your marketing efforts. The four major sites – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat – all provide advertisers the ability to create custom audiences using their own data, and in some cases to use third-party data sets.

Typically, the most utilized datasets to match against are email addresses, identifiers/tags provided by the social media sites themselves and mobile advertising IDs. Most sites require a minimum of 1,000 records in order to create a custom audience. This is for privacy reasons and to ensure that the segment is large enough to deliver appropriately.

The ability to create custom audiences on social media allows advertisers to reframe many of their existing marketing tactics. They can encourage repeat visits, whether in-store or online, from existing customers, or try to win shoppers from competitive locations. Brands without physical locations that seek to go directly to the consumer can use custom audiences to reach their market on social media as well. Most sites also allow advertisers to create “lookalike” audiences to help increase the scale of the campaign. They look for common characteristics from the audience you’ve uploaded and find similar consumers for your campaign to reach.

Aside from being able to reach a relevant audience, bringing your own data to a social media site can also result in performance improvements and cost savings. Using own opted-in data sets will become an increasingly important tactic for the marketer’s overall customer acquisition strategy to achieve that goal.

Structuring Email Campaigns to retain Customers

If you’re in marketing, at one point in your career you have either heard or learned for yourself that keeping a customer costs less than obtaining a new one. Retention marketing is important. To craft an effective retention strategy, you must first understand your customers and how they behave. Focus on how they interact with your products as they browse your store. They are essentially doing the work for you and segmenting themselves based on their actions. Recognize which of these behaviors is important.

Engage your Customers with Email – Aside from the fixed cost of whatever email service you’re using, emailing your customers is free and you’ve already got their addresses. These are the email types every marketer should weave into retention strategy.

The Welcome Email – After submitting their email addresses, most online leads expect to receive a welcome email. The goals of welcome email are – Introduce the user to the company, Reiterate the value of the product and establish a humanizing tone.

The Nurture Email - Unlike other email types, the goal of nurture emails is not explicitly to sell, but rather to build your brand among your email subscribers. When users need to purchase a product your company sells, your brand will be the first one they turn to if nurture emails have done their job. The goals of nurture email are – Educate the Customer, Get the customer hooked on your brand & make your business relatable.

The Promotional Email – These should be an integral part of any email strategy, as they are an effective way to increase conversion. Utilize a prominent CTA, Create Urgency & Include a reason for the offer.

The Cart Abandonment Email – It is a big issue in e-commerce; around 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned. This email type can recover a good portion of those. The goals of this email are – Utilize the first email as a remainder, Send a follow-up email with a discount & highlight the value of the product or your website. You can’t assume your customers will respond to a set strategy. Best practices can be followed initially, but testing your ideas is important.

When developing your retention strategy, it’s useful to keep an eye on the emails your competitors are sending. Identify your competition, become a lead for the competitor by engaging in behaviors of interest, set up a folder in your inbox to receive their emails. Typically, one month of collection will give you a clear sense of their retention strategy, though some long-tailed verticals may need more time. After collection, begin examining the strengths and weaknesses behind their retention strategy.

Other considerations for retention –

Checking email on mobile is norm. Prioritizing mobile is key to success in any email retention efforts. Timing should always be a consideration.