Don’t Underestimate How Notifications Can Push Your Business Forward

Jul 22, 2014

Don’t Underestimate How Notifications Can Push Your Business Forward

Despite what some businesses perceive, many consumers find push notifications incredibly valuable. In fact, approximately 76 percent of those between the ages of 18 to 34 receive push notifications on their phones, according to a survey conducted by Responsys.

The survey also discovered that marketers saw a 50 percent increase in open rates of push notifications when compared to email, with click-through rates jumping twice as high.

With iOS 8 set to release this fall, Apple has started to redefine how users can interact with notifications on the company’s platform. Moving forward, notifications will become interactive, allowing you as a business to build engagement with customers through their lock screen.

Apple plans on making notifications a more powerful tool and will allow app developers to tap into that power in a variety of ways, including letting users interact with a notification without having to quit whatever they’re doing on their phone.

Despite notifications having been around for a number of years, few businesses seem to really value them. But with new interaction on the way and data now to support the value of notifications, businesses need to start reevaluating what push has to offer.

Here are a few tips to get you started on better understanding notifications and how to use them to increase customer engagement.

The More Relevant the Better

Treat your notifications like you would posts to a social media account like Facebook or Twitter. Try to actively engage users through push notifications in the same way you would if writing a blog post. What both have in common is relevancy. Make your push notifications relevant to your customer base.

Improve with Analytics

Interaction with content improves when you target specific customers groups, especially those more likely to respond. However, in order to know which groups to target, you need to understand your customer base, including their interests, what they’re buying and what they’re thinking about buying.

Tracking these types of metrics using analytics will help you create notifications relevant to specific customer types.

Don’t Over Do It

Even your most loyal customers can become fatigued by excessive communication. This same principle applies to push notifications. In fact, it’s even easier to push your customers too far with excessive notifications. To help keep your content fresh, don’t send out daily content unless you have a good reason, like a limited time sale or promotional release. You’ll see an increase in conversions by communicating with your customer base at the appropriate intervals rather than with constant bombardment.

Use your analytical data to determine when your customers seem more engaged with your content and schedule notifications during times you’ll see the highest interaction.

Avoid Repetition

Try not to fall into repetitive patterns of always pushing a deal or “limited time offer.” Consider how Facebook and Twitter interact with users by sending push notifications advertising events. While some of these notifications are subtle, they do generate enough interest to keep brining users back.

Give Over Control

While this may be the most difficult tip to implement, you should attempt to give your customers control of what push notifications they receive. You may consider breaking your notifications into different categories so you can empower your customers with the ability to decide which notifications they want to opt out of.

 

Considering how Apple plans on highlighting notifications this fall, push has the potential of offering your business increased exposure and customer interaction. However, sending out generic or mass produced messages won’t help increase customer interaction. Spend the same amount of time crafting push notifications as you do emails and you’ll start to generate the results you want.

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