Some industries in particular – banking, food and drink, travel, and ecommerce – have seen mobile apps explode in popularity. These applications create a convenient and safe environment for users to do business within through a variety of features on iOS and Android devices. Still, you may offer the most useful, intuitive, and beautiful app out there, but its full potential will never be realized without some outbound communication being added to the mix. Today, let’s talk about the reasons why your business needs Mobile Push notifications.
Think of a mobile application as a digital representation of your company. It can have all the positive attributes and features that customers may expect but chances are it won’t simply sell on its own. At least not to the extent it could.
Mobile app Push notifications enter the scene, combining the roles of the marketing and sales departments, to deliver messages which can serve a variety of purposes, with the ultimate goal of increasing the revenue. The bottom line is that skillful, effective communication is simply indispensable for achieving your business goals, so here are the…
Reasons why your mobile app needs Mobile Push notifications
Globally, the mobile sector has constituted the majority of ecommerce since at least 2018 and is projected to grow further to nearly 2 ⁄ 3 of it by 2027 and beyond. With that in mind, you can safely say that the industry is increasingly becoming mobile-first.
With more and more brands entering the stage, there’s an increasing competition for customer attention in every niche (for example 22.03% of all Pushes are sent by ecommerce businesses) and well-designed communication including Mobile Pushes is what can make a difference in the outcomes.
That being said, here are the essential benefits of Push notifications – 5 strong arguments for including Mobile Pushes in your marketing communication strategy:
1. Increase app communication efficiency
In order for a commercially-oriented message to be efficient in conveying your brand’s message, it has to:
a) successfully reach the user’s mobile device in the first place (our 99% deliverability takes care of that)
a) successfully reach the user’s mobile device in the first place (our 99% deliverability takes care of that)
c) have a powerful visual and linguistic design (persuade app users to convert)
Push notifications allow you to check those boxes by providing a modern, visually attractive messaging format, with the brand logo appearing in the phone’s top notification bar, and the inclusion of emoji, gifs, images, as well as action buttons prompting the user to make that next move.
Although you may originally want to use Mobile Pushes solely for sales purposes, it can be way more than just that and therein lies its true power. For instance, have a look at these creative strategies for customer retention involving Push notifications.
There isn’t a single recipe for the most efficient Push format but the essentials will pretty much always involve audience segmentation, personalization, and deep linking, intended to take the customer directly to any specific place inside your app or website where they can take the desired action.
Push notifications are an essential tool to help you make your communication more efficient and get users to re-engage with your app. Speaking of which…
2. Raise user engagement
We’ve briefly touched on customer retention in the previous section but it only follows the engagement.
Now, the idea of customer engagement is quite common in the business context but what exactly does it mean? Well, it can be many things, depending on a company’s specific goals but in essence it’s about developing an ongoing interaction between your brand and customers that goes beyond just the transactions. This, ideally, leads to customer retention, higher lifetime value and repeat business.
Mobile Pushes create a channel for you to increase app usage and maintain this continuous interaction in a variety of ways limited only by your creativity, as not just discounts can build a positive experience leading to greater customer engagement. Use this channel as a re-engagement tool, to remind your app users about abandoned carts, wishlist items, or time-limited promos, essentially drawing them back to the app or online store.
3. Collect customer insights
Interacting with customers via different channels isn’t just a chance to work towards building loyalty and increasing sales but also an opportunity to collect a lot of essential information that can be used to improve your operations.
The implementation of Mobile Pushes for your app opens the door for a lot of experimentation that can help you better understand what truly resonates with the customers, as well as collect more detailed insights into specific engagement factors to gauge the effectiveness of your overall communication strategy.
These factors include:
- Open rate
This metric indicates the percentage of users who open the Push notification once it pops up on their phone. A higher OR suggests that the notification’s content was compelling enough to grab users’ attention. This is generally a good measure of the quality of your writing and graphic design efforts.
- Click-through rates
CTR measures the percentage of users who not only opened the Push notification but also clicked on the link inside or took another desired action. It indicates the level of interest and engagement generated by the notification’s content.
- Conversion rate
Conversion rates track the percentage of users who completed a specific desired action after interacting with the Push notification. This can include making a purchase, signing up for a service, or downloading an app.
- App usage patterns
Analyzing how users engage with the app following the receipt of a Push provides insights into their behavior and preferences. You can track metrics such as time spent in the app, pages visited, or features accessed.
- Retention rate
Monitoring how Pushes influence user retention rates over time helps assess their effectiveness in keeping users engaged with the app or website. In essence, Push notifications should always be relevant and engaging if you don’t want to be bleeding users.
- Opt-out rates
This metric shows you the percentage of users who unsubscribed from receiving Push notifications. High opt-out may signal that the messages are perceived as irrelevant or intrusive, prompting users to disengage.
- Segmentation performance
Assessing how different user segments respond to Pushes allows for targeted optimization – adjusting the content to the specific groups you’re reaching out to. You can analyze engagement metrics across demographics, user preferences, or behavioral patterns to tailor messaging for better results.
- Time-based analysis
Tracking engagement metrics over time, such as daily, weekly, or monthly trends, helps you identify patterns and figure out the best time to send Push notifications for maximum impact.
- A/B testing results
A/B testing Push notifications with different variations of its specific elements (e.g., messaging, visuals, timing) enables you to identify the most effective strategies for driving engagement and conversion.
4. Boost sales
Mobile Pushes are a versatile channel that will convey whatever message you want them to thanks to the combination of text and imagery they offer. In the most fundamental business context, Pushes can serve as a powerful tool for increasing revenue in various ways. Here are several specific ways they can help you boost sales:
- Promotional offers and discounts
Pushes can be used to alert customers about exclusive promos, discounts, or limited-time offers, encouraging them to make purchases by providing incentives and creating a sense of urgency.
- Abandoned cart recovery
Push notifications can help remind users about items left in their shopping carts, prompting them to complete the purchase. Offering incentives like free shipping or discount codes can further incentivize users to return and finalize their transactions.
- Product recommendations
By leveraging customer data (the collection of which Pushes can support, as discussed earlier) and browsing history, you can send personalized Push messages with relevant product recommendations optimized to individual preferences and interests, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
- Flash sales and daily deals
Pushes can notify mobile users about flash sales, daily deals, or special events, driving immediate engagement and encouraging impulse purchases by offering attractive discounts on select products for a limited time.
- New product launches
Your business can use Pushes to announce the launch of new products or product lines, generating excitement and curiosity among customers and driving traffic to the store with the intent of exploring and purchasing the latest offerings.
- Cross-selling and upselling
Push notifications may be utilized to promote related or complementary products to customers based on their purchase history or browsing behavior, effectively cross-selling and upselling additional items to increase the overall order value.
- Customer loyalty programs
Mobile Pushes can inform users about their progress in loyalty programs, reward milestones, or exclusive perks available to loyal customers, fostering repeat purchases and building long-term customer relationships.
- Event-based messaging
You can send notifications related to specific events or holidays, such as seasonal sales, Black Friday campaigns, or Cyber Monday, capitalizing on heightened consumer interest and driving sales through targeted promotions.
- Geotargeted offers
Making use of location-based targeting, you can send a Push notification with special offers or discounts to users when they are in proximity to a physical store or location, bringing foot traffic in and generating immediate purchases.
- Customer feedback and reviews
Push notifications can be used to obtain customer feedback, reviews, or ratings after a purchase, encouraging user engagement and providing valuable insights for improving products and services, ultimately fostering trust and loyalty among customers.
5. Bolster your brand image and consistency
The sales volume is affected by a variety of factors and the way your brand is perceived in general is one of them. Until a wider adoption of the RCS Business Messaging channel, bringing Push notifications into your marketing mix helps you build an image of a modern organization that keeps up with the times and the mobile-first trend in ecommerce we touched on earlier in the article.
Also, you may already be using Email or SMS to stay in touch with your customers and the addition of Mobile Pushes can help you broaden the reach even further. A cross-channel communication strategy will help you preserve messaging consistency and brand image across various channels.
Reasons to use Push notifications for your app in a nutshell
If you have said A, as in “Ah, yes, we need to invest in mobile app development.”, then you must also say B, as in “But of course! We have to start sending Pushes.”
The former leads to the latter in a logical way and there are at least five major reasons for why your business needs Mobile Push notifications. Perhaps the two biggest of these are customer engagement and boosting sales, which are interconnected and can be achieved in multiple ways. Add in a wide range of user insights you can collect plus the overall improved communication efficiency and you got yourself a powerful channel with plenty of potential.
