5 push strategies for APP operation!

When it comes to push notifications, everyone is familiar with them and may even have a headache about them. Nowadays, a mobile phone user will receive an information push from a mobile app or web browser every minute on average. But fellow operators, are you really making good use of the push function to maximize the effectiveness of your content marketing?

When it comes to push notifications, everyone is familiar with them. As long as you have a smartphone, watch or computer, you will receive push notifications. You don't need to know anything about push notifications to receive them. If your electronic device is connected to the Internet, you will receive a message push from your mobile app or web browser every minute.

Yet, despite push notifications’ power, deep penetration into the internet, and a variety of personalization options, many marketers are not seeing a clear return on investment (ROI) from them. They invested a lot of money in push notification services, but the returns they received could not even cover the cost of renting the push service.

For example, let’s take a look at the push notification below, which is a push notification promoting a limited-time sale on men’s clothing.

Assuming that this limited-time event message is pushed in the middle of the night, please answer a few questions related to it:

How many users do you think will see this push during the event period? How many users do you think will be interested in clicking on the push notification when the push notification sound wakes them up? As for those subscribers who have turned off push notifications on their phones but allowed push notifications on their computer browsers, how many users do you think will see this push?

That’s the crux of the matter. If we understand how push notifications work, we’ll find that many push notifications, although with tempting content and great deals, don’t get enough attention from users. The information was either not delivered on time or was not delivered to the correct device.

Obviously, this discount information is worth the user's attention, but because it was pushed to users at the wrong time, this message not only did not get the attention of mobile users, but also did not allow users to see it on computer browsers.

What you have to understand is that if users have agreed to receive push notifications, it means they are interested in your product. You have to plan, create products that are relevant to specific users at the right time, and ultimately push these relevant products to the right users.

This article will explore the practical applications of push and some push marketing strategies that marketers don’t often use. For marketers, missing out on these strategies is equivalent to missing out on a series of opportunities brought by push marketing.

1. You didn’t guide users to allow push notifications

Push notifications can only work if user permission is obtained. If the user does not agree to your website or mobile app pushing information, you cannot push information to the user. Especially for website page push notifications, you need to ask each visitor whether they agree to your information push.

Fortunately, when Android users install an app, push notifications are enabled by default. However, there is no such default setting for apps on Apple's iOS system. These apps need to ask users whether to allow push notifications after they have installed them.

So here comes the question:

Although push notifications are enabled by default on Android, users can still turn off notifications at any time. Even if iOS users allow push notifications after installing the app, they can still turn off notifications at any time. The above also applies to subscribers of page push notifications.

Getting users to agree to push notifications is not an easy task, and retaining subscribers is even more complicated.

You need to develop a plan of action to not only get users to agree to push notifications, but also to keep them agreeing to push notifications. The only way to achieve this goal is to obtain push permission from the relevant users.

How to obtain push permission from users?

Apart from the default push notifications for Android apps, getting users to agree to push notifications is a very tricky thing. For a marketer with elementary knowledge, he/she would simply choose to pop up the following prompt window to ask the user to agree to push notifications:

However, if you are a bit experienced, you should know that users do not want to receive any notifications. They want information. If users know more about the consequences of their choices, they will be able to make more informed decisions about allowing or disabling push notifications based on their understanding.

If you simply ask, “XYZ wants to send you notifications – block or allow,” you’re left to chance in getting the user’s permission to be notified. Push notifications can contain any content, including relevant information or completely unrelated information.

The best way to push notifications is to customize the opt-in pop-up box to give users as much useful information as possible when they choose. When designing your window, make sure the prompt tells potential subscribers what the consequences of their choice will be. Make it clear to users what type of messages they will receive if they choose to allow push notifications.

Here’s an opt-in pop-up from a blog that regularly sends health tips to users:

This pop-up box prompt clearly informs users which messages they will receive or miss if they choose to allow or block push. This plug-in is not limited to health tips. You can come up with various similar novel ideas based on your business scope.

For example, if you have an online store, then one of the best e-commerce marketing methods is to send transactional push notifications to your users. You can send the following messages to inform users:

Content: "We provide users with the latest discount information and purchase details";

Choices: "Please notify me"; "I don't need it".

in conclusion

This plugin is so basic that most marketers don’t think it is very important and thus ignore this aspect. In fact, when I was writing this bullet point, I tried to find some examples on the website, but there were almost no cases that fit the description. Most web pages still use the generic opt-in pop-up box.

In other words, this is a great opportunity to make your push notification stand out.

2. You don’t push notifications based on user preferences and behaviors

Many marketers push corresponding messages to users by tracking their behavior on the app. There is no doubt that this push method based on user behavior is very important. It can automatically push corresponding notifications without human intervention. However, these automated pop-up messages can sometimes be too frequent and are business-oriented in nature. In most cases, these pop-up messages always catch users off guard.

Targeting user behavior is key to remarketing and achieving app engagement goals, but it stops being as effective when you base all of your messaging based solely on user behavior. According to a survey by Localytics, 58% of users said that such behavior-based push notifications disrupt their lives, are annoying, and make them feel nervous. On the other hand, 49% of users admit that push notifications based on preferences are very useful to them and can make them use the app more frequently.

The bottom line is that if you rely solely on automated push notifications, 58% of them will most likely be ignored by subscribers. Only when push notifications can provide users with enough information before making a choice can users make a choice that satisfies marketers.

Starting with an opt-in pop-up and letting users choose which push notifications they receive will make your notifications relevant to users without making them feel intrusive.

For example, a user decides to stop watching a movie on Netflix because he doesn’t like the movie. If Netflix sends this user a "resume watching" notification, it will only make the user unhappy. Automatic push cannot determine whether the user stopped playing the movie because something happened or because he stopped watching it because he didn't like the movie.

The key is to not overuse behavior-based messaging, but also focus on preference-based messaging. You should let subscribers choose which notifications they want to receive or block. For example, if your product is a news app, you can let users choose the categories or topics they want to be notified about, such as sports, politics, science, or other aspects.

Let’s take a look at how Facebook allows users to choose which notifications to receive or block on the APP. Doing so will allow users to disable certain notifications, but it won't turn off all Facebook notifications at once.

3. You don’t set up geofencing for push notifications

Coordinate-based push is another popular push type among users, second only to preference-based push. However, this push method is not suitable for every business. Even so, if you think your business requires this type of push, go for it.

Traditionally, marketers have believed that geo-fencing technology is only applicable to businesses with physical stores. For example, you might geo-fence your physical retail store, and when a subscriber enters the fenced area, he or she will receive information about your offers and discounts.

However, in my opinion, even without a physical store, businesses can still use geofencing technology to attract users. You just need to consider two things:

Use geo-sensing technology to locate subscribers in real time so that relevant information can be pushed to users within a specific coordinate range. Set up geo-fences for popular areas and push relevant information to users in order to attract users and improve the user retention rate of the APP.

Uber uses the first point mentioned above to push relevant discount information to users in certain applicable areas based on their coordinate location. This also helps avoid annoying users with irrelevant messages (imagine if a promotion was only meant for users in New York, but was also sent to Uber users in London…)

*Uber sends discount information to Fifth Avenue in New York

The travel app below is a great example of a geo-fencing app that sets up geo-fencing at airports without having a physical store. It is pushing an important message to a specific user. After receiving such a notification, will users still want to turn off such push notifications?

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport pushes the conveyor belt for users to collect their luggage

4. You didn’t choose the right time to send marketing information

Push marketing is not just about sending information to users, it is also about increasing customer conversion rates or attracting more users. If the timing is wrong, users may simply glance at the message without clicking on it and then clear it from the notification bar.

This issue was discussed at the beginning of this article. It turns out that push notifications sent at the wrong time have no effect. These notifications do not generate any reaction and no return on investment. In order for push notifications to be effective, they must be delivered at the right time and with the right frequency.

Push notifications pop up at the right time

Your users may be from different time zones. Users in different time zones will view your push notifications at different times.

So first of all, you need to consider the time zone of your subscribers and don’t push information to all of them.

Second, even if the user is in the same time zone, you have to establish the correct time frame. For example, sending a message in the middle of the night will not have the same effect as sending a message during the day.

Third, different types of notifications should be pushed in different time periods. For example, suppose you are a blogger who publishes articles about health topics every day. You want readers to subscribe to your daily health tips. Then the best time to push such messages is in the morning because users will read some news and other messages in the morning. The same applies to news and beauty apps.

Fourth, bombarding users with push notifications is not a good idea either. Make sure there is a certain interval between two push notifications to give users enough time to think about the previous message and react. Repeatedly bombarding users with push messages will annoy them and ultimately backfire, causing them to turn off push settings.

in conclusion

You need to understand the above four points, but there is no need to use hard-core data to prove the best time to push relevant data.

However, the MarketingLand blog has published a detailed article on Localytics’ research on “the best time to send push notifications”, which you can take a closer look at.

5. You don’t have user surveys and subscription user segments

In order to make push notifications popular with users, relevance of information is the key to success, and the best way to do this is to segment subscribers into different groups based on certain aspects.

You can create user segments based on the following factors:

Time zone; real-time location; purchase history; browsing habits; browser type: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.; device type: desktop browser, mobile browser, mobile application, TV application, etc.; traffic source: direct or indirect traffic; visitor type: frequent or inactive.

You can also send different notifications to users of different device types:

Push in-app information to APP users; pop-up web page push information to mobile and desktop users; set up special buttons for Chrome browser users, which are only applicable to Chrome push notifications.

You can also categorize users by notification type and send them the following information:

Live football broadcast; news flash; product price reduction notice; weather forecast; flight notice; drama update, etc.

Finally, you can even set different push frequencies for each type of information, for example:

The push frequency of news information is higher than that of discount information. Set a regular time to send daily news, health tips, or blog tweets. You can segment certain messages so they can be sent at any time during any period of time. For example, information about the shipping status of a product or information about debits from a digital wallet. These are all transaction messages and need to be pushed in real time.

Summarize

Whether it’s transactional or interactive messaging, or information based on behavior, preference, or location, users appreciate information that’s relevant and interesting to them.

You need to understand your users, understand their pain points, and provide them with solutions through push notifications.

You need to get a push notification software that allows you to take relevant actions. To achieve positive results, you need to understand what users really want to see and what is meaningful to them.

Ultimately, your push notifications should not only be useful to your users, but also achieve your marketing goals. This is how push notifications work.

Source: Marry Ann