How to push messages to APP (I)

With the development of the Internet and the continuous increase in mobile phone capacity, users are installing more and more apps. Except for high-demand and high-frequency apps such as WeChat and Toutiao, most apps just lie quietly in a small corner of the mobile phone desktop every day, passively waiting for users to wake them up.

According to a research report by market analysis company Localytics based on 1.5 billion devices and 28,000 apps, if users turn on the push notification function of an app, 62% of users will use the app again after a few months.

In summary, we can find that Push message push is indeed the only choice to activate users to open the APP, and it is also an important means to retain users.

1. Features of Push

Compared with the previously popular user contact methods such as SMS and email, Push message push has four major characteristics: comprehensive, accurate, real-time and free.

1. Comprehensive

A single Push notification can cover all daily active users, monthly active users, and even silent users who have downloaded the app but have not opened it for a long time. As long as new users allow notification permissions at the beginning, Push can reach them directly.

2. Accuracy

Compared with offline advertisements in subways and buildings or online marketing advertisements on Weibo and news clients, the users pushed by Push are those who have already downloaded, installed and used the APP. They have a higher conversion rate and greater user value. They are the users you most want to influence when promoting activation and retention.

3. Real-time

Weather information is pushed on weekday mornings, takeaway red envelope information is pushed before lunch, news headlines are pushed after get off work, and movie coupon information is pushed on weekends. Not only that, operations can also quickly combine marketing with hot events of the day and quickly follow up on consumer hotspots through Push notifications.

4. Free

Compared with paid promotion in electronic markets and search ads, the initiative of Push message push is in the hands of the APP itself and does not require any cost.

2. Benefits of Push to Operations

What benefits can Push message push bring to product operations with the above four characteristics?

1. Improve product activity DAU and MAU

DAU and MAU are heavy KPIs that many operators bear, and reasonable and accurate Push notifications can arouse a large number of active users and fill the problem of low APP usage frequency and insufficient daily activity.

2. Drive the utilization rate of functional modules

Except for a small number of core users, ordinary users will only use a few core functions in an APP, while APP developers will continue to update it regularly to expand the range of functions horizontally.

Taking Dianping as an example, the vast majority of users use Dianping only to search for nearby food or buy movie tickets to help themselves make life consumption decisions, but they are not very familiar with or exposed to home improvement, marriage, fitness, education and other businesses.

By sending discount red envelopes, promotional activities, and selected content through Push messages, users can quickly learn about newer and less frequently used services.

3. Bring in transaction orders/increase product stickiness

For e-commerce applications, Push is a powerful tool for increasing daily transaction volume. Whether it is red envelopes for takeout, movie discounts, taxi discount coupons, or platform promotions, or limited-time shopping push notifications at the hour.

This type of Push will awaken users’ greed, bring considerable order volume to the App, and directly convert users with weak purchasing intention into daily consumers.

For social /content applications, Push is an effective way to increase product stickiness. Friends like, comment on and review their status; celebrities, influencers and web celebrities they follow update their latest pictures, texts or videos; there are big scandals and gossips in the chaotic entertainment industry or major transfer or retirement news in the sports world, etc.

The immediate push of this type of Push can greatly promote user attention, increase user usage rate and user loyalty.

4. Wake up dormant users

As APP developers, we have to admit that most users currently have a lot of apps on their phones, but they are used less and less. Many apps are downloaded, used 1-2 times, and then never used again.

The appropriate Push message push can effectively awaken these dormant users and retain them. When a product passes the start-up phase and explosive growth phase and enters the mature phase, cost saving is more important than increasing revenue.

3. Benefits of Push to Users

Push can bring growth in DAU and MAU to product operations, drive the use of low-frequency modules, bring in transaction orders or increase user stickiness and awaken dormant users. So what does Push mean to users?

Link believes that it allows users to access content that they are interested in or that is useful in the laziest way possible. For example, users can obtain and track high-quality information they care about more easily, efficiently and timely by actively subscribing to people, information and events that interest them.

At the same time, there is actually a big difference between users' demand for APP information push and the core demands of APP.

Let’s still take Dianping as an example. The users of Dianping are mainly white-collar middle-class people in first- and second-tier cities, aged between 25 and 35 years old. They have good financial ability, love food, and pursue quality of life.

The core needs of users in review are ranked in order of priority: helping to make consumption decisions on food and entertainment, finding group purchase discounts, and improving efficiency by queuing and selecting seats online. However, for Push notifications, the priority of user needs will change significantly.

1. Function reminder information

Users are most concerned about information that is strongly related to their own browsing, searching, and transactions, such as restaurant queues, takeaway updates, concert orders, etc. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it satisfies the user's underlying psychological needs - the need for security and the desire to be quickly informed of the latest information.

2. Promotional information

This type of messages are mostly actively recommended by operations and passively accepted by users. Of course, there are also push notifications that users actively subscribe to, such as daily check-ins and limited-time purchase reminders. It satisfies the users' greed and desire for cheapness. After all, whether they are rich or those who are tightening their belts, they all hope to save some money and satisfy their sense of superiority that they have "made a profit."

3. Content selection information

This type of news presentation format, such as food rankings, entertainment rankings, etc., is ranked at the bottom of the demand compared to Toutiao news applications. The main reason is that the content is difficult to accurately reach the user's psychology.

Users are at different times, places, and moods, so it is difficult to target content based solely on their past browsing, searching, and transaction behaviors. Because the collection, analysis, and processing of users’ past behavior data will cause a delay in Push notifications, and machines are unable to perceive users’ tendency to get bored with the old and love the new, it is easy for them to fall into a narrow circle of user behavior.

As a result, the pushed content often only makes users feel "oh" instead of "wow", and over time they will no longer expect or click on it.

4. Push Push Issues

Everything has its pros and cons. The above article analyzes the positive effects that Push push brings to platform operations and users. So let’s take a look at what problems exist in Push push?

1. Frequent sending disturbs users

Multiple marketing push content is pushed every day, and the push content is still being sent to users during the rest time from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., and parent-child information is pushed to unmarried users. Frequent and irrelevant push notifications can easily cause users to feel disgusted and prompt them to turn off the push notification button.

2. Users are numb to push notifications

With red envelopes given out every day, 9.9 yuan promotions every day, and limited-time sales every day, users' psychological expectation threshold continues to rise as they receive more and more information, and they are definitely immune to this type of information products. As a result, when the operation sends real discount content, old users are unwilling to click, and fewer and fewer new users are willing to open an APP push.

Users are gradually becoming numb to push messages, which is not caused by a single APP, but is the result of the joint efforts of many active APPs. In addition, as users’ education level continues to increase, their awareness of self-management continues to strengthen, which also leads to a decline in the click-through rate of user Push.

3. Loss of user trust

This type of problem is an aggravation of the second point mentioned above. In order to lure users to click on Push, the operators exaggerate the information. They say there are red envelopes when there are none, they say small red envelopes are large red envelopes, they even say that users are lucky users who are selected when it is obvious that everyone has them, etc.

The above Push notifications will seriously undermine user trust, not only attracting a large number of negative complaints, but may even cause users to directly uninstall the app.