Push Notification

Texts, phone calls, emails—there are so many ways for your brand to reach customers. We live in a time when everyone is glued to their smartphones, making it a natural way to do customer outreach. Complement your other promotional strategies with a smart push notification campaign to grow your brand.

Push Notification Basics

Push notifications are an amazing marketing tool that, when done right, give customers timely notifications that increase brand awareness, engagement, and sales.

All you need is a mobile app to get in contact with your customers. When customers download your app, they often opt into receiving push notifications.

Your app then sends push notifications out to your customers, which then brings them back to your app for a relevant offer.

Push notifications are convenient in so many ways, but you have to use them with caution.

When a customer downloads your app, they’re putting their trust in you. Going overboard with push notifications will really annoy your customers and cause them to mute you. Don’t bombard them with a push notification every day.

Strike a balance with push notifications. Deliver value and make it about serving your customer’s needs. Watch the timing to bring users to your app when it makes the most sense.

Push Notifications Versus Text Messages

Why would you choose to send a push notification to your customers instead of a text message?

While both these messages are delivered to a user’s phone and lock screen, they have a few important differences.

Push notifications have a very small character limit. Customers have to be able to read the entire message from their lock screen. Remember to limit your characters here to get better results. Push notifications are also free to your customers.

Text messages, on the other hand, can be longer. You can send up to 160 characters per message. Depending on your customer’s phone plan, they may have to pay to receive your text message. This can anger customers if you aren’t careful!

Push notifications are better if you want to alert your customers about small things, like a sale. They also significantly increase user engagement on your app; if your brand relies on app engagement, you need to use push notifications.

Push Notification Best Practices

Follow these best practices to make the most of your next push notification campaign:

1. Limit when you send push notifications – You shouldn’t send more than three push notifications to your customers per week. Otherwise, they may get annoyed and mute you—or even uninstall your app.
2. Use geotargeting – Use customer geographic location to send relevant push notifications. Ask for location permissions when they download your app. When they’re near your brick and mortar location, trigger a push notification that sends them a coupon.
3. Personalize it – Amazon does a great job of personalizing their push notifications. They send users Lightning Deals based on the customers’ purchase history. Do the same for your customers based on their behavior within your app. Look at their past history, purchases, and interests to send more relevant push notifications.

This content does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. This content is for informational purposes only. Consult a professional for your unique situation.