12 Benefits of Push Notifications in 2021

Push notifications have become one of the proven marketing channels of today. An increasing number of brands and businesses are employing these to engage customers, drive sales, and increase revenue. They use these to reach out to their customers and prospects at the right time and in the right way.

E-commerce sites send their delivery status updates, news channels send breaking news updates, and brands announce their special offers and newly launched products through push notifications. This is because most smartphone users like receiving information in real-time via push notifications.

Here is a list of 12 benefits of push notifications, accompanied by useful tips that can make your campaigns work. 

1. It has higher click-through rates

A study by MoEngage across 35+ countries shows that the click-through rate (CTR) for push notifications is up to 45%. This is much higher than that of SMS and emails. The open rates were also found to be 50% more than that of these.

For, unlike emails and SMS that go unopened for a long time, push notifications pop up on the user’s screen, compelling him to read it immediately. Concise messaging makes it easy and quick to read, and the fact that the user opts in for receiving it is yet another reason for this effectiveness.

2. It widens your reach

90% of consumers are ready to receive push notifications from interested brands and opt-in for them. This makes push notification marketing a great option. However, people are open to receiving only one push notification per week as long as they receive only one push notification. If apps start sending two to five per week, they resort to disabling their pushes. 

However, this holds only for promo messages from brands and not for relationship-based apps (like dating apps, messaging apps, and social media) and their favourite news apps. So, brands can start with one push per week, and over time can start experimenting on the optimum number of pushes their audience likes receiving. 

3. It helps reach people rightly

With push notification marketing, brands and businesses can reach their audience with the right message at the right time and in the right place. Unlike other marketing channels like social media and websites where there exist distracting posts and brand messaging, push notifications cut through the noise and get delivered to the users’ screens just when they are active on it.

This helps you build one to one relationship with your consumer, drive engagement, make sales, encourage retention, and boost loyalty. You just need to choose a push notification platform that facilitates automation and analysis (to know whether your content matches the needs of your audience).

4. It allows content curation

Personalization is what engages your audience with your brand. Your audience likes receiving content, which is highly curated to suit each of their preferences, needs, and behaviors. Push notifications allow this. By using appropriate software, you can send personalized content to your audience at different stages of their life cycle. What’s more, is that you can do so at any scale without shelling out a lot from your pocket.

For instance, brands can send thoughtful reminders to retarget audiences who are on the verge of completing an action, like starting a free trial, purchasing a product, making an email subscription, etc. Publishers can send alerts of local weather predictions, game updates, special offers, upcoming events, etc., to match the receiver’s interests.

When your users sign up with you for receiving push notifications, give them several options so that they can tick the specific types of notifications they would like to receive. This is a surefire way to curate your content to the user’s interests. 

5. It drives traffic to your website

You can send push notifications to encourage users to visit and use your site. Launching automated push notifications to alert your users to engage with your platform according to their time zone can drive quality traffic to your site. Gogy, a gaming platform with 10 t0 12 million monthly users, just did that.

It scheduled alerts about relevant and trending games on its site in advance. This drove tens of thousands of more users to its site each day. What’s more, is that users started having longer sessions, and the bounce rates were lower. The lesson to be learned from this gaming site is that by telling users what most other users do at your site, you lure them too to do those.

6. It aids in customer retention

Retaining an existing customer is more important than acquiring new ones. For, returning customers help you succeed at a whole new level. Just by boosting 5% of customer retention, you can see a 25 to 95% increase in profit, says a study by Forbes.

Customer retention depends on the way you treat your customer after converting him. You can take advantage of push notification marketing in this regard.

Studies say that sending your newly acquired customers a welcome notification within the first week leads to a 71% increase in app retention rates. After this, at regular intervals, you should keep sending them notifications that offer value to them. For instance, sale alerts, product recommendations, delivery status, etc., from an e-commerce store are useful to customers. This will generate a stable base of customer following for your brand.

7. It increases user engagement

Brands can use push notifications to attract more users at specific touchpoints. By sending real-time reminders and updates, you can get your users to engage with your brand regularly. One thing that you have to keep in mind is to keep in touch with them in a non-intrusive way.

You can do this by sending useful, relevant, and timely messages that provide value to them. You can simplify the actions required from their end by deep linking within push notifications. That is, placing an URL that will direct them to a specific part of your site where they have to act.

For instance, if an e-commerce store wants its users to know of a sale, it can bring them closer to the action (purchasing) by having a URL to the products page within the push. This will make them take quick actions in your favour.

8. It increases conversions

Push notifications bearing an effective call-to-action bring back lagging users and make them take actions that you want them to take. So, come up with a well-crafted push that users are unable to avoid. Segmentation can help here.

As aforementioned, using a good push notification platform can help split your users into smaller groups based on their location, interests, online behaviours, demographics, etc., and send them targeted notifications to drive conversions.

Another way to increase conversions is by sending timely messages. Send well-timed pushes for abandoned carts, nearby store locations, limited stocks, online sales, discounts, offers, etc., can work effectively by creating urgency.

9. It acts as a complementary marketing channel

You can use push notifications as an additional marketing channel to complement your marketing efforts. Send messages that give additional, value-added info about your brand. Let those alert customers of new features, last-minute deals, special offers, and coupons. This can be a powerful way to introduce an extra touchpoint in your marketing funnel.

Do make the most of this by including your logo as well as the colours and fonts of your brand. Maintaining such consistency will create a strong recognition for your brand. Also, remember to keep the tone friendly and personal so that the user fondly remembers your timely message.

10. It is easy to use

The right push notification platform can facilitate you to send targeted, personalized, timely, automated, and triggered notifications to a large group of audience easily. The software simplifies everything with its user-familiar, friendly and intuitive dashboard.

You can accomplish all things- from creating a message, customizing it, including links and images, sending it out, and analyzing different campaigns’ performance- all with a few clicks. So, rather than wasting precious time figuring out how to use the technology, you are left with enough time to create effective marketing strategies.

11. It allows rich media incorporation

Today’s technological advancements facilitate appearance diversity in push notifications. Instead of just texts and links, you can also include images, emojis, buttons, videos, GIFs, audio, and more. The use of such attractive and interactive elements stimulates user engagement.

A study by Airship shows that rich notifications with images averagely have a 56% higher direct open rate than notifications without images.

While sending notifications with rich media, you should also consider those users whose devices don’t support those files. For this, don’t refer to the used image in your text; use alternate text, or segment your users. This way, you can keep away from giving some of them a bad experience.

12. It allows you to track actionable metrics

Last but not the least, push notification marketing lets you track user behavior and derive useful insights therefrom. Push notification platforms offer complex analytics that reveals the delivery rates, open rates, interaction times, CTRs, and engagement of different campaigns.

These give you valuable information on the types of messages more likely to be opened and engaged with. You can use these metrics to better connect with users in your upcoming campaigns.

Push Notification Software

NotifyVisitors is an ideal platform for push notification marketing. It works on Chrome for Web, Chrome for Android, Firefox for Web, Safari for Web, and Samsung Internet for Web. It has features for customer segmentation (based on their on-site behaviour, devices, browser, the information provided, subscription period, and geo-location), AMP pages support, personalization, and triggered notifications.

You can integrate it with multiple platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, volusion, Drupal, Squarespace, Zapier, OpenCart, MailChimp, PrestaShop, Magento, BigCommerce, WordPress, and cs.cart.

Top names including Coca-Cola, TATA Sky, PVR Cinemas, Axis Bank, Emirates NBD, Wyndham, ApolloMunich, MakeMyTrip, Vodafone, American Express, etc., are using this software for their push notification marketing.

Final Thoughts

Push notifications are great at getting across your brand to your users and engaging them with it. Though highly effective, their potential goes untapped by most businesses and brands. Make sure that you don’t miss it out too. Start incorporating push messaging in your marketing strategy to build relationships with your users and ultimately make more profit.

Remember that no one-size-fits-all solution is available when it comes to pushing notification marketing. So, carry out some research to find the right approach to help you retain your existing users, acquire new ones, engage with them, and make sales.

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