4 Ways to Use Push Notifications to Increase App Engagement
When you decide to launch an app, there are many benefits that likely influence your decision. Surely, you’ve considered superior user experience and home screen top-of-mind awareness, but even more relevant than these aspects? The direct communications app grant you to your most invested customer segments. With push notifications, you get real time, targeted access to communicate anything to your customer base. It’s a level of precision marketers of years past have only dreamed of – and apps make it a reality.
To get the most out of your targeted push messages, try one (or all) of the following strategies to drive engagement and conversion:
1. Reach out sooner than later
Users who’ve opted into receiving your messages are priceless. If you don’t reach out within 90 days to these valuable users, you risk wasting 95% of the acquisition investment you’ve made for them, due to their high likelihood of abandonment. Consider automated push notifications for this purpose. For example, send new users a message with a coupon code for a discount in the first week of download to keep the app relevant in their mind and drive brand affinity.
2. Target your audience as much as possible
Targeted push messages perform up to 7x better than broadcast messages. The more specific you can be, the better. Consider targeted for gender to communicate about relevant product launches, restock and sales; target for location to send messages pertaining to in-store events or location-specific messages; and target for device type to ensure the lenght of your message suits the device it’s served on.
3. Don’t over-communicate!
If a user has opted into receiving your messages, you absolutely must maintain the brand affinity you’ve established with them. Over-communicating and flooding their notification center with low-quality, spammy, or irrelevant messages is the fastest way to an opt-out, or worse – an app deletion.
4. Don’t forget about the loyal users
Providing new users and recent downloaders a reward seems obvious, but are you rewarding your long-time and repeat users? Consider integrating a rewards system into your app, and communicating with push messages about progress towards discounts or other incentives. This way, your valuable repeat customers don’t feel slighted by their loyalty, but rewarded.
Push notifications are one of the app’s most powerful features. Use them right, and your customer – and bottom line – will thank you.
