What are push notifications? How much do they cost? A guide to push notifications.
A push notification is a message that pops up on the user's device. It is an amazing communication channel that enables you to stay in touch with your customers regardless of their location. Push Notifications can reach them even if they are not in the range of other marketing triggers like Beacons, WiFi or Geofence. There are a lot of benefits for using push and a few drawbacks as well. Learn why you should add it to your toolset:
- What are push notifications?
- How much do push notifications cost?
- What is push used for?
- Are push notifications effective?
- What are the downfalls?
- How can you get started with push notifications?
What are push notifications?
Push notifications at their core are simply a way of alerting users to information that they have opted-in. Push notifications are small messages that reach your customers phone anywhere and anytime, regardless of their location. While beacons, geofencing, wifi deliver messages only when someone is in proximity, this does not help if a customer is at home. You can send Push to notify your customers about a new promotion or event even if they are not actively using the application. Push notifications can be broadcasted to all customers or sent to a subset of users to give personalized information.
How much do push notifications cost?
Push notifications do not require any hardware infrastructure (compared to beacons, WiFi, NFC etc.) other than a mobile device therefore it does not have any initial cost. The only cost for using a push is included in the cost of marketing platform.
What is push used for?
Here are several examples of how you can use push notifications to engage customers, from welcoming them and on-boarding to nurturing relationship with your most loyal audiences:
Welcome Campaign
Reward Campaign
Re-engage Campaign
Welcome Campaign
Sending a welcome message to your customers is the first opportunity to set the tone of future communication. Ask yourself: “What can I communicate to provide immediate value to my customer?”. If your app is a shopping app, you might want to consider welcoming customers with a special offer or discount as an incentive to make their first visit to a store and purchase.
Reward Campaign
No matter what type of products you want to promote and sell, to keep customers coming back to your venue you have to build their loyalty and push notification campaign can help you achieve this. From time to time you can send a campaign that thanks them for their visits and adds a real value. For example a push notification campaign with a coupon, discount or exclusive offer. Besides going out of your way to thank your customers, you’re also giving them more reason to visit your venue and this will pay off in terms of user retention and LTV.
Re-engage Campaign
Some customers are active for the first couple of months, but then slowly visit less and less. A well planned, proactive push notification campaign can help you keep customer engagement high. Send a push campaign that sparks their curiosity and gets them back into your store.
Are push notifications effective?
In general push notifications are one of the most effective communication channels you can use to reach your audience. Done right, push notification CTRs (click through rates) can be as high as 40% — in comparison the best email CTRs are just around 5%. More than 50% of iOS users and more than 80% of Android users enable push notifications on their mobile devices.
What are the downfalls?
Push notifications bring amazing results but if done wrong they can lead your users to uninstall your app. Spamming customers with dozens of notifications a week is the easiest way to get them frustrated and uninstall your app. That is why you should only send push notifications when you have a clear vision of what you want your audience to do or if you have an important update to share.
How can you get started with push notifications?
Simply contact us and we will help you get started.