8 Push Notification Tips for Higher User Engagement and Sales

Push notifications are everywhere! By the time you read this sentence, your smartphone may have buzzed and it’s a new notification (Tada!).

Once you have received a push notification, there are three possibilities.

#1. You may either ignore it at a glance as it seems to be a spam.

#2. Uninstall the app as these notifications are sucking your blood like little nasty arachnids. (I bet you don’t want either of the two for your own app.)

OR, the third possibility, which is a utopian situation for every app owner or marketer.

#3. You check the notification and respond to it.

I guess it’s the number three that we all want. And in this article, we’ll tell you how to craft the push notifications that your users would love to respond.

Push Notification Ideas

Here are the top 8 tips, live by these and you’ll notice higher user engagement and sales.

#1. Be creative

Push notifications are just like any other piece of marketing or advertising content. So, what is that one thing you need for a compelling piece of content? It’s creativity. A creatively crafted push notification can improve the user engagement compared to just a simple dull message. Check this genius notification by Amazon informing the delivery status.

#2. Evoke Excitement

Triggering emotions helps you to connect with your users in a better way. And content with positive emotions like excitement has been proven to improve the user engagement. So, if you have an event or a sale coming up, start sending push notifications about the event or discounts to built up the excitement and curiosity among the users.

#3. Personalise

One of the of the biggest mistake most marketers do is firing generic notifications to the users. These notifications would serve no better than spam emails to the users. In fact, according to a survey, 78% of the users felt that the push notifications they received were irrelevant.

On the other hand, personalizing the content would make the users feel involved and engaged with the app. Use the valuable user data such as name, gender, age, location, preference, activity, wishlist, in-cart items, etc. to personalize your push notifications.

#4. Utilize Location and Time

Location data when combined with other behavioural data, can be used to improve the user experience. If your app has permission to access the location of the user, it can be helpful to deliver the relevant notifications. For instance, you can promote your product based on the weather and the geographical location of the user. If it’s raining or there is a snowfall in some area, you can notify about your relevant products. And it’s more likely that the users will buy your product when the need arises.

Even time is a great tool for sending a relevant notification and boost the user engagement. For instance, many music streaming apps suggest motivational music playlist in the morning or a playlist of chill songs during evening drive time. Music streaming app Wynk sends notifications of playlists on particular weekdays. Check the following.

#5. Make Users Feel Special

Everyone loves to feel special. You, me, the person sitting next to you, your office boy, each and every one of us. You can make your users feel special by sending them exclusive offers, discounts, news and information in form of push notification. And it works because they feel they are valued by you with a special discount or feel like an insider reading exclusive news. And this boosts the user engagement.

#6. Ask a Question, Make the Users Curious

Do you know what makes the users click on your notification? You already know the answer. Questions are a great way to start a conversation and it is also a simple and effective way to improve the user engagement. It evokes curiosity and triggers the answering reflexes in humans. The users stop for a while and think about it. So this may result in opening the app to know more. A well-drafted question can indeed improve the user engagement.

#7. Use Emojis and Images

When you communicate in person, you can convey your message verbally along with your facial expressions. However, when you send notifications, you communicate with just text which lacks liveliness. And it is quite difficult to convey emotions with a plain text. Here emojis and images can bring that missing spark in your push notification. They are a great tool to convey the mood, facial expressions, theme and emotions. Emojis can even come handy to keep the text brief and exciting at the same time. So just remember, adding emojis and images can provoke emotions which is a major factor influencing the users’ decision.

#8. Make the Users’ Life Easy

Apps must provide a solution to the problem of the users. It must provide utility and functionality. So should be your push notification. It should be useful to the users and make their life easy. For example, calendar app notifies about the upcoming events or Google Maps updates about the traffic. Many fitness and calorie tracking apps notify the users when it’s time to workout, fuel up with the food or time to consume water. All these make the user’s life easy as it provides utility. A push notification reminds your users the important tasks to take care of, which otherwise are overlooked in the busy schedule.

Wrap Up

Since its introduction in 2009 by Apple, push notification has come a long way. Now, it’s an integral part of any application on every device. It is a great tool that can help you to boost user engagement and sales if used correctly. Keep the above points in mind and you’ll get dramatic results from your push notifications. Hope you enjoyed reading it and would utilize the tips in your own app. If you have any query or would like to know more about incorporating push notification in your mobile app development, feel free to contact us. We are Techuz, a top mobile app development company in India.

Originally published at www.techuz.com on May 7, 2018.

8 Push Notification Tips for Higher User Engagement and Sales was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.