How to Design the App Notification Strategy to Increase User Engagement

• Mobile
• November 19, 2019

by Anish Panchal

The past two decades have seen a massive rise in the use of mobile phones worldwide.

Billions of people now own a smartphone and enjoy access to the internet. An overwhelming majority of users also keep multiple apps on their mobile phones to access a company’s goods and services.

Mobile marketing can be, without a doubt, the most effective way to engage your audience; however, there is a fine line between being engaging and downright annoying and unnecessary.

If you want to see continuous user engagement, you will need to find new marketing tactics irrespective of the kind of business you have. You will need to adapt to new channels to keep your audience engaged.

One such channel that has risen for app owners recently is the push notifications. Not only are app notifications effective to reach your customers and prospects, but they are also great to retain existing customers over longer periods.

According to research, app notifications can improve user engagement by as much as 88 percent, if used intelligently. Since they provide a much easier way to put time-sensitive updates in front of the readers, push notifications can be a powerful tool for content publishers.

In this blog, we will not only cover the benefits of app notifications but also help you design the right strategy to enhance user engagement.

Why Use App Push Notifications?

App notifications are indispensable for app developers because there is so much to be gained from them. Below are the key benefits that you can get from sending app notifications.

• Push notifications provide direct access to your audience. They do not even need to be in the app to read and know about your sales offerings, promos, and much more.
• App notifications enhance overall user experience. The New York Times succeeded so much with push notifications that they have hired a dedicated team to send notifications to subscribed users.
• App push notifications can also be used to increase the app retention rate by 3 to 10 times.
• App notifications provide a reason for users to open the app. If you use them intelligently, you can reap the benefits by prompting user engagement.
• Most of the time, users download an app but rarely use it. Push notifications can be used to increase the turnover of inactive app users. By employing the right app push notifications strategy to deliver insightful information, you can turn your users into loyal customers.
• App push notifications help you track user behavior and gather important data about them. It enables you to make sense of the complex analytics with data on open rates, open times, delivery receipts, etc.
• Another vital feature of app notification is that it allows you to target the right audience. After acquiring the data like age, gender, and location, you will be able to personalize the notifications for each user.

Read also: Best Practices for Push Notifications to Get the Best Results

Creating the Right Mobile App Push Notifications Strategy

Building your app push notifications strategy is not as simple as it may seem. Here are the best practices you need to keep in mind when creating push notifications strategy.

1. Identify your purpose

The first step in creating the right app notifications strategy is defining your purpose. Define the problem that you want to solve or a goal that you want to achieve with push notifications.

For instance, if you find out that users are leaving the app at a particular point in their user experience, you can use push notifications at that point to solve this problem.

2. Leverage personalization

A recent data science report found that app notifications that contain personalized content see an 800% increase in user engagement.

For a successful app push notifications strategy, it is recommended to customize your message to individual users. This will also help app developers to build different content strategies based on individual profiles.

Based on the user behavior and activity on the app, you will be able to determine the various phases the users are going through and find out their lifecycle. This data will help you personalize your notifications, depending on the phases your users are in.

It can also help you create highly targeted messages that will make the users feel special – as if you are engaging with them in a one-on-one conversation. This will encourage users to open your app and find the latest content and offerings.

3. Leverage users’ demographics

Users’ demographics, including age, gender, location, etc. can be the most helpful types of triggers for push notifications. According to a push notification survey Localytics from 2018 of 1,000 smartphone users, 49% would us an app more if it sent them push notifications related to their hometown. 42 percent of users said they use an app more if it sent push notifications triggered by their present location.

Such notifications can be the most convincing to users due to personalized content. So, if you aren’t yet using geofencing, now is the time to utilize it for targeting users with relevant content that serves a particular purpose.

4. Send real-time updates

App notifications can be a powerful tool to engage the audience with real-time updates. The updates will serve as reminders for the audience who are unaware of your brand and offerings. Push notifications are mostly text-based, but they can also be in the form of images and videos.

The notifications appear on the user’s device, just like other device updates. You can send information like new arrivals, discounts, breaking news, traffic news, and stories with app notifications. What makes app notifications highly successful is the fact that users can swipe off the message in no time.

Read also: Why You Should Integrate Real-Time Features in Your Mobile App

5. Focus on the content of the message

The content of the notification plays a vital role in the significance of the message. Make sure to keep them relevant, because irrelevant messages will have no value for the users.

Use compelling headlines and try to craft a message that will directly communicate with the audience. Avoid unnecessary content that the users are not interested in.

Once your users found that your app is providing what they want, their interest and engagement will eventually go up.

6. Timing is important

The effectiveness of a notification partially depends on the timing of the notification. No matter how relevant the content of your message is, it won’t trigger the desired action from users if the message doesn’t reach the users at the right time.

For instance, if you send a notification to your audience at night, the information in the message may become futile, and they might not open it in the morning. Similarly, sending notifications about a sale will be of little use if the sale is about to expire soon.

On the contrary, app notifications that appear at the start of the day or any other appropriate time may receive higher user engagement.

This, however, will require you gather data about the user behavior and determine when your users are likely to react to your messages. Track their responses based on time and send notifications around that time.

Wrapping up

Every aspect of your app plays a role in adding value to the user experience, and this includes app notifications.

While the content and frequency of your notifications may vary, the above practices will ensure that you are performing all the right things to provide maximum value to your customers. This will provide you a new way to interact with your audience and boost your sales and user engagement.

FAQs About App Push Notifications