Email marketing is certainly a great digital marketing channel, but it’s also limited, especially when it comes to mobile app engagement and retention. In this digital world, leveraging new strategies like push notifications will pay off.
Though highly potential, push notifications are one of the most underutilized marketing strategies that provide a lot of value to your marketing techniques. Finding the best way to leverage mobile push messages is both an art and a science.
In this blog, let’s break down some of the general push notification best practices that can help B2B mobile marketers build deep and personalized relations with customers.
1. Think big
When integrating push notifications to your B2B mobile marketing strategy, make sure you deliver unique value to your audience which requires out-of-the-box thinking. Most often mobile marketing push notifications are used by marketers as an alternative to email marketing. Think big to achieve big results.
Begin by understanding your users’ mobile use cases. What are their requirements? How are they engaging with your app? What is the context of their needs? This is where the big thinking becomes significant.
Change the perception of seeing push messages as a part of the user’s mobile experience with your brand, not just as another communication strategy. Thinking big will help you deliver valuable engagement your customers have never experienced earlier.
2. Segment wisely
The focus must be not just to implement push messages, but to implement them wisely and segment smartly. Studies show that users are three times more likely to convert when the messages are personalized.
Push notification personalization depends on a good segmentation strategy. Start segmenting users based on their interaction with the app When you segment your users based on their profiles and behaviors the average click rate for push messages will eventually improve.
3. Define your Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Defining KPIs that go along with your business goals is the first step towards becoming a true leader in the industry. While click and conversion rates will help you understand the initial success of a brand message, they don’t bring in long-lasting benefits.
To reap the best benefits of the campaigns, start by considering the important KPIs like revenue generated, user interaction, conversion or retention rate. Analyzing the real impact of your engagement efforts on your customers through these performance indicators is the best way to take full advantage of the benefits of this channel.
4. Timing and testing matters
Instead of sending push messages to your customers at random times, choose the best time to send a push notification to users. For example, if your user base is spread globally, not all of them would be active at the same time. The difference in time zone also plays a very significant role in the impact of your messages.
Time your messages when your users are not busy with other things or at the time when it appears pushy. For example, you want to avoid early morning hours and dinner hours, or when your users are getting ready for their work.
To understand what timing works best for you, it is important to test the timing of your push notifications. Do continuous testing to understand your users and when they are active. Timing and testing are two significant ways to send effective push messages.
5. Experiment with tested and proven CTAs
Depending on your business niche, the mobile marketing push notification content can vary considerably and the content plays a significant role in its success. No matter the type of push message campaign you run, it is important to personalize the content and test it to understand what your customers may or may not like.
As your audience is constantly interrupted by push messages, advertisements, you need to cut through the noise with creative content and timing the message intelligently. By utilizing the power of analytics, you can reduce the churning rate and convert them into loyal users for life.
6. Optimize your opt-ins
An increased opt-in rate is a prerequisite for great push message campaigns, but most users are reluctant to grant permission to opt-in for push notifications. Push messages can reach viewers no matter where they are on the website, but users don’t grant permission to every site or mobile app they come across.
Craft engaging push notifications in a way that explains the value of subscribing so that users understand the significance of opting in for your push notifications. Customizing your push messages is proven to improve the opt-in rates of your push messages.
7. Acquire more app users
As a best practice to improve your push notification campaigns, try integrating web call-to-action to drive more app downloads. Your push messages must highlight the advantages of your applications like quicker loading times, extra features, one-click checkout, etc. The more specific you can get, the better.
If you are successful in conveying the value of your offerings, you will be able to secure your audience as loyal customers on your mobile app and website. Once your users opt to download your app, you can market to them with your push messages to drive more conversions.
8. Customize the content of your push messages
As you might already know, customization is important for all types of push notifications, both mobile messages and browser push notifications. Mobile users are generally tired of seeing old marketing promotion strategies.
No matter how good you craft the content, they won’t be effective until they are personalized to suit your audience and their preferences. Personalize all of your push message campaigns by analyzing their browsing history and purchase behavior. This helps to craft your push messages in ways that it actually appeals to your users.
If your users use both your app and site, you are lucky. In that case, consolidate content across both apps and websites to build a rich user profile. For instance, if one of your users had already made a purchase on your site, but they also have recently browsed for a product in your app, you can promote that product with web push messages. In that way, both mediums can be targeted.
9. Make sure your push messages offer value to users
When one of your customers agrees to subscribe to your push messages, it is clear that they have trust in your brand. Make sure your push notifications offer great value to your users. This can be exclusive offers, access to special content, new updates or information. If your push messages are promotional and not timed right, you will risk your users’ in not opting for your messages.
Timely updates about a new product or an existing offer trigger users to enable your push messages. Offering value to your users with your push messages starts by identifying the unique requirements of your users’ needs. If your push messages don’t offer any value to your customers, don’t bother sending them to them.
Consider how your users interact with your business and the level of engagement. Once you analyze your user behavior, you can find out the situation where push messages can be beneficial. When sending out push notifications, make sure you differentiate your mobile push marketing from other marketing strategies.
10. Think beyond re-engagement
Push messages are not just an alternate way to re-engage your inactive or lost users. Push messages can be a significant part of your user experience, a great way to enhance your brand reputation and build loyalty. Marketing using push notifications works great when the messages actively engage users with the topic they are really interested in.
As push notifications are considered interruptive, sending irrelevant messages can quickly annoy your users. Make sure you don’t send generic messages to your users that can be sent by emails.
Additionally, don’t try to be too pushy with the promotion of a new product. Moreover, if the content you want to send your users have already appeared in a newsletter or a blog, then it’s not great to use the same message for your push notifications.
11. Geo-targeting is important
Mobile push marketing and geo-targeting go hand-in-hand. Targeting a specific location of your users is a great way to catch your user’s attention. For example, a restaurant can promote an exclusive to users who are in nearby locations.
Meanwhile, a business can also promote a discount when an old customer passes by their store. Adding your users’ names and mentioning the area they are currently located will help to get their attention. Apps like Foursquare rely on geo-targeting to promote local attractions to users according to their location.
12. Give your users control
When you are sending out push messages to your users, your users must feel in control of the messages they receive. Let them choose from a variety of choices available. Give them the freedom to choose what works for them so that it increases the chance of your users opting-in. Let your users know what to expect from your push messages.
You might have to send some users daily updates, but sending exclusive messages during a particular time works for some set of users. Whatever type of push campaigns you run, keep your users involved in it. Finally, provide a simple way for your customers to subscribe to your push messages later.
13. Synchronize with other marketing channels
You might already be having other marketing strategies along with push notification campaigns. Synchronize push messages with other marketing channels as it can work great. For example, if you are already running strategies to recover abandoned carts, you can integrate push marketing to it as well. Each push notification must be personalized to bring back your customers and complete the checkout process.
14. Make sure you measure results
No marketing campaign will be completed without measuring the results. Analyzing the performance of push notification campaigns and understanding how well your campaigns are performing. One best way is to track the results through KPIs that align with your business goals. Data on user behavior, engagement, how they respond and what messages convert can offer significant insights.
Conclusion
Mobile marketing is constantly evolving, so your push message campaigns must catch up as well. Stay in tune with modern technology to integrate into your push marketing campaigns. Just like mobile technology, push notifications are never going to slow down, it will keep on advancing.
Hence, there is little excuse not to leverage its capabilities. Make sure all your push messages remain personal, are sent at the right time, and don’t interrupt with your user’s privacy. Also, keep in mind that there is no ideal approach to improve customer engagement. You need to continuously test and experiment based on users’ in-app behavior to find the right mix. Considering these best practices when implementing push marketing will ensure your success and help you deliver custom user experiences at scale.
Marry Ann is a branding consultant for PushMaze, a service that lets you send trackable push notifications for users. She mainly passionate about building brands in all the aspect of online marketing.
