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Push notifications

What are push notifications (app and web)?

Push notifications are short messages sent from a remote server to devices that have a specific app installed, and their goal is to catch the recipient’s attention so the notification gets read as quickly as possible.

A great example to show what push notifications for apps look like is WhatsApp. A push notification is a short message like the ones we receive on WhatsApp when the screen is off, which causes it to turn on automatically when we get a new message.

Another example, in this case of web push notifications, are the small popup windows that certain websites send you, informing you about things related to sites you’ve visited before.

1. Advantages of push notifications

Users receive information from everywhere on a continuous basis, so being able to deliver our information to them instantly puts us front of mind and brings benefits to our company. Some of these benefits are:

  • It increases traffic to our website. When we send push notifications to announce new articles of interest published on our blog or corporate site, we generate very valuable qualified visitor traffic.
  • It makes it easier to send reminders. We all have lots of things to do, and thanks to a push notification reminder, we make sure to offer the user the right information at the right time.
  • Improves sales. It lets us send a notification that boosts our sales, whether to get a user to return to an abandoned cart or even to increase the average order value of each cart.
  • It builds customer loyalty. Using push notifications to promote products that might interest the customer creates a sense of closeness that helps build loyalty.
  • Improves the conversion rate. Push notifications help increase conversion rates thanks to user behavior analysis, segmentation and metrics analysis.
  • Clear stock. Updates sent via push notifications are a very effective way to promote products and services that aren’t selling or rotating as expected.

2. The perfect push notification

Like any marketing action, push notifications need to be carefully crafted to be effective. Here are the tips you need to follow to create an effective push notification:

  • Use the right language. Keep in mind who your audience is and use a tone that matches it to convey the message. Colloquial language tends to be more effective.
  • An attractive, valuable message. The notification needs to be packed with content that’s useful to the user.
  • Short and concise. The mission of notifications is to make the lives of users, the people receiving the notification, easier, more pleasant and even fun. Try not to write messages longer than 25 characters.
  • Set some goals. Think about what you want to achieve by sending push notifications, and then evaluate how feasible it is.
  • Set the schedules. You need to choose the most convenient times to send notifications, based on your users’ habits. Analyze the statistics and adjust the schedules.

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