Push notifications can display the highest engagement among different industries. It is important to know exactly what they are and what they are used for to leverage it to your advantage.
Many apps today are full of the latest features and trends making it more relevant to users. One of such widely accepted trends to engage users are ‘Push Notifications’.
Potential of push notifications is huge and as per certain statistics from Mobile App Daily, push notifications response is three times faster compared to sending email while opening rates range from 1-7%.
The metrics of sending information to users via push notifications has been transformed nowadays as multiple changes were introduced within the push notification landscape.
What are Push Notifications?
Push notification system was first launched in 2009 (APNS) and it’s a way to alert the users with important content via their smartphones.
Push notification feature is integrated into the mobile app and serves for constant interaction between the user and the app, even if the app is not used.
Push notifications are similar to text messages delivered to the users’ smartphones to stay updated with the app’s latest announcements.
Almost every app offers an option for push notifications where the user can opt-out or opt-in to receive those notifications. Even if you’ve rejected the notifications, there is always an option to revoke those services.
Push Notifications Benefits
The benefits of push notifications can be great as it’s one of the best tools to engage the users. Be careful when implementing them as many users get annoyed or even abandon the app if bothered with numerous notifications.
If done properly, push notifications bring many benefits like:
Minimal Cost – don’t require a separate medium for sending thus the investment is minimal.
User Control – users can set their preferences through your mobile app settings reducing the risk of users getting annoyed by too many notifications
Brand consistency – last-minute deals, discounts, coupons and special offers sent to users tend to enhance the brand consistency as users will appreciate information that adds value
Engagement – excellent to increase app engagement and improve retention rates
Track analytics – analyzing complex analytics within open rates, delivery receipts, engagement, interaction time and click-through rates as well as other types of analytics.
Importance of Push Notifications in Mobile Apps?
Almost every mobile app today uses push notifications and seek permission from users to send them – it shows the importance of push notifications in the mobile apps like the following:
More Interaction With Users
You can maintain the functionality of the app by conveying the latest updates and news via push notifications which must contain short and appropriate words. This way, you’re recalling the users about the app contributing to the increased usability.
This remaining strategy can also help with increasing the user engagement rate.
Increased Engagement
Push notifications can boost your engagement statistics as with every alert on the latest news, events or content may lead to an increase in the user engagement rate.
As your mobile app continuously notify the users with the latest updates even when users don’t have time for it, it brings escalation in the involvement of the user with your mobile app.
Bear in mind that you can always try different methods to deliver push notifications.
Driving High Traffic
Another important element for your mobile app is boosting the traffic.
The instant ping sound will drive the user to open it up which ultimately drives the app’s traffic.
Sending content to users instantly and regularly will grow the rate of your traffic counts. Pay attention to do it properly as too sporadic or too frequent notifications can result with loss of interest with end users. Your content you deliver must be relevant – unless the content is appealing to users, they won’t click on the notification thus leading to a potential app uninstallation.
Insights into Customers Behavior
If you wish to collect valuable data about the users by tracking notification messages, interaction time and duration, devices, platforms – push notifications are the best choice as they can generate max engagement and traffic.
If you have insights into when, why and how many times the user utilizes your app, it will help you greatly in serving the user the best ways possible via push notifications.
Ease of Use
Push notifications are much more efficient and simpler when compared to emails or text messages as they convey clear and short messages with specific information to users.
From a developer point of view, push notifications are easy to generate and implement in the app as they are less complicated and easy to manage with the user-friendly interface.
Nowadays, both iOS and Android (or web) use Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) – it is a cross-platform messaging solution that lets you reliably send messages at no cost.
The end-users just need to scroll down their notification bar and decide what they want to do with the notification.
Final Word
If you wish to make your mobile app interactive, push notifications are the best solution.
The reason is that the users rely on the push notification features to get regular alerts which save their time and effort and keep them updated on the go.