by Ajit Jain, Negosentro.com |
The number of downloads is not a true sign of success for a mobile app. The number of active users, session length, and user retention are no doubt important metrics but keeping users happy is the most important of all. According to mobile app development companies, the push notifications feature in mobile app can be used to increase user engagement and keep the user happy. Here are some strategies to use push notifications effectively for user engagement without being too pushy.
Know Your Audience
Before you develop any strategy to use push notifications for user engagement, you need to know your audience preferences first. You need to find when your customers are awake and what is the best time to send push notifications? No one wants to hear their smartphone beep in the middle of the night or during busy hour of the day. Keep the locations in mind and send relevant content to them.
Always Focus on Creating Value
Don’t think of advertising, think about building relationships. You can use push notifications to update users about the confirmation of transactions or give an update about items in their wish-list. You can find several such opportunities top touch your bases and interact with customers. Other opportunities to use push notifications is when some urgent information needs to be delivered.
Tailor Your Messages to the Platform
Don’t be tempted to use same messages or content from your desktop website. Always remember a mobile is a different device and you need to customize your notifications to suit the platform. The mobile is more personal so user expects high relevancy in the messages they receive.
Users expect tailored messages to come their way. The language of the message should convey urgency (for time-sensitive offers) and relevancy that will drive users back to your mobile app. The push notification has limited space for characters and graphics so you need to be creative with the words to motivate user action. The content needs to be helpful, funny, trendy, memorable, and clear.
Empower the User
It is necessary that you give the users the choice to switch off the push notifications if they want to. Else they will either get overwhelmed or opt out by uninstalling your application. You can give them freedom to choose the type of alerts and notification they would like to receive. Also, allow them to select “Quiet hours”
Take the Straight Approach
The primary objective of push marketing is taking the straight approach. Your users need to know what’s in store for them. Before they opt in, they should know what kind of notifications and alerts they will receive and when you will send them.You can write the benefits of receiving push notifications in your app description.
Develop a Comprehensive Strategy
You need to go with a strategy. Push notifications are of different types – some are annoying, some less intrusive, and some less relevant ones. The Timing makes all the difference, hence you need to be careful and have a strategy for it. You also need to determine the right frequency between two messages. Sending too often will irritate the user while taking long interval between messages will cause the user to forget who you are and you may have to start all over again.
If you are sending coupons (with expiry date) through push notifications, make sure the notifications also expire with coupons.
Pay Attention to Deep Linking
According to mobile app development experts, deep linking guide allows the user to understand where you want them to go within your app. It offers a seamless experience to the user and there are no barriers to the desired action. For example, if you are sending a push notification about pre-sales ticket, the deep linking within the push notification should take the user to the payment page where he/she can purchase the tickets.
These are some good strategies that you need to focus on while using push notifications for mobile app engagement.
Author Bio
Ajit Jain is marketing and sales head at Octal Info Solution, a leading android app development company, offering platform to hire android app developer for your own app development project. Connect with him on Google Plus, Twitter , Facebook , Linkedin and go through his ideas on distinct topics.
