How to Use Push Notifications to Your Advantage

People have become used to getting push notifications on their smartphones all the time. In fact, 91% of Android users and 43% of iOS users opt in to receive notifications, while 72% of users allow the websites they visit and browse to send them alerts.  

If you think about it, every breaking news alert, Amazon delivery, and app notifications you receive are all personalized messages sent directly to you through push notifications.  

Their purpose? It’s to drive you back to a website or an app and get you to convert.

And, guess what? It works!  

According to Invesp, push notifications can increase app engagement by 88%, get 66% of app users to return, and boost app retention rates by three to 10 times. On-screen messages also tend to generate a better conversion rate of 90% as they show up on the user’s smartphone or desktop.  

Without a doubt, push notifications are an indispensable tool you can use to reach, re-engage, and convert more users.  

However, you need to have a solid strategy to make the most out of this powerful tool this 2022. Having no proper plan in place can lead you to annoy users, causing them to delete your app or ban your site completely. The same holds true if you don’t optimize your notifications for SEO in Fort Lauderdale.

Before we dive into tactics, let’s first discuss the different kinds of push notifications.  

Types of Push Notifications

Push notifications are real-time alerts you can send to your target audience’s mobile device or desktop browser. They slide in as a banner on their screens, depending on which type of push notifications you’re sending.  

Here are the different kinds of push notifications you should be familiar with:

• Reminder notifications: You can use these to prompt your audience with a specific task and bring them back to your app or website. For example, you can remind a user to count their calories and log it into your app or get them started on their workout routine.  
• Alert notifications: As the name implies, alert notifications alert users whenever someone messages them, reacts to their posts, or the items on their cart are running out, and other happenings that are directly related to them.  
• Recurrent notifications: You can send out notifications to your app users at a specific date and time every week, bi-weekly, monthly, or how often you'd like. An example is getting weekly notifications from Spotify alerting you about a new podcast episode from your favorite podcaster.  

• Catch-up notifications: Catch-up notifications are made to re-engage users. For instance, if a user shopped from your app last month and used coins, you can send them a push notification telling them how much they saved or how much they spend on supporting local businesses. This can help create feel-good moments they can associate with your app.  
• Promotional notifications: You can send out promotional notifications to keep users posted about discounts, sales, and exclusive offers.  
• Purchase notifications: Make it a point to send out notifications each time a user purchases within your app. Keep them updated with their orders until they receive them.  
• Feedback notifications: Find out what users think about you by asking for feedback.  

Push Notification Tips for 2022

Now that you know the various types of push notifications, let’s discuss the tactics that can help your business succeed this 2022 through push notifications.  

1. Personalize Your Push Notifications

Did you know that 35% of push notifications are generic? In other words, many businesses are sending the same push message to every user out there.  

This creates a lack of relevancy, which is why more than 50% of app users find push notifications annoying.  

Then again, studies show that when alerts are personalized to a user’s preferences, there is a 3x increase in conversion rates.

Sending relevant push notifications is a great way to stay in touch with your app users and offer them deals, discounts, and updates.  

To ensure that your customers and prospects place a great deal of value on your alerts, you should be able to identify the different parts of a push notification message first.  

Here’s a concise breakdown of the elements:

• Site icon: Let users know you’re sending them a push notification by including a site icon in your alerts.  
• Headline: When you send an alert, users must know what it is about right away. Grab their attention by using headlines that are short, compelling, and direct.  

• Body: You want your message to effectively communicate with your audience. So, make sure to include details and the value you have to offer to persuade them to visit your site or app.  
• Image: Images can further personalize your message and drive users to take action. Consider including a picture of the item they last checked on your app or site to lure them back and maybe even convince them to buy.  
• CTA: Call-to-actions have always been effective at convincing people to do what you want. Use compelling and personalized CTAs to urge users to click on your alert.  

It’s crucial to take time to understand all the parts you can tweak in these elements to create more personalized push notifications. Then, you can optimize them for SEO in Fort Lauderdale to drive the best results.  

2. Time When Your Notifications Appear

A study conducted by Localytics found that 46% of users who received between two to five messages in a week disabled their push notifications, while 32% of people will stop using an app altogether if they received between six to 10 messages in a week.

This shows that the fewer blasts you send, the better.  

You don’t want your push notifications to be intrusive or annoying, so see to it that you send alerts in moderation and time them when they appear on a user’s screen.

Nothing is more off-putting than browsing through a website and consuming content only to be interrupted by a push notification. So, before you trigger alerts to appear in front of users, let them have a few minutes to go through and enjoy your content.  

Delaying when your push notifications appear creates a less disruptive experience when browsing your site. As a result, it will make your visitors more receptive to opting in your push content.  

3. Segment Your Push Subscribers

It’s no secret that users are more likely to respond to personalized content. That’s why you should leverage segmentation.  

Segmenting your push notification subscribers into smaller groups allows you to better personalize the content you send out to them. It also improves the success of your alerts.

Here are the three different ways you can segment your push subscribers:

• Product Categories: If you have a website or an app with different kinds of products, you can create push notifications that are based on the different categories you have. For example, if a user is browsing through the men's shoe section, you can set up alerts for promos and discounts for this category.

• User Activities: Another way to segment your push subscribers is by using their activity on your app or website as basis. Let’s say a user added a product to their ‘favorites’ or added a product to their cart but didn’t check out. You can send them a notification reminding them about the items in their cart or show them content similar to the products they added to their ‘favorites’.  
• Product Plans and Levels: Product plans and levels are ideal if you offer product plans and subscriptions. Set alerts according to each user’s subscription plan and re-engage them by reminding them about their renewal or sending them alerts for a subscription plan upgrade.  

Besides these three, there are other ways to further segment your target audience. The more you learn more about your users, the better you can provide them with push notification content they love.  

4. Use Screen Overlays That Offer Value

If you use push notifications too much, expect people to block or automatically dismiss any invitation to get messages on your site.  

Don’t let this happen to you by using screen overlays that offer value. A screen overlay is a semi-transparent feature that appears on top of a page a user is on.  

Designing non-intrusive overlays is a must, as it helps convince people to opt in for push content. In your message, tell your recipients that they’ll get rewards - such as exclusive access to content or a discount - if they opt in.  

5. Create Drip Push Notification Campaigns

Push notifications can sometimes appear random. Increase the relevance of your alerts by coming up with a series of message blasts that appear one after the other.  

Sending a series of web push notifications has been proven and tested to engage users, re-engage lost visitors, and drive them both back to your site or app.

Push alerts have a 50% higher click-through rate compared to emails, and they tend to generate better ROI and reach.  

So, instead of sending welcome drip email campaigns, you can send out welcome drip push notifications.  

One of the best things about creating drip campaigns is that they can be fully automated. Once you finish developing a series of welcome messages, for example, you can set triggers and then send them automatically to every user that signs up on your website or downloads your app.  

Aside from welcoming subscribers, below are other ways you can use drip push notifications for:

• Cross-selling and upselling: If a person recently bought from you, there’s a huge chance that they'll be interested in buying something related to it.  

• Cart abandonment: Remind users about the products on their cart by sending them to push messages with discounts or alerts that the item is almost out of stock.  
• Onboarding: Sending an onboarding push notification within the first week after a user downloaded your app can increase retention by 71%. So, make the most of onboarding push messages to help your customers achieve their desired outcome and encourage loyalty.  
• Social Proof: Boost your credibility and persuade prospects to buy by showing a push message stating that a customer just bought the item they were recently viewing. Or, display positive reviews and ratings about that product through screen overlay features.  

Push Your Way to Success This 2022!

Do you want to get more sales, more social media followers, more newsletter subscribers, and more of everything that will propel your business to success this 2022?

If your answer is yes, push notifications deserve a central spot in your digital marketing strategy!  

By optimizing push notification elements to provide more personalized messages and designing them in a way so that they’re relevant and less intrusive, you can reach more users, re-engage visitors, and generate more sales this 2022.  

Digital Resource is an SEO company in Fort Lauderdale. If you need help putting your brand at the top of your audience's minds, we can help you create a custom push notification strategy.  

Our goal is to help you get more sales AND achieve sustainable growth that will push your business to succeed this year and beyond. Start sending push notifications that drive clicks NOW!

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