How to Make Web Push Notifications Work for You
Today’s consumers are more demanding than ever and the dynamic growth of e-commerce means expectations will continue to rise even higher. To meet these expectations, you have to keep up to date with what consumers are interested in and what gets their attention.
Those born between 1980 and 2000 spend and buy the most, so it’s not surprising that many brands consider them as their main demographic. According to a report by Coupon Follow, 76% of millennials browse the internet before they make either an online or offline purchasing decision. To get the attention of more of this market, businesses are turning to push notifications to help them stand out from the crowd.
Web push notifications are short, simple messages that display on screens and convey bits of information, including text, graphics or a mix of both. They give businesses the power to communicate with customers in real time when their attention is most focused. Push notifications generate sales and help to educate potential customers. They can also drive traffic to online sites.
Web push is the new email
Web push notifications are among the newest channels available to marketers and they’ve quickly become an integral part of any e-marketing strategy. This is no surprise given that in 2017, 33 percent of survey respondents aged 18 to 34 years said that they always allow an app’s request for push notifications. Marketers refer to push notifications as email 3.0 – concise messages that go wherever your customers are. They show up at the top or in the corner of mobile screens even when users are viewing something else or when their browsers are disconnected.
Every web push notification consists of permanent elements that can be personalized as needed, as shown below. Web push notifications are becoming a standard tool for online stores because they allow brands to instantly communicate with customers.
According to Attention Spans, a report from Microsoft, it takes eight seconds on average to get a customer’s attention. Signing up for push notifications includes two confirmation steps and takes about two seconds. The convenient nature of push notifications makes them more effective than traditional email and an attractive alternative to other available tools.
Web push notifications in practice
Web push notifications add a new dimension to executing marketing goals. There are a couple of benefits that have paved their way into e-commerce:
- the simplicity of use
- easy implementation
- immediate visibility on the customer’s device
- higher deliverability than emails
- a higher chance of attracting customers’ attention
- resistance to spam filters and ad blockers
- full range of analytical data including the number of sent and opened message
Estimates say that push notifications reach 80%-90% of the target group and click-through rates can range from 15% to 30%. In comparison, email campaigns achieve around a 5% CTR on average. Furthermore, research shows that adding graphics or GIFs to push notifications can boost CTRs to around 60%.
Growing sales with push notifications
Despite the fact that there is no one universal method to magically boosts sales that works everywhere, push notifications let businesses add a personal touch to customer service and select the best moments to communicate. Online stores use push notifications when potential customers are at some stage of a transaction that is not completed.
Examples include:
- saving abandoned carts
- notifying a customer about a special offer or product restock
- introducing the online store to a new visitor
A quick analysis of these behaviors calls for a short message with the purpose of focusing attention back on the incomplete transaction. It’s important to first create segments of users based on their activities. They could define customers according to the time they installed an application, their engagement (the number of site visits) or interests (products viewed). The text of the message has to be carefully crafted and focused on communicating in the language of benefits. Push notifications highlight what users stand to gain, like discount codes.
A report by GetApp shows that access to promotions and discounts available only to subscribers are what drive newsletter subscriptions. Web push notifications work in a similar way, just in a different medium. Bear in mind that the effectiveness of push notifications is optimized when they are used in moderation. Being too aggressive only serves to alienate customers.
Wrapping up
Web push notifications have quickly become essential to communicate with customers in the mobile era due to their versatility and ease of use. If you need a new and attractive way to keep customers up to date with your sales promotions, help them complete online purchases or let them know about newly added products, you’ve found the perfect solution.