Can I Increase Customer Engagement With Push Notifications?

11 Jul Can I Increase Customer Engagement With Push Notifications?

As the talk of ROI and customer engagement gets louder, many businesses are finding an excellent communication option within push notifications. Certainly, we all want to give our marketing and promotional efforts every chance of success.

What are the benefits of push notification for businesses, and what do you need to know to get the most engagement?

Push Notifications in a Nutshell

We’ve chatted at length about push notifications, but just to ensure that we’re all on the same page:

• Push notifications are messages delivered directly to the user’s mobile phones
• These messages are managed by your business on an easy-to-use interface and delivered via an app
• There is no cost to the recipient receiving the notification
• Push notification messages open in the app, making them super-relevant and easy to follow
• Users can opt-in and opt-out via their phones, which allows them to control what they are interested in, or not.
• Push notifications are trackable, giving you an enormous amount of insight into your customers’ preferences.

While these are all wonderful features, how exactly do they benefit your business in terms of client interaction and engagement?

What’s In It For Me?

This question should be tackled at the beginning of any marketing campaign, but obviously from the customer’s perspective. Effective communication which encourages user engagement hinges on what you are offering, and not what you want as a business.

Is it relevant?

One of the key elements which make push notifications as part of a marketing campaign so effective is their relevance. For example:

• Notifications can be triggered by the user’s location. When they pass within a certain radius of your retail outlet, they may be prompted to call in to explore some of your special offers. While they’re right there, this removes one of the barriers and gives them a little nudge in the direction of your shop.
• Push notifications can be sent at a specific time. Do you have a restaurant or takeaway outlet? If so, then pushing a message to your customers around midday may be just what they needed to make their lunch decision.
• Notifications can be sent to a specific audience. Data tracking with push notifications is a breeze and having the insight and the ability to understand buying habits or preferences gives you a distinct edge. Are you having a promotion on baby clothing? Then you would focus your efforts on the segment of your audience who have expressed an interest in this area.

Unless you’re totally spamming your audience with 5+ messages a day, then these valuable and innocuous and non-salesy messages are a great tool to whisper in the ear of your customers and will be well-received.

Is it clear?

When it comes to mobile marketing, whether you’re using USSD, SMS or push notifications, the trick is to create a concise, punchy and clear message in just a few characters, along with a strong call to action.

What exactly do you want to prompt your audience to do? Is it worth their time and effort to read and follow a link?

If you have a promotional offer or you want the user to redeem a coupon, then make that the focus of your message and remove any obstacles to them claiming their benefit. Let them know precisely what you want them to do and what the advantage is for them.

This removes all the guesswork from both sides, provides value to them, and valuable data for you.

Is it engaging?

What do we mean by engaging?

An engaging message is one which makes your audience smile, laugh, share, or act. You want to elicit a positive emotional response which will provoke them to action.

Your brand may naturally lend itself to humour – such as Nandos – but make sure that you use the right voice and tone and capture their interest within seconds. Be sure to use their name, which makes your messaging so much more personal.

Push Notifications Don’t Have to be Pushy

As with any outbound marketing strategy, your aim is to engage, share information, educate and encourage interaction.

Too many messages, irrelevant notifications and poor timing will get you booted from the user’s phone faster than you can say “but wait, there’s more!”

Does your business have a mobile marketing strategy in place? Would you benefit from the data insights and reach of a push notification campaign? Feel free to talk to the Panacea team who have the answers to all your questions.