Push notifications are clickable pop-up messages that appear on your subscribed users’ browsers as long as they’re online or have their browsers running on their devices. Push notifications are text-based, configurable and straightforward to apply. They serve as a quick communication channel enabling companies to keep their customers engaged and convey messages, offers, or reminders to their customers.

Analysts estimate that the click rate from push notifications is 4-8X times that of email. Also, it takes less time to come up with a resonating message for push notifications than emails. Push notifications improve outreach compared to SMS which people don't have to read or emails which might end up in spam.

There are two types of Push notifications: Web Push Notifications and Mobile App Push Notifications.

Web Push Notifications: Web push notifications are usually delivered on a user’s desktop or mobile screen anytime they’re active on their browser, irrespective of whether they’re on your website. These alert messages slide in at the top or bottom right-hand side of the desktop screen.

Marketers use these notifications to increase website engagement and encourage visitors to keep coming back to their website, thereby increasing conversions. This makes web push notifications such a handy tool for marketers since even with little or no technical background, they are easy to build

Mobile App Push Notifications: Having installed an application triggers mobile app push notifications. The push notification alerts display in three locations: on your lock screen, banner or notification center.

PUSH NOTIFICATIONS USE CASES

Push notifications were first introduced in June 2009 by Apple. Although it is a new digital marketing channel, marketers have observed that push notifications increase customer engagement, retention and repeat visits. Marketers are still discovering new use cases for push notifications but here are a few:

Re-activate inactive users

Consistent high customer retention rates equal increased profits but with the growth in many e-commerce sites and travel agencies, users are bombarded with discounts and similar products and this causes a low retention rate. Push notifications purpose to remind customers how useful your application is to them.

Cart Reminders

In an e-commerce site, a customer may add products to their cart and not check out. Push notifications purpose to remind users of their pending carts. This leads to increased sales.

Increase user engagement

Even after a client has picked a travel package and paid for it, you should not end the engagement there. You can share a blog post about the area or country they are about to travel to. If they have completed shopping from your Fresh Vegetable site, you can send them articles about recipes.

Cross-sell or Upsell based on previous purchases

This is a personalized messaging where based on the previous purchases by a user you might push another product that may complement their previous buy. Let’s say a customer bought baby clothes in their last cart, a push notification telling them about new arrivals of teddy bears or mothers’ nutrition supplements. This may lead to more sales.

Product review campaigns

Customers are always right and their feedback is essential. After the delivery of goods, you can ask for reviews and even remind customers if they fail to review the product after a week. This will help the business note its shortcomings or strongholds in the eyes of its customers.

Location

This hyper-personalized method analyzes visitor movements on the internet, and then, if they are by chance near a corresponding physical store, it sends them a simple mobile push message to encourage action. For example, If a potential buyer is near your physical location, sending a push notification with a gift voucher only redeemable at a physical location is a solid strategy.

BENEFITS OF PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

Increase Return Traffic

When it comes to maintaining customer retention, sending users alert messages is an ideal form of interaction. This may be in the form of promotional offers or informative messages.

Capturing Quality Leads

In marketing, leads are individuals who have interacted with your brand in some way or have the potential to become future customers. Many businesses suffer from low lead count, with push notifications you can add subscribers with single-click permission and engage them.

Time-Saving

Push notifications are simple to craft and thus take little to no time to come up with. Also, you can automate messages for particular campaigns or personalize push notifications for specific zones or time zones. Enabling you to communicate with your users at the right time by using several forms of push notifications.

Removes dependence on mobile apps

Businesses now don’t need to build or invest in mobile apps to engage their customers. They receive notifications, like in-app, right on their Android device. All it requires is a browser that supports push notifications like Chrome, Firefox and Opera.

Improved Reach

In most cases, push notifications will outperform SMS or email alerts, which are becoming obsolete. Most devices also have browsers that support push notifications.

If you want to implement push notifications you can use the following packages and libraries:

• Novu
• Push Safer
• myNotifier
• PushBullet

According to Xtify, a company of IBM, open rates with Push Notifications range between 30% to 60% and interaction rates are as high as 40%. Compared to email open rates which average 20% and an interaction rate of 5.4%. I would encourage any business to implement push notifications on their websites or mobile apps. Although push notifications are not a customer acquisition tool, they work well for customer engagement.

If you find this useful, share the article with your friends and colleagues and bring them a step closer to achieving their business goals by using push notifications.