Push Notification is one of the most powerful channels to engage with app users. Almost 50% smart phone users opt-in to receive notifications.
But non-contextual, non-personalized, and too many over-intrusive notifications do more harm than good. If the notifications that your users are bombarded with provide no value, it is obvious that they will find them irritating. Today, over 50% of app users find push notifications annoying.
As a mobile marketer, this is certainly a not-so-heartening stat to digest! But every problem has a cause, and a solution.
Well, quality content always stands out. If the notifications you send are personalised and relevant to the users, then you know that you are only strengthening your brand’s relationship with them.
Here are 4 sure-shot and simple tips that are guaranteed to help you craft amazing push notifications that hit bullseye!
Related post: How to boost conversions from Mobile Notifications
1. Be clear and concise. Brevity is the key
Today, when human attention span is shorter than ever before, may be lesser than 8 seconds, the challenges in front of marketers are quite huge.
Push notifications give you the chance to grab mere seconds of your user’s attention before he/she clears his/her notification tray that has tens of notifications. Forget lengthy and elaborate content that beats around the bush. Make your push notification content clear, concise, and actionable.
Technically speaking, lengthier copy gets hidden behind ellipsis and has lower chances of being viewed. Allow the relevance of your content to stand out, and steer clear of over-communicating!
A bad example: Trying to cram too much content makes a lousy notification.
Netflix kills it when it comes to succinct and crisp notifications. Personalised, targeted, and based on historical user viewing behaviour.
2. Be funny. A little humour never killed anybody!
Everyone likes humour. If your message delivers a little stress-relief and a few smiles along with that offer, update, or reminder through your push notification, it is definitely going to boost the effectiveness of your campaign.
This approach not only helps in connecting with your users better, it also gives your brand a friendly image, creating instant brand recall over a period of time.
Be funny while continuing to deliver value. Just remember one thing: there’s a fine line between being informal and taking your audience for granted by overdoing the slang or jokes! This is precisely why you need to carefully A/B test your message copy and track campaign performance to understand your users’ behaviour better over a period of time.
Let’s check out the following example to understand better. You can also split test your campaigns to gauge what works for your brand.
You do not want to use humour that is in poor taste merely as an attention-grabbing exercise, like this one here:
While the marketer may have intended to nudge the user to complete his purchase in a light-hearted and quirky manner, the user might feel offended at the insinuation that he is ‘lost’.
Subtle, endearing, and warm humour as shown in the example below makes the otherwise routine weather update interesting!
Looking sunny already, isn’t it?!
3. Talk to that FOMO
FOMO or the Fear of Missing Out is, for a lot of people, a major driver of consumer decisions today. An offer that’s available today might be gone tomorrow, exclusive Midnight sale just for ‘Today’, lightning deals you can claim just for the next 15 minutes… are all about using FOMO to drive purchase decisions.
The sense of urgency these induce work as a nudge to your users to take action immediately.
Using copy that asserts a discount or benefit is available for a limited time. For instance, both the notifications shown below offer the same deal, but the latter is more engaging since it brings in the urgency about a ‘limited time offer’.
4. Be human. Always add a personal touch
While you want your users to engage with your app through your push notifications, you don’t want to annoy or overwhelm them with too much marketing content. Your language can make or break your campaign objectives.
You cannot establish a connection with the users if you sound like an automated robot. All your content is intended for humans, so make sure it sounds human. Go beyond addressing your user by merely his/her name. Personalisation needs to be extended to create content that reflects your users’ geolocation data, tastes, preferences, and historical in-app behaviour and non-actions.
The following example explains. A plain machine-like tone in the first notification here can be made warm and human as shown in the next example.
Push Notification is a very important touch point in your app users’ customer journey. Well-thought out and carefully crafted push notifications can go a long way in improving all the key metrics of your app business. Leverage the power of rich media elements to enhance user engagement with your super relevant personalized push notifications.
Related read: Check how Push Amplification can increase your delivery rates up to 30%
To learn more about the powerhouse mobile marketing channels, get in touch with us today!
