How to Boost Customer Engagement with Push Notifications

“Make sure they remember you” – these golden words from Hunger Games have become the de facto marketing code for most brands today. There are only two ways to make people remember you: One, by building something truly out of the world, and two (for the saner folks!), by being in constant touch with your prospects and customers.

Regular customer interactions, however small they may be, is the key to boosting your brand experience, enhancing customer loyalty, and accelerating sales funnel velocity. In the past, brands predominantly used social media and email marketing to engage with their customers. But with time, the need for a more instantaneous, personalized, and informative communication channel surged.

This led to the birth of push notifications, which within a short period, became the undisputable champion of omnichannel communications dedicated to customer engagement (or re-engagement).

Push notifications: What exactly are they?

Most of us have seen or interacted with a push notification in the past. But for those who just time traveled from the stone age, push notifications are the alerts you receive on the browsers or apps of your laptops and mobile phones. They are sent by brands looking to communicate about the latest offers, new arrivals, or any other relevant communication.

Here is how a push notification looks like –

Push notifications appear in real-time (like your WhatsApp notification) and prompt the users to respond immediately. The chance of abandoning a push notification is relatively low. As a result, they have higher response rates compared to emails.

Let us now see how to bring your ‘A-game’ with push notifications.

Rule #1: Personalize your messages

Delivering a generic, one-size-fits-all message has fallen off the fad now. People always crave attention from other people (and brands) they love. Getting one on one with customers is the key here. Try sending personalized messages by just leveraging your prospect’s name and location.

Here is a quick question- Put yourselves in your customer’s shoes, which of these two messages would you like to receive –

1. Lisa, check out our store at 36th street to avail 50% discount on your birthday.
2. Hello, 50% discount on all products!

Clearly, 1 is more personalized and touches you at an emotional level. It shows that the brand has done their homework right and has definitely earned a consideration to visit their site.

Also, send them messages that they care about. Hitting at the right pain points of your customers can result in higher open rates and lets you engage with your customers more often. Try using the customer’s buying and viewing history to tailor your messages.

Rule #2: Use the power of analytics

Many brands use push notifications but never seem to leverage their true potential. They underestimate or simply do not understand the level of engagement they can generate from it.

If you’re making the same mistake, then analytics is what the doctor ordered for you. Brands like Vajro offer dedicated push notification analytics, which gives you insights about how well your notifications are performing and the different types of engagement you can draw out of them.

Are you an existing customer of Vajro? Here’s how you can access our push notification analytics.

Rule #3: Send them at the right time

Sending push notifications at the wrong time can result in your messages getting ignored or, worse, the app gets deleted. Avoid this catastrophe by sending them notifications at the right time, preferably in the mornings (7 am to 10 pm) or in the evening (6 pm to 10 pm). In other words, outside your customer’s working hours.

Also, do not send notifications at night as many people sleep with their smartphones near their bed. You do not want to disturb their sleep and risk losing their trust.

Types of Push notifications you can send

Remind them about abandoned carts

The average cart abandonment rate is 67.91% which shoots up to 81% on mobile phones. Cart abandonment has turned out to be a bigger pain for e-commerce companies than meeting the ever-increasing demands of the customers.

Smart companies like La Redoute use push notifications to remind their customers that they’ve left something in their cart. Here is an interesting message from them you can see on their push notifications –

Hey there,

Your basket is pretty full! Come back to finalize your purchases.

Pro tip – Use push notifications not only to notify the customers about their abandoned cart but also to tempt them with awesome discounts or price drop alerts on products lying idle in their cart.

Out-of-stock inventory campaign

Are you a super-popular seller? Then products going out of stock are nothing new for you. And you will replenish the stock soon. But your customers do not know that. When they see an ‘out of stock’ message under a product they intend to buy, they are not going to keep checking your website unless they badly need the product.

This is where you need to be proactive. When the product comes back in stock, update the prospects immediately with push notifications like –

Your favorite BX Black t-shirt is back in stock

Get it before we run out (again!)

This improves your conversion rate and also shows that you care for your customer’s time.

Send geo-targeted push notifications

Remember the last time you went to your favorite store and your phone suddenly went beep-beep – a notification from the store you are just about to visit –

Near Smith Avenue?

The Philips headphones you added to your wishlist can now be purchased in our Smith Avenue store at a 25% discount. Use code XXYYZZ at the counter to get it.

That’s the work of a geo-targeted push notification. Brands use the location of their customers to send push notifications about the latest deals or any other information that will be handy for the buyers.  

Winding Up

Push notifications play a powerful role in offering valuable experience to your customers. But it is vital to keep your user’s pain points, value, and context at the heart of your push notification strategy. Simply put, it should resonate with the user.

If push notifications are the arrows helping you boost user engagement, then a robust app that sends this notification is the bow.

This is where Vajro can help. We build mobile apps that can offer your customers an immersive shopping experience.

Interested?  Book a demo today!