Why is it Important to Add Push Notification Features in Mobile Apps?

Push notifications can either help your mobile app succeed or make it fail. Adding a push notification feature is one of the strategies used by many companies to keep their users engaged with their apps.

If used properly, push notifications can effectively help boost customer retention rates and improve engagement. However, rampant misuse and overuse of push notifications can overwhelm users, which will urge them to unsubscribe to your app or, worse, uninstall the mobile application from their device.

Suppose you wish to leverage the power of the push notification feature to increase your mobile app’s success rate. In that case, you need to learn and understand every vital aspect of push notification. In this post, we will talk about the following:

Knowing these things will help you avoid the misuse of push notifications. A deeper understanding of push notifications will also give you ideas on how to create an effective push notification strategy and reap its many benefits.

Enough with our intro; let’s start with knowing what push notifications are.

What are Push Notifications? 

If you have already checked a few articles about push notifications, chances are you have witnessed different definitions of push notifications. You may even find it confusing which definition is correct and which is not. Some say it is an actionable message that nudges app users to take action. In contrast, others say it is a rich message sent to app users to deliver updates, promotions, and information. Some people describe push notifications as personalized messages similar to SMS messages sent to the app’s user as an alert message. If you find definitions identical to these statements, don’t get confused, as they all describe what a push notification is.

Push notifications was introduced in June 2009 by Apple Inc. App developers use this technology to deliver messages and alerts regarding the app or product updates, offers, events, reminders, and other relevant information that calls for the users’ attention.

In essence, a push notification is a short pop-up message sent directly to the app users’ mobile device, regardless of whether the app is running or not. Push notifications may contain all text copy and include action buttons and rich media content like symbols, GIFs, images, and videos.

How Do Push Notifications Work?

Push notifications work by sending clickable messages to app users that notify or alert them about something exciting and important related to the app. Push notifications can either be a pop-up message displayed on the status bar or a text message sent to the user’s device. Once the users tap the notification message, they will then be redirected to the mobile app.

For the mobile app developer to deliver push notifications, the users must first install the app on their mobile devices. However, the users need not open or run the app to receive the push notifications. They also do not have to take any action or follow what the alert messages prompt them to do.

Push notifications are pretty versatile and are available in two main types- mobile push notifications and web push notifications. Since we are talking about the significance of push notifications in mobile apps, let us talk more about mobile push notifications in the next section of this post.

Different Types of Push Notifications?

There are different types of push notifications for mobile apps. Among the common types of push notifications are as follows:

Reminder Notifications

Reminder notifications are reminder messages sent by an app based on the user’s input and the data from other external sources. This type of push notification is beneficial for helping users stay on track of any important opportunities, their schedules, or the activities they need to do. For example, if your travel app’s user has a scheduled trip to New York, the app will draw information from local hotels and remind you to book one for your upcoming trip.

Alert Notifications

As its name suggests, alert notifications are messages users receive when recent activities are done by other people that directly affect them. For social media apps, for instance, you will receive alert notifications when:

• Someone liked your video, photo, or post
• People sent you messages
• There is a log-in attempt from unknown devices
• Someone sent you a friend request
• Other users commented on your pictures or post

Recurrent Notifications

Recurrent notifications are automated push notifications sent to users once at a definite date and time. The notifications are sent based on the rules the user established. Often, recurrent push notifications are used for delivering timely and tailored messages that drive actions or encourage users to engage with the app.

Geolocation Notifications

Geolocation notifications are a type of push notification triggered when users enter or leave a particular location. It is targeted based on the user’s current GPS location or IP address.

Catch-up Notifications

Catch-up notifications are a type of push notification often used in health and nutrition apps, eCommerce apps, fitness apps, and music apps, among others. The primary purpose of a catch-up push notification is to encourage or motivate users to re-engage with your app and to continue to use it even after they step away. Catch-up notifications are used to send congratulatory messages or messages of appreciation when users make progress. 

Promotional Notifications

Promotional notifications are message alerts used to inform users about your brand or app’s latest promos, exclusive offers, subscriptions, sales updates, and giveaways. The primary purpose of promotional push notification is to encourage app users to make a purchase or avail of any promo you are offering.

Purchase Notifications

Purchase notifications alert app users whenever they make a purchase. Purchase push notifications are often used for apps that involve purchasing goods and services, including food and drink apps, booking apps, mobile banking apps, eCommerce apps, and mobile payment apps.

Trivia Notifications

Trivia notifications are creative push notifications that keep users engaged with the app by sending entertaining, interesting, and funny messages or trivia.

Feedback Notifications

Feedback notifications are rating or survey-type messages that prompt users to provide you with any feedback based on their experience while using the app. Implementing feedback notifications is a great way to know what your users feel and think about your app and how you can improve your app in order to boost user experience and engagement rate.

Now that we’ve already learned the most common types of push notifications, let’s move on to knowing why it is important to add this feature to your mobile applications.

Why are Push Notifications Important in Mobile Apps?

Push notifications are one of the critical features and essential marketing tools of a successful mobile app. It offers a lot of benefits, among which are:

It helps stimulate user engagement

Push notifications allow you to communicate directly to your users and notify them of any time-sensitive, engaging, and important messages about your app. They help keep your users stay up to date with your brand’s latest offerings, promotions, announcements, and updates, nudging them to take immediate action and stimulating user engagement.

It helps retain or re-engage users

Sending notifications helps keep your brand visible to your users, allowing them to re-engage with your app. When users who haven’t used your mobile application for a long time receive attractive deals relevant to them, they get motivated to run and use the app again. This will not only help retain users but also helps increase app usage time.

It helps increase conversion rates

Push notifications greatly influence conversions. Real-time push notifications about your brand’s latest offers, great deals, and updates grab user attention and trigger instant action. This can help increase conversion rates.

It helps you target the right users

The great thing about push notifications is they allow you to personalize your message and communicate important information to the right users.

It helps you track actionable metrics

Push notifications are an essential and powerful marketing tool that you can use for tracking KPIs, actionable metrics, customer engagement metrics, and other marketing indicators.

What are the Good Practices for Writing Push Notifications?

The fundamental of writing an effective push notification revolves around these three principles:

• It has to be personal.
• It has to be timely and relevant.
• It has to be actionable.

The good practices of writing push notifications include:

• Focusing on the app user
• Personalizing your message
• Avoiding clickbait with no substance or value
• Using emojis and rich media with context
• Refraining from sending a generic blast
• Picking the right time to send the notification
• Implementing A/B test

Final Thoughts on Mobile Push Notifications

Push notifications are a robust marketing tool and an effective channel to communicate to users and stimulate app engagement. However, many users find push notifications irritating and even infuriating. Thus, it would be best to use it cautiously to avoid misuse.

Push notification is not a one size fits all thing. What works with other apps may not work with you. To gauge what’s the best strategy for your app, make sure to do A/B testing. 

We have highly experienced, professional mobile app developers who are experts on the ins and outs of push notifications. They can guide you towards effectively using push notifications as a powerful marketing tool. If you need further help, you may send us a message anytime.

Frequently Asked Questions About Mobile Push Notifications