8 Web Push Notifications People Actually Want to Receive (and 3 They Don’t)

Have you ever received a marketing message that annoyed you or didn’t seem relevant? Of course you have- we all have. Marketers have the power to make their campaigns better but oftentimes they miss the mark.

When it comes to web push, the same logic largely applies. While the platform itself has numerous advantages over others such as email or text messaging, you still have to be careful when crafting your campaigns. There are numerous types of messages that your subscribers want to see, but there are also several that they don’t. Making sure you aren’t sending any notifications that fall into the latter category will help ensure your campaigns are a success.

So- what is it that your subscribers want? What is going to make them unsubscribe? While things vary from brand to brand and industry to industry, there are some general rules you should be following. As always, keep up with your analytics to monitor your click through rates and conversion rates to see what is working well for you. For now- let’s discuss the 8 web push notifications people actually want to receive (and the 3 they don’t). Compare your results against this list- how well does it match up?

What They Want

 Relevant Product Info

If you run an ecommerce store, you know that what is most important to you and your customers is your products. As your inventory changes, alert the right subscribers about the items they care about. Do you send all of your subscribers a notification when any item of yours is low stock or back in stock? Of course not. Instead, segment your users appropriately and only send the notification to those who have looked at the item before.

These notifications work well because they are relevant and help out your customers. Rather than hoping your users will check back at your website for the items they want, do the work for them and let them know when items they are interested in are low in stock, back in stock, or on sale.

Shipping Confirmation

We all love the convenience that comes with shopping online. However, how your business handles your shipping process can drastically influence if customers will shop with you at all, and especially if they will become repeat shoppers. Research shows that shipping cost and speed is one of the biggest determining factors for people deciding where to shop online.

So, where do we come in? On the customer service side of things. Even if you can’t compete with Amazon in terms of cost or speed of your shipping (or even if you can), you can give your customers great service by keeping them updated in real time on their packages. Send a quick push notification when a customer’s order has shipped or when it is delivered. Your customers will remember and appreciate that you’ve kept them updated about their orders.

Breaking News Alerts

If you aren’t in the ecommerce industry, there are plenty of campaigns you can benefit from as well. Real time alerts about breaking news is a great way to engage your audience and drive traffic back to your website. Whether you cover sports, entertainment, politics, or anything else, you can benefit from these types of notifications.

In this fast paced media era we live in, staying up to date about current events and news has become important for many of us. News travels fast and push notifications are one of the quickest ways to get the word out. Make sure with these types of alerts that you are staying relevant to your industry. If you don’t cover sports, for example, then the above notification wouldn’t be your best option.

Welcome Notifications

One of the biggest hurdles you’ll have with web push notifications is getting your audience to opt in. Once they press allow, you want to be sure to take the time to thank them for doing so. Even though opting in to push notifications is incredibly easy, you shouldn’t take it for granted when a user decides they’d like to hear from you.

Welcome notifications are a great way to reach out to your subscribers, and best of all, this notification is automated so it doesn’t take a lot of time or effort on your part. Set it up in your dashboard and turn the status on- all new subscribers will get the message once they opt in.

To instantly prove the value of your notifications, consider including a discount code or special offer. If you aren’t an ecommerce site, consider offering something such as a free e-book, phone consultation, or free trial if you provide a service. Not only will your subscribers appreciate the offer itself, it will help transform those subscribers into actual customers.

Sales Notices

A list of valuable push notifications wouldn’t be complete without including sales notices. People love saving money and therefore will be appreciative of a notice of a major sale or one that is only lasting for a limited time. In fact, nearly 40% of ecommerce shoppers have abandoned an order because they found a similar item elsewhere for a better price.

To further your web push value, consider giving your subscribers advanced warning or early access to a sale of yours. Also keep in mind that you don’t want to send users too many notifications. Keep a healthy balance of notifications, and consider personalizing your sales messages when possible. As we mentioned earlier, a great way to do this is by alerting specific users when items they have looked at have gone on sale.

Abandoned Cart Notifications

Abandoned cart rates remain high, something we recently spoke about in depth. One of the best things you can do to fix that issue is send abandoned cart notifications. Better yet, customers appreciate these messages as well, especially when there is a coupon code involved. Regardless of the industry you are in, you are sure to have a fair amount of competition, and as a result you need to provide your users with a unique customer experience that encourages them to continue shopping with you.

Abandoned cart notifications are incredibly effective at recapturing users, and adding an incentive such as a discount code can help improve your conversions rates and customer satisfaction. Just like welcome notifications, abandoned cart notifications are one of several automated notifications you can send, making them an easy and effective tool you should absolutely be using.

Personalized Content

Personalization is one of the biggest trends in content marketing these days. Customers have come to expect their experience online to involve at least some level of personalization. More than that, personalization actually makes a majority of customers feel more positive towards brands that use it.

Personalization can largely be broken into two different categories. One aspect involves relevancy in terms of actual content. For example, many content websites send out web push notifications when a new article is published at their website. These websites could send the message to all of their subscribers, but a far better option is to utilize segments and send only to those subscribers who are most likely to be interested in the content. The result? Users are far more likely to find the messages relevant and interesting, and you are likely to see much better click through rates.

The second type of personalization involves using personal touches in your notifications, such as a user’s name. You can easily do this with your web push notifications by adding in custom attributes- which you can read how to do here. Be sure to implement this across your web push campaigns, as it will only help improve the quality of your messages.

User Alerts

Finally, we have talked about abandoned cart notifications specifically, but there are other user alerts that you should think about sending. These notifications are highly relevant, as they involve the specific person the message is going to. This will vary depending on your industry, but here are a few ideas to get you thinking:

• If your site has a messaging platform, send an alert when a user receives a new message
• For companies that book appointments, alert users when their appointment is coming up
• Restaurants can send notifications when a user’s reservation is approaching
• Those in the hospitality industry can alert users when they are able to check-in for an upcoming flight or when their trip is approaching
• Banking websites can alert users of suspicious account activity, send notices when a new statement is available, or remind users when a payment deadline is close

No matter the industry you are in, you are likely to have some sort of user alert that you can send via web push notification. Subscribers will always find these messages useful and appreciate receiving them in real time.

What They Don’t Want

Blanket/Broad Messages

It may be tempting to create a simple web push campaign and send it to all of your subscribers, but you should really avoid this the majority of the time. If you hadn’t picked up on it, relevancy and personalization are key when creating any type of marketing material. Broad messages do not meet either of those requirements.

In addition to what we discussed above, also consider segmenting your subscribers based on things such as location, device type, or page visit. Our push platform collects a lot of data you can intelligently use to craft campaigns- be sure to use it!

Pushy Sales Messages

Alerting users that you have an awesome sale going on is great, but simply telling them that you want them to visit your site and buy something is not so great. Web push notifications have high visibility, which is great, but you should never take advantage of that to simply get your name out there. Not only do messages like these not work well at sending traffic to your website, they can often annoy users to the point that they unsubscribe from your notifications all together.

You should always have a distinct purpose behind each of your web push campaigns. Without that, you aren’t likely to have a lot of success. If you need more help developing your web push strategy, head over to our content strategy guide here.

Poorly Timed Messages

We’ve all been interrupted in the middle of the night by our phones going off, and it’s always incredibly annoying. Don’t be that guy with your push notifications. Nobody likes that guy. No matter what industry you are in or what the notification itself says, sending it at the wrong time can have a seriously negative impact on your brand.

Thankfully, you can easily segment your subscribers by time zone and schedule your notifications so that they are never sent to a user at an inconvenient time. Not sure what those times might be? Our research shows you should avoid sending notifications between 1-4am, at 9am, or between 2-4pm.

Wrapping Up

This should give you a much better idea of the types of notifications people enjoy and don’t enjoy receiving. Always keep your subscribers in mind when crafting your campaigns. If what you are sending doesn’t provide much value- why even send it?

What’s your experience been like with web push? What notifications have your subscribers responded well to? We want to hear! Comment below or send us an email.

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