Push notifications are a rapidly growing marketing trend.
From providing information about new products to announcing special deals, these simple tools make the users’ life easier and are highly profitable for businesses.
Read on to learn more about the best strategies for earning money from push notifications and how they can reinforce your business.
What Are Push Notifications?
Push notifications are clickable pop-up messages that appear on a mobile device when the users are online or have a browser running on their phone or computer.
Here is how they work.
When users land on a website or an app with push notification functionality, they are asked whether they want to receive notifications from that site in the future.
Opting in gives the website or app the permission to send them information, reminders, and alerts about new products, as well as offers and deals.
These messages are being “pushed” by the website to the users who opted in.
Push notifications typically consist of a catchy title, an image or logo, a short message with a call to action, and a link to the site.
Benefits of push notifications for users
Push notifications allow users to receive everything from news to sports scores, messages about traffic, weather reports, and other information right on their lock screen.
The best part is, they don’t need to install an app or provide an email address to subscribe.
And users do seem to appreciate this marketing method—the average opt-in rate for push notifications across all verticals is over 60 percent.
Benefits of push notifications for businesses
If used correctly, push notifications can be a winning marketing strategy for any business.
These convenient, fully customizable ad formats work well with all types of products and services.
Besides, they can complement other monetization methods you already have on your site.
Most importantly, push notifications are simple to use and require no programming skills at all. Push notification creation and scheduling tools such as PushCrew, Pushwoosh, MaxTraffic, PushEngage, OneSignal, and FoxPush, make it easy to send targeted messages to subscribers. Most push notification services also generate analytics, making it easy to adjust your marketing strategy as needed.
7 Ways to Make Money from Push Notifications
Push notifications can be used in a number of ways to help you make money in your business.
Push notification advertising
With push notification advertising, you deliver ads rather than information. Once users agree to get push notifications from your website or app, they can start receiving ads to their devices. When they click the notification pop-up message, they are immediately directed to your offer. The fact that there is no need to open the app to see the message increases the number of views your ad receives.
And that’s not all.
When you send ad push notifications, you are reaching only the users who have opted in to receive them in the first place. These are people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer and who will provide high-quality traffic to your site.
Blog post alerts
Push notifications are a great marketing tactic if you are a blogger looking to monetize your website. You can send push notifications to the users who have subscribed to your content as soon as a new blog post goes live. Even better, you can recommend the most relevant content based on the last article they read, liked, or shared. This way, you are maximizing the chances that your subscribers will keep coming back.
Besides, you can easily integrate push notifications with affiliate marketing, where you earn commissions by promoting other company’s products. Highly targeted push notifications will get your users to land on the blog posts to which you have added affiliate links.
New product announcement
Another way to make money from push notifications is by sending catchy promotional messages about your new products. How about giving a discount on a newly launched product or even offering it for free when users purchase one of your bestsellers? If you have a food business, you can set up a specific time when subscribers can sample your new menu item.
The possibilities are endless.
Keep in mind that sending push notifications to your existing customer base and convincing them to purchase a new product is easier and more effective than attracting new users who are not familiar with your brand.
App or website updates
Various types of updates account for a quarter of all push notifications. Update notifications inform users about any upgrades or new and improved features on your site. These alerts show users that you are continually improving customer experience and will help you reinforce your brand’s image. And the users who appreciate the value of your business will keep coming back to your site.
Booking services
Use “book now” push notifications to encourage users to make a booking through your website or app. You can keep the users engaged by sending them reminders and details about the service. Some travel brands, for example, stay connected with travellers throughout their journey after they have booked a flight. They send travel policies, check-in reminders, travel alerts, and practical information about the destination through push notifications.
But booking notifications are not only for travel agents.
Even smaller businesses like restaurants, cinemas, hairdressers, and any other services that have a website or an app can invite customers to make appointments through push notifications and then follow up with more information.
Special offers and promotions
You can turn your website visitors into regular customers by sending them various offers through promotional push notifications. Promotions can be discount codes exclusive to your subscribers, special discounts off of their first purchase, or holiday offers like Christmas or New Year sales.
Flash sale promotions are among the most popular campaign formats sent using push notifications. They create a sense of urgency by offering time-sensitive deals where subscribers have to act fast and grab the discount before it disappears.
If you own an e-commerce business, push notifications will help you resolve cart abandonment issues. Send promotional push notifications to alert the users about the items they left behind in the cart. If they see that the product is now having a discount, clicking the push notification may lead to immediate sales.
Geo-targeted push notifications
Geo-targeted push notifications engage users as they approach the physical location of the business. If they get triggered at the right time and place, these push notifications will increase the chances that the subscribers will stop by and purchase your product.
Advantages of Using Push Notifications for Marketing
Push notifications are essential marketing tools that hold countless advantages for businesses. They will help you stay connected with the users, keep them engaged, and allow you to meet your business objectives.
Here is what push notifications can do for your business:
Facilitate communication
Unlike other advertising formats, online push notifications are delivered right to the users’ screens even when they are not searching the web or using an app. A single click is enough to redirect them to your website. As long as your message is clear and concise and you keep your target audience in mind, customers will keep clicking notifications to come back to your site.
Maximize views
Before sending push notifications, it is essential to segment subscribers based on their behaviour on your website or app. If you are an e-commerce business, you may want to send push notifications based on the customers’ purchase history or their favourite product categories. Bloggers can segment users according to what they were reading during their previous visits. Segmentation will allow you to send relevant messages about the products and topics that users are interested in, maximize views, and minimize the chances of opting out.
Increase user engagement
Personalized push notifications are effective means of retaining subscribers. They grab the users’ attention and keep them active and engaged. Scheduling push notifications to be sent at specific times also allows for higher engagement and subscriber satisfaction. Research shows that by sending relevant and timely notifications, you can boost user engagement by more than 80 percent.
Increase customer retention
Push notifications should focus mostly on targeting your existing customer base. People who are interested in your products and services naturally want to know about any news, upgrades, and offers. Notifications will not only keep your existing visitors up to date but also turn inactive users into active ones and convert one-time viewers into returning customers.
Give better conversion rates
Push notifications can help you convert visitors to your website or app into loyal customers. Statistics show that the conversion rate of users subscribing to push notifications is almost 30 percent higher compared with the conversion rate of email subscribers.
Enhance brand consistency
Push notifications are a reminder of your brand presence and a simple way to add consistency to your business. Make sure to have your logo and your values clearly displayed in push notifications you send to your customers. This way, they can become an additional means to extend your brand’s story over different channels.