Notifications tray — The new battlefield
Frazzled after a tough day at the office, you hop onto a bus to return home. For the next couple of hours of your journey home, that 6-inch smart device would be your companion. One that will attempt to entertain you — Youtube; educate you — Quora; inform you — Google News; relax you — Spotify and help you socialize — Facebook.
You turn on the internet, the phone beeps many times and there you go — the notifications tray is flooded with notifications from apps on your mobile each vying for your attention. A fight to grab the biggest piece of the ‘Two-hour Pie’.
Some comment by your dear friend Alex on the photo posted by you immediately catches your attention. You click the notification, read the witty comment, have a laugh, reply, chat on the messenger for some time with Alex, and look at some rib-tickling memes and videos that Alex shared with you. It lifts your mood up, you feel more relaxed and happy. Facebook has added value to your life by simply by sending you an interesting ‘push notification’.
The next day you may visit YouTube by clicking on the notification about some viral video and end up watching other related videos and even subscribe to a channel.
An interesting notification can lead to tremendous levels of engagement and thus this 5-inch long notifications screen is the new ‘battlefield’ for apps.
By the numbers — push notifications
Sending those unputdownable notifications that make the user click it and enter the app, is an extremely tough task. A report on push notifications by Accengage states that the worldwide average click rate of push notifications is 7.8%. This is can further be divided into Android 10.7% and iOS 4.9%. The above numbers are a testimony to the fact that the battle being fought on your notifications screen is pretty intense.
The strategy behind each push notification
Each push notification campaign is meticulously planned, keeping in mind the timing, content and user attributes like geography, gender, age group, interests, app version, and mobile OS. Let us understand in detail.
The Notification timing
Timing is the linchpin of the entire push notification strategy. For obvious things like breaking news, a WhatsApp message or order delivery, you need to immediately inform the user. But when you send notifications to drive engagement and to attract users through offers, timing is of paramount importance.
Imagine YouTube sending a notification about some viral video on a busy Monday morning while the user is still fighting Monday-blues. The user would either ignore it or just dismiss it. Similarly, imagine getting a notification from some fitness app at 9 in the night asking the user to try new workouts. Again, it does not make sense. Had the user received YouTube notification in the evening, post office hours and that by the fitness app early in the morning, it may have made the user click them.
The report of Accengage also states that the click rates are high during the non-working hours. It is at its peak at 11 P.M — 11.4% and a healthy 8% during the lunch-break hours. During the working hours i.e morning and afternoon it falls down to 6.5% and 6.7% respectively.
The user profile
A user’s profile is built from his/her interests, gender, age group, geography, device info and other app-specific info.
An eCommerce app would send a ‘woman fashion sale’ notification to the female users falling in a specific age group. A magazine app would send a cricket magazine notification to a user interested in sports. Sending notifications irrelevant to a user will irk him/her. Thus forming different user profiles based on your business is important.
The content of notifications
Which notification is the user more likely to click
‘Watch this adventurous video!’ Or ‘Got the guts to try these adventures?’
Probably the second one, isn’t it? Both take the user to the same video on YouTube but the second one just seems more exciting and more interesting. It is the way notification is presented to the user.
You just have 10–15 words and a fraction of second to grab user’s attention and thus it should be compelling. An appealing image in the notification has also become an important tool for companies.
Example — News & Magazines app.
Push notifications for a News & Magazines app can be broadly divided into three parts
1. Breaking news notifications — These are time-critical notifications and should be pushed to all the users in their preferred language as soon as the news breaks.
2. Profile-based engagement notifications
3. Notifications encouraging users to read new magazines
Features, facts and opinion based news articles along with magazines are the ones which you use to drive engagement and thus notifications related to them should be sent strategically.
For breaking news — Shooting in Christmas market
Timing
Immediately. Your notification should be the first to inform the user about this sad event.
User Profile
Across all user profiles.
Notification Content
A truck drove into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 9 people and injuring several others. The police believe it was an attack.
For an opinion article — What are the factors leading to India’s economic slowdown?
Timing
It could be scheduled in the night close to dinner time or just before office hours in the morning when people usually read the newspaper.
User Profile
The notification should be pushed to a group of users interested in categories like India and finance or/and to Indian users.
Notification Content
Worrying times for India.The economy continues to slip. Check the factors here.
For a magazine — The Autocar
Timing
Usually a weekend afternoon, when the user is unwinding, relaxing and has ample time to read the entire magazine.
User Profile
Should be pushed to a user interested in automobiles, technology and luxury.
Notification Content
Title : The Autocar India — new issue available! Skoda rapid, Maruti S Presso, TVS radion and many more.
This battle of notifications is set to intensify with apps coming up with highly customized and ingenious notification designs.
Thanks for reading. Will be back with more and if you have the Medium app, you would be ‘Notified’!
