Best practices on push notifications

Posted on June 26, 2011 by Michael Schneider (Mobile Roadie CEO)

Push notifications are one of the most valuable things we offer our customers. Instead of having to send expensive SMS messages to reach people, push notifications are free, relevant (users opt in first by downloading the app, and then by accepting to receive push), and geo targeted down to a mile radius around any address in the world.

Here’s how to make the most of them:

Location, location, location.

You’ve heard “location” a million times as the killer mobile feature, and it is. Don’t just reach your audience when you want to. Reach them where it’s relevant for them. For musicians, this could be during a show. For a conference, perhaps right before the big keynote starts. For a hotel, as a guest enters the building.

We give our customers three ways to send targeted push notifications:

Blasting your entire audience can be useful when you have a general announcement. Using an address/radius is useful when you want to target people around a specific venue. And using our Map feature, you can draw a box around an area – a city block or an entire country.

Don’t be shy.

Customers many times are worried about “bothering” their audience. Don’t be. They downloaded your app for a reason. They want to hear from you, especially offers that give them exclusive content, a discount, or exclusive access. We recommend sending a relevant message at least once a week.

Use our rewards system.

Don’t just message your users – offer them things in exchange for interacting. Using our rewards system, you can message users, challenge them to do something (virtual or real) and get a reward (virtual or real). For example, you could tell fans to post a photo at a show and unlock a free track from the artist. Or, you could instruct hotel patrons to “check in” using Foursquare or Facebook Places and get a coupon for a free coffee. The possibilities are limitless.

Deep link to content.

When sending a push, users will see the message along with “slide to view” to open the app. Don’t waste this call to action – link it to content that’s relevant to the push message. For example, if you’re trying to sell tickets to a show in Los Angeles, deep link the push message to the exact page in the app for the show – this will open the app directly on that page. Fans won’t have to search to find the show, resulting in a higher conversion.

Some don’ts.

Don’t put a link to a website within the push. User’s can’t copy and paste it, and the whole point of a push is to draw them into the app. If you want to link to a website, use our URL system to “target” the push to a link. It will open the link inside the app.

Don’t just reference offline events. It’s great to tell fans to “watch a show on TV” or “vote for an award” but it’s better to pull them into the app to do the action or view a news post on the event. Remember to connect push notifications to content in the app.

In conclusion.

Send relevant, targeted push notifications often and engage with your audience. Smart use of this system results in higher engagement, retention, and virality, not to mention – transactions!