If you don’t know what push notifications are, the chances are you spent last ten years in a cryosleep, or in a wilderness cut off from civilization. Push notifications (let’s call them ‘push’ for short) are something that we take for granted. They are as common as mobile phones and (just think about it!) one almost can’t imagine life without them. They are pretty much everywhere — on your android phone, your iPad, your Mac, your PC…

They are neat little helpers that aid you in everyday tasks: reminding you of something or telling you something new. But are all pushes good? Can you make something so simple so bad and annoying people will want to click ‘deny notifications’ for your app? Of course, you can, it’s easier than you think.

Don’t worry — I can give you some tips on how to make them better, and tell you about things you should avoid at all costs.

Too darn many

No, seriously, would you like if your phone looked something like this?

I bet you’d explode after a few seconds. Imagine each one of them having a ‘ding’ sound as well. How’s that, huh? That’s exactly why you should limit the number of pushes your app sends to any user. The preferred number is no more than one per day, no more than five times a week. Or just allow the user to set the frequency of the notifications. And better yet — divide them into several categories and let the users decide if they want to receive them all, or switch some of them off.

Ding-dong, your sleep is gone

Despite many people using the ‘sleep’, or ‘do not disturb’ modes during the night, you also gotta consider those who don’t know or don’t use such modes. Do not push notifications to all your users at the same time — they may be in different time zones. Think about it.

Hey, hon?

If the push suddenly says your name in its text, it will instantly catch your attention, won’t it? Yes, you got me right — personalization is the key for not losing your users. If you manage to offer something specific to each of them, they will love your app till death.

Wassup, mate?

Imagine getting such notification when you’re an 80-year-old lady? Sure, there are one or two grandmas out there in the world who would be super cool with such stuff, but most of them won’t. So targeting is your friend. Think about what you send and to whom. Plan carefully, and you can get more views, clicks and even purchases by making a separate push notification for each demographic group.

Now that we’ve dealt with things you should NOT do, how about that useful stuff you CAN implement?

Brevity

The first thing you should understand about push notifications is that they are kind of like tweets — you can squeeze only so much information into them. Of course, users can expand pushes and read everything you put there — but let’s be honest: how many times did you do such a thing? Most of the times you just read whatever fits into the first lines and then either open it or discard it.

Engagement

It’s also a good practice to include some call to actions into your pushes so the users will be more prone to clicking them. But you should always include some information before a CTA, otherwise, they are plain useless. “We got some new stuff, click to check it out!” won’t be a good example, while “Hey, there are some new shoes similar to those you bought, wanna check them out?” is a better one.

Precision

And here we come to a next tip — be precise. You don’t want to include some vague info into your pushes, or no info at all.

Flattery

Also, don’t be afraid to use flattery. Users love to feel good. Well, any sane person does. You can achieve this in a million different ways. For instance, you can tell them that you value their input (like leaving a review in an online store) or just tell them they look pretty today.

Honesty

But the next important tip comes here — don’t lie to users. Be honest. Honesty is what is highly valued nowadays, especially amongst users. If you’ll tell them something like “you are the most beautiful person in the world”, they would probably understand you’re just lying to them. And, of course, don’t lie about your product or whatever your app is about — no “TOTALLY FREE”, if there are some underlying conditions and so on. Users hate being lied to.

Helpfulness

Trying to be helpful is another good tip. Users don’t view push notifications as a marketing tool or whatever you use them for — they want pushes to be helpful. And you should make them that way. User added some wares into the cart, but didn’t go through with the payment? Kindly remind them of this sometime later. A new event is coming? Maybe you have something you can offer your users (booking tickets, buying associated goods) — tell them about it! Remember I told you about personalization? Here’s where helpfulness comes in: if a user uses your app, let’s say, twice a month, don’t prompt him to use it twice a week — they’ll most likely just delete it. The same tip can be applied to inactive users. If you notice they haven’t been using your app for a while — why not ask them to come back?

Challenge

Have you sometimes read the push notification and exclaimed: “What the heck? No way, I’m gonna prove this app wrong!”? Then you probably experienced one of the tricks you should try incorporating yourself. Tell users something they won’t agree with or what might seem challenging. But don’t go too far. For instance, “I bet you won’t be able to buy this $999 watch! Wanna prove me wrong?” is an awful example of a push notification. While “Can you win this 40% discount? Let’s find out!” is a better one.

Empathy

Using empathy is what works not only in real life but with push notifications as well. If it’s bad weather outside, why not help user cheer up? You can offer them something you might be selling (a warm blanket or a hot beverage, or a nice pizza with a discount), or tell them a joke.

Risibility

Speaking of which — jokes and puns are always cool to read instead of boring sale promotional. Don’t be afraid to joke with your users, but remember about personalization and don’t overstep boundaries (like Pizza Hut employee did — https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5195545/Pizza-Hut-worker-fired-writing-joke-inside-pizza-box.html).

Using jokes and puns based on pop-culture phenomenon are also good. Make references to TV shows, movies, video games — whatever you feel is right for your audience! People love seeing references to something they like or at least heard about.

Emoji

The last, but not the least is kind of a controversial point. I’ve stumbled across a number of tips about using more emoji in push notifications. In my personal opinion, don’t overdo it: use one or two emoji tops. Personally, I think emoji make text harder to read, especially✌ if😁 they’re 🤣placed🤔 like😒 this👌😘💕.

TL;DR

Phew. Now that we’re done, I hope you’ve learned at least something useful you can do to make your push notifications better and more engaging. In the end, I just want to summarize everything we’ve been talking about (I hope you didn’t just scroll all the way down here):

- Think about your users, not about sales. That’s the first and most general rule.

- Make notifications short, to the point, and, most importantly — helpful. Also, include a call to action.

- Don’t be afraid to use flattery, jokes, puns, and references, but don’t overdo it.

- Personalize push notifications! Don’t treat your users as a grey mass. Treat every person as someone special (because they are).

- Avoid spamming! Better yet — let users define the frequency and the kinds of notifications they want to receive.