When you visit a website, you probably browse around, and, once you’ve seen everything you're interested in, you likely head for the top of the screen to close out your browser or type in a new URL.
And then… poof… out of nowhere, there's an “exit pop up” offering you a discount or incentivizing you to stay on the site. And, while those popups can be tremendously effective, they can sometimes get hidden by “popup blockers” that people install on their web browsers.
And, so, back in 2016, in an effort to capture some of those lost opportunities, we started seeing browser-based push notifications on sites across the web. In fact, large Fortune 100 sites including CNN, eBay, YouTube, and The New York Times (among others have started to leverage push technology to keep in touch with their site visitors, and keep them coming back for more.
But push notifications aren't just for the big guys. In fact, there are an increasing number of plugins and cloud-based software tools available for just about an type of site to start incorporating this technology into their marketing arsenal.
And with the power of permission-based push notifications, you can start sending your website visitors messages about everything from new site content to special offers, affiliate promotions, special events, and more.
Just imagine, if you owned a restaurant, and were experiencing a slow night… you could simply push a notification out to your “subscriber” list and telling them about your 2-for-1 special. Now that's powerful!
How Exactly Do Push Notifications Work?
Push notifications require your recipients to “opt-in” by granting permission to their web browser or mobile device to send them messages from you. Most services are easily incorporated into Chrome and Firefox on desktop as well as Android devices. Apple products, like the Safari web browser and iOS devices require some additional setup with Apple, so they may not be included with many services.
Some software involves a bit of technical know-how and access to upload files to your website host's server. But other software tools are much simpler, involving little more than dropping a line or two of code onto your website.
How Do We Know They Work?
Here are some cases studies that might just surprise you:
Data from IBM's Xtify shows that push notifications receive 3x the open rates and almost 8x the interaction/click rates as standard emails.
Typical email campaigns demonstrate sales conversion rates somewhere between 10% and 15%. But, according to the marketing and automation company Localytics, push notifications can see conversions as high as 54%!
Finally, while it's important to get people to your website, getting them to come back is even more important. And the odds that a person will buy on their second visit is 3x higher when you've enabled push notifications.
In fact, the mobile marketing company Urban Airship has seen that push notifications can help increase your chances of customer return by 3x, which essentially increases your chance of getting your visitor to get more sales by 9x!
Have I gotten your attention now? Well, then you might be interested in learning how you can start using this powerful technology for your business. Here are three industry leaders with tools worth looking into:
Push Assist
Push Assist started in 2015, and is based in London. Their platform is used on more than 10,000 sites across multiple industries, including e-commerce, travel, healthcare, finance, local retail, and more.
Pricing is based on the numbers of subscribers you have, and Push Assist's different plans offer the option to segment your lists, integrate with other tools, automate your RSS feeds and a lot more. Their enterprise level even includes geo-targeting for companies with multiple locations.
Push Engage
Push Engage, based in Bangalore, India, offers many of the same features as Push Assist, including easy integration with just about any website CMS, and offers a WordPress plugin for extra ease of use.
While many of the features here are the same as Push Assist, there is one extra benefit: Push Engage offers a Free Forever plan that is fully-loaded and feature rich. The only limitations are that it caps monthly messages at 12o and active subscribers at 2,500.
Push Connect Notify
Here at Baer On Marketing, we not only use Push Connect Notify, but we also offer it as part of our managed services, helping our clients integrate effective push notification campaigns into their overall digital marketing strategy.
There are a few things that set Push Connect Notify apart from the other excellent tools listed here. While most tools utilize the built-in browser to request permission from site visitors…
…Push Connect Notify integrates the ability to display a friendly, customized “soft-ask” for their permission to connect with them in the future. But that's not the best part.
After your visitor agrees to receive notifications, they are then (optionally) prompted to enter their email address as well, giving you, as the site owner the opportunity to reconnect with then in their inbox as well.
Finding creative ways to interact with your website visitors is getting more an more challenging. But with push notifications, you can start to build relationships with your visitors that will keep them coming back for more from you time and again.