Optimise engagement and boost sales by sending effective push notifications for your deals, rewards, and promos. Here are four examples to get you started.
With over 80% of the Australian population using smartphones, it makes sense for businesses to use and maximise mobile push notifications for effective local area marketing. As more businesses, brands, and retailers have re-opened carefully, push notifications inform communities that you are back in business and encourage more customers to come back to stores. Coupled with enticing offers, push notifications give customers an incentive to visit or buy in your store.
Ideally, effective push notifications offer relevant, timely, and enticing content or promo. To further optimise your push notification and engage with customers, consider using the following push notification strategies and examples.
1. Target based on location and time.
Send timely push notifications depending on where your customers live or when they might need your product during the day or week. Location-based push notifications use the customer’s region and time-zone to send notifications.
With the Imfree app, a local area marketing, and promotions platform, stores can send push notifications not only to customers but also to the local community. It allows you to target nearby customers, increasing your audience reach.
To make notifications more effective, send notifications for deals during the day or time that your customers will need them the most. For example, a restaurant can notify nearby customers of a “Buy one, take one” promo of a pasta special for lunch. Customers would receive a notification like this in real-time:
Well-timed notifications combined with a sense of urgency encourage customers to visit your store and make a purchase. Sending location or time-based notifications helps you provide relevant deals to your customers at the right moment.
2. Promote offers in advance
Give customers a heads up by alerting them on upcoming deals. This strategy works well for one-day or limited-time offers. Notifying customers beforehand creates a ‘hype’ and gives them time to be ready to avail of your offer once the promo runs. By promoting in advance, Imfree ensures that customers are aware of the deal.
The idea also works for recurring deals. For example, a local cafe can promote a discount on selected coffee flavours available every day during a certain time in the afternoon. Since customers are already aware of the discount beforehand, they can simply drop by the cafe on their free day.
To leverage push notifications, take advantage of promoting seasonal promos such as Valentine’s Day deals. This provides stores the opportunity to inform their community, offer relevant deals, and boost sales.
3. Add emojis to notifications to engage customers.
Rich push notifications include emojis or images in notifications. As soon as customers see your notification, it instantly separates your promotions from competitors just for its eye-catching visuals alone.
Notifications with images provide customers with a visually-appealing and engaging experience. They clearly see the product and have a good understanding of the deal. A study shows that rich push notifications increase direct response rates by 56%.
If you want to keep it simple, a study suggests that just adding emojis to your notification’s copy can also increase open rates by 85%. According to the study, people associate emojis with expressions or emotions. It taps on empathy and leaves a better impact on the people reading your push notifications.
However, unless it’s according to your brand voice, use emojis sparingly and only in appropriate promotions or occasions. Nonetheless, it’s a must-try push notification strategy that easily captures your customers’ attention.
4. Remind customers of limited deals.
Maximise push notifications by alerting customers when a promo or reward is expiring. Limited-time offers give a sense of urgency in itself but reminding customers when time is almost up increases its value. For example, a grocery store can alert locals of a limited-time sale for seasonal fruits or vegetables that will soon spoil or run out.
With Imfree, you can send alerts beforehand or in real-time, so customers don’t miss out on your special deals. Using push notifications as reminders for existing or expiring offers also keeps new and current customers engaged, increasing brand awareness and reputation. Just remember to choose which offers provide more value to customers to keep your deals timely, relevant, and effective.
Send effective push notifications every time
These strategies and examples give you a better idea to optimise your push notification marketing. Don’t hesitate to be creative with your push notifications. After all, maximising push notifications will help your store recover by increasing store engagement online and offline, improving customer retention, and producing more sales. Just remember that the key is to promote deals or rewards that offer value at the right time and frequency.
For small businesses, retailers, brands, and manufacturers who would like to engage with customers online, Imfree, a real-time local area marketing, and promotions platform, helps you send effective and timely push notifications.
Sign up to Imfree today for free and start pushing offers and notifications to the right local customers. Simply register online, easily set up your store on the platform, and start promoting your deals and digital loyalty program.
