Too many of any one thing is too much – the same goes for pushes.  Sending push notifications to your team or clients is an ideal way to get their attention, but if you send too many of them, the opposite will happen.  They will stop paying attention to these notices.  How can you best take advantage of this highly effective means of communication?  Let’s take a look at how to use push notifications wisely, so that you won’t send out too many or send out too much.

Too Many

Sending more pushes to your team or clients is going overboard.  Often your folks are already getting more than 40 push notifications on their smartphone each day, not including yours.  For instance, when people download an app, free notifications come with it.  Ping-ping-ping.  You don’t want to overwhelm those receiving your messages.

It’s true that you can now send helpful and timely information, keeping your people connected and engaged – but if they receive too many notifications, they may cut the connection with you.  In fact, experts indicate that a weekly push can be too much for 10% of your app users.  However, if your user base expects a weekly message from you, then your push will already be on their radar.  Also, if your messages are relevant and of value to your team, then they will continue to open and read them and stay subscribed.  Do the recipients of your pushes give you feedback on the content or the schedule of your push notifications?

Reasons People Have

A study of push notification reaction rates indicates that more than half of the people receiving them find them irritating.  These interruptions are unsolicited and may arrive at the most inconvenient time.  Push notifications barge right onto the smartphones of the recipients as soon as the message is sent.  People often complain that they are distracting, untimely, not relevant, serving no purpose, and on top of that, they are often impersonal.  Make sure yours are anything but!  Consider what you want to tell them and schedule the push deliberately.  You want to ensure that your pushes are welcomed, and that the recipients will respond favorably to the gist of your messages.

Here are some tips.  Researchers have discovered that Tuesdays around lunchtime are good times to send out pushes, since more people will stop and click.  Sundays are also a strong day to send out your pushes wisely.  Another good time to schedule pushes is around bedtime.  You might want to use segmented pushes, giving people the chance to select which messages they get, increasing open rates significantly.  These pushes are tailored for each one receiving them.  Do you offer this feature to your team or clients?

Too Much

People want to glance at a push and then move on to whatever they are doing.  It may be a temptation for you to write more text for your push, but focus on writing less.  Otherwise, if you send too much, there’s a good chance that much of it will not be read.  Journalists tell us that they pack as much information as possible into the first paragraph of their story in the hopes that their readers will at least digest that.  Readers may scan through the rest of the article if that first paragraph intrigues them, but otherwise, they’ll move on to something else.  You want your pushes to get the attention of those receiving them and to read what you want them to know.  Keep it short and sweet.  Too much text is too much, and your folks will read too little.

Here’s a goal for you when you are crafting a push.  [This sentence is 50 characters in length – and it’s too long.]  Aim for fewer than 40 characters.  That’s succinct!  Think of the long-ago telegraph message.  People paid by the letter, so they shortened their message as best as they could to save money.  How can you shrink down your message so that the gist of it is captured in the fewest number of words?  Studies on click rates show that more people will read a push that is of 10 or fewer words than one of more than 20 words.  Choose your content wisely.  What is a good way to limit your text?

Wise Practices

Speaking of wisely, what tips will help you become a Rockstar Notification Pusher?  As mentioned, pare the message down to as few words as possible.  Get to the gist of it.  Once you think you’ve narrowed it down, push it aside, and look at it again an hour later. Whenever possible, add rich media to your message.  More people will clink on that link to learn more.  

Also, personalize the push, so that people really do get the sense that you are singling them out, pulling them aside to give them a worthwhile tip.  You want your churn rate to be low – solid proof that people appreciate hearing from you.  Whether your campaign is triggered based on an event or a completed action, or on a promotion about a product or service, or on a transaction confirming a time-sensitive update, you want people to read your pushes and click on the link. What can you do so your pushes have a higher success rate?

Getting Connected

So, you like the idea of being able to send notifications to your team or clients?  Get your own Business Glu app so you can send pushes.  The app will have your colors and logo and other design features.  The app even comes with templates you can use or modify to send pushes your team will read  Contact us for a demo.  We’ll show you how to reach your team wherever they are from wherever you are.  Right to their smartphones.  That sure sounds like a wise way to use push notifications!