Rich Push Notifications

What Are Rich Push Notifications?

A rich push notification is a push notification with a rich media attachment. In addition to the couple hundred characters allowed in a push notification, rich push notifications can include images, videos, audio and interactive elements. This enables marketers to pack far more information and compelling content into a single push notification. When used well, rich push notifications can have a huge impact on engagement and conversions for a wide range of different mobile campaigns.

If you’re interested in learning more about what push notifications are, and how these notifications could help improve engagement and help maximise the potential of your upcoming mobile marketing strategies, read on and we’ll reveal all. 

How Do Rich Push Notifications Work?

Since the advent of iOS 10, marketers have become more flexible with their push notifications strategy, allowing them to convey messages with ”rich” elements in a fashion similar to social media posts. Just as social media posts can enjoy mass engagement within the confines of character limits, so too can rich push notifications.

If you’ve ever found yourself battling against strict character limits that don’t quite let you get across everything you want to say, rich push notifications could be your answer. 

When standard push notifications are repeatedly being truncated, a move to rich push notifications enables a brand to convey far more information, with the help of images and other visuals. Not only do these additions help to make a bold impact, they’re also far more noticeable when they pop up on users’ mobile devices.

The strength of these rich notifications is enhanced by developments in mobile operating systems. In iOS 10, users now have the opportunity to use new features on their lock screen such as “raise to wake” and “3D touch.” This makes notifications more like an interactive news update, giving users a snippet of the information and leaving them wanting more, thereby increasing engagement.

Setting up a rich push notification could not be easier. Leanplum’s rich push notification solution informs marketers of which operating systems will allow their notifications to show. For users with devices that can’t display rich push, the message will be conveyed through plain text instead. 

To send a rich push notification, marketers simply have to create a new message and select “push notification” before choosing their target audience. Next, the marketer can choose to upload an image (or even an animated gif) to really maximize the impact of their message. Finally, marketers are invited to preview the message. If it all looks good, it’s just a case of hitting the send button to send the rich push notification out to the brand’s chosen audience segment. 

What Do Rich Push Notifications Mean For Marketers?

Marketers can leverage the power of rich notifications by incentivizing their users to engage with a snippet of key content. They can then use this channel in conjunction with tried and true marketing techniques to improve conversion rates. For example, studies have shown that personalized push notifications can increase open rates by up to nine times.

Think about this switch over the course of an entire year and you can start to understand the enormous impact that personalized rich push notifications can have on a brand. 

Once marketers have collected enough data to create user profiles and segments, they can then automate their personalized notifications to ensure each one is delivered at a time when users are most likely to convert. This experience is then enhanced further with the addition of images and other branded content, which make up the rich push notification itself. 

All of these techniques are absolutely crucial for retaining customers. In the increasingly competitive mobile app landscape, it is not enough to simply acquire app users. The process of acquiring new users is in fact far more costly and time-consuming than it is to retain a brand’s existing customers, and that’s why marketers are now putting a huge amount of effort into customer retention strategies that engage users and guarantee a good ROI. 

With studies showing just 21 percent of us return to a new app after one day, it is up to marketers to leverage operating system developments to ensure their notifications flourish. For more information about rich push notifications and how your brand could be making use of this highly intelligent technology, don’t hesitate to contact our team.