What are Progressive Web App Push Notifications, how do they work, and how can you start using them? Discover the answers to these and more questions in today’s article!
The digital era has significantly impacted and changed the way businesses communicate with their customers. Nowadays, companies have more channels than ever to locate and reach their ideal audience. On the other hand, customers have become so saturated with multiple sources of information that they subconsciously ignore the majority of it.
In fact, according to a study conducted by Microsoft, average attention span has reduced from 12 seconds to 8.5 seconds over the last years. With this shift in mind, it comes as no surprise that many companies are facing difficulties reaching their target audience in a quality way. Yes, they might get their content in front of people, but do they really get noticed?
Luckily, not all channels and methods are the same, and one of them really stands out: Push Notifications. In today’s article, we will see how progressive web app push notifications are making a difference in a world where getting the user’s attention is key to success.
1. What are Progressive Web App Push Notifications?
To answer this question clearly, let’s begin by breaking it down into simpler concepts. Before everything else, what exactly are push notifications?
Even if the concept of Push notifications doesn’t ring a bell to you at this exact moment, the chances are that you already know them very, very well. In fact, you have probably received hundreds of them on your mobile phone.
If you’ve ever downloaded an app on your phone, which I can safely assume that you have done at some point, you have probably received at least one pop up message from this app on your screen. It usually shows up on the top of your screen, and will probably remain there until you decide to remove it by swiping to the left (depending on the device).
Of course, you will need to have your notifications enabled for this app in order to receive them.
However, Push notifications are not only exclusive to native mobile apps. In fact, they are one of the most powerful benefits of Progressive web apps. Progressive web apps, also known as PWA or just web apps, are essentially websites that look and behave in the same way as mobile apps.
However, they have some serious advantages over native apps. They are easily shareable with a single URL, you don’t have to download them from a third-party App store, and they don’t take up anywhere near as much space on your phone. These are just a few of many other benefits, about which you can learn more from the article that we shared above.
Progressive web app push notifications, therefore, are pop-up messages that companies can send to people who are visiting their website, or have visited it previously. However, as opposed to native apps, users don’t need to actually have the app downloaded and installed on their phone.
This allows you to reach your visitors effortlessly, positively impacting your engagement rates, and often resulting in increased sales and brand awareness.
2. What are the benefits of Push Notifications?
There are numerous benefits of using progressive web app push notifications, including:
- Improved customer engagement – as we already mentioned, they can significantly improve engagement rates as they deliver relevant information & updates to the users, without being intrusive.
- Increased conversion rates – additionally, progressive web app push notifications are a great way to increase your conversion rates. By delivering the right message in the right time, you can offer discounts, promotions, or make product announcements right on the spot.
- Less competition – compared to other digital channels, users don’t receive as many impacts that might lead to saturation. For example, they will never receive as many push notifications as they will see Display ads all across the Internet, while browsing from one website to another.
- Target the right audience – because progressive web app push notifications are targeting users who are already familiar with your website, they are one step more qualified than the rest. So, your push message can help them move further down the funnel.
- Track valuable metrics – push notifications, combined with a powerful analytics feature such as the one offered by Beezer, can give you valuable information about user behaviour. You can measure metrics such as delivery receipts, open rates, and open times.
- Brand awareness & consistency – another huge benefit includes enhancing brand consistency, and generating brand awareness for your company. Push notifications form an additional marketing channel in which you can alert customers of last-minute deals, special offers, coupons, and so much more.
3. How do they work on Web Apps?
As we already mentioned previously, progressive web apps work in a different way than native apps. You can start a PWA directly from your browser, and install an icon on your own screen. However, you don’t have to download the PWA like a regular app, which means that it isn’t taking up all the space on your mobile device.
Additionally, progressive web apps are really fast. They can actually work in offline mode, or in networks with an unstable connection.
Progressive web app push notifications go far beyond the users’ browser, allowing you to engage with, and even retain your website visitors. Push notifications can be used for multiple purposes, such as:
- Sending a new feature announcement, or an update of your product;
- Alerting about existing offers & promotions, or upcoming sales;
- Nurturing the user with relevant content and insights from your blog;
- Or even sending a reminder to encourage users to take action.
They use a “service worker”, which is a script that your browser runs in the background, to listen for “push events” provided by your PWA notifications service (such as Beezer). Once the push event is triggered, the notification is immediately sent to the mobile device of the user, whether the browser is active or not.
Push notifications are sent from a server to the service provider, and contain all the information required to deliver the right message to the right recipient.
As soon as your website visitor enables his notification messages, the service worker registers him as a subscriber to your website so he can receive your messages.
4. Practical Example: Beezer
To see how progressive web app push notifications are actually configured, let’s see a practical example from our own platform. Although different push notification service providers will work differently, you will be able to get an idea of what happens behind the scenes.
Configuring push notifications with Beezer’s Drag & Drop builder is actually very easy.
First, log into your Beezer account. If you don’t have one, you can quickly create it by clicking on this link. Don’t worry, there is a 30-day free trial without any compromise.
From your app builder account, click on the Build section, then Pages. Click on the plus button next to “Pages”, and add a page to show your users all of the push notifications you’ve sent, right in the app. Add our Notifications component.
Once you’ve created your Notifications page, and updated and edited the header to beautify it as much as you’d like, head on over to the “Engage” section of the platform – you’re ready to start sending your progressive web app push notifications!
From there, you can start building our your push notifications. Fill out the required information, such as:
- The Title & Subtitle of your push notification;
- The image (or GIF) that you want to show up alongside your message;
- A Navigation link that sends those who click or tap your push notification to any page within your app, or to any external site.
With Beezer, you can personalise your progressive web app push notifications to the smallest detail possible. This way, you can ensure that your brand will remain consistent with its corporate colours, images, and any other key elements. And you can preview how your push notification will look on mobile and on desktop, right from within the platform.
Once you are done filling out all the details, you are ready to send your push notification, and reach your target audience with the right message at the right time! As easy as that.
Plus, on Beezer you can schedule your push notifications up to 6 months ahead of time, so you can plan ahead to send out a series of push notifications that fit to your marketing campaign. For detailed step-by-step instructions on how to send progressive web app push notifications with Beezer, check out our How-To Video.
5. How to Boost Engagement with PWA push notifications
Of course, simply sending progressive web app push notifications isn’t always enough on its own to boost engagement. You need to undertake the right strategy in order to do it in a way that’s efficient for your business goals. Of course, while also making sure that you don’t go overboard with push notifications. Otherwise, you risk annoying your audience if you do it too often, or for the wrong reason.
1. Set a Goal
The first step to using push notifications the right way is to decide why you are using them. What is your goal with them? What are you trying to achieve with your message?
Think of a proper Call to Action. Do you want your audience to go back to your website, learn more about a particular promotion, or to finish purchasing your product? Maybe you want to send them relevant blog content?
A push notification, just like basically everything else, is doomed to fail if you don’t have a particular goal in mind.
2. Craft a Compelling Opt-in Message
Before you are actually able to send any push notifications to your audience, first you have to make sure that they’ve enabled you to do that. Of course, there is little you can do on the customer’s side. If they’ve decided that they don’t want to receive notifications from you, they will disable them, and that’s it.
In some cases, you won’t have much room for personalizing your opt-in message either. However, some devices and app builders allow you to customize it, and you should definitely take advantage of that. The more personal and welcoming your message seems for users, to more likely is that they will opt-in for your messages.
3. Timing is Key
Not all push notifications are made equal, and this is certainly the case for progressive web app push notifications. You want to avoid delivering intrusive messages at the most impactful times of the day. Of course, you should avoid delivering intrusive message in general, but there will inevitably be some that will a bit more intrusive or “aggressive” than others.
Actually, first, you have to find what are the most impactful times of the day. You can use business intelligence tools such as Google Analytics, or even Beezer’s Analytics tool to track user behavior. This way, you will have a better understanding of the most active times of the day for your audience.
For example, if you notice that a certain day or an hour receives the highest open rates, you should definitely take this into account for your progressive web app push notifications. Analyzing this data will help you ensure that you hit users’ devices when they are ready to receive messages.
4. Deliver relevant content
The key to highly-effective progressive web app push notifications is to deliver the right content to your target audience.
After all, you want to build relationships and credibility with your users. Even simple things like the confirmation for a successful transaction, or an update on a newly delivered item to your portfolio, give you an excellent opportunity to get your name out there.
For this reason, plan your push notifications content carefully, and don’t get tempted into re-using existing, overused messages from your website. You should always adapt your content to your communication channel. And this includes progressive web app push notifications. Here are some practices that you should consider taking into account:
- Don’t send all push notifications to all users. Instead, refine your audience and filter out those users who are less likely to benefit from a particular notification.
- Don’t reuse existing content without adapting it to its corresponding channel. Users who visit your website or progressive web app often will immediately notice that.
- Avoid notification fatigue by spacing out your content. Deliver with consistency to avoid being “forgotten” by the user, but don’t oversaturate him with notifications either.
- Personalize your message to your segmented audience to the best extent possible. Nobody likes receiving generic messages that don’t seem made for him.
You need to make sure that your content resonates with your audience. So, don’t try to save time by sending out the first generic message that comes to your mind.
And that was all from us for today’s article! Now, you have a better understanding of how progressive web app push notifications work, and how your company can benefit from them and use them the right way. We will see you in the next article!
Until then, you can start sending your progressive web app push notifications with Beezer.
