Blog 66: What makes email marketing and push notifications so effective?

In blog 65, we looked at the lifecycle marketing strategy, which is an always-on marketing approach. An approach wherein you constantly engage with the target audience. Right from the first contact to customer relationship management.

Customer relationship management or CRM is a shared database (between marketing, sales, and support) that provides a 360-degree view of a prospect/customer. Data points include, personal identification details, demographic details, product usage behaviour, usage behaviour on various acquisition channels, customer lifetime value (CLV) etc. By leveraging these data points, we can prioritize and engage with prospects/customers, across their lifecycle, more effectively.

When it comes to prospects, we need to reach out to them using customer acquisition channels (refer blog 54 and 56) such as:

-        Emails

-        Paid social media ads.

-        Display ads.

-        Website

-        SEO

-        Content marketing

-        Etc.

When it comes to customers, we need to engage with them continuously. So that customers make our products a part of their regular lives. ‘Hooked – How to build habit-forming products’ by Nir Eyal talks about how companies that form strong user habits report great retention and usage metrics (refer blogs 22 to 27 for more on the Hooked model). To build a habit-forming product, makers need to attach the use of their solution to a frequently felt internal trigger and know how to leverage external triggers to drive the user to action.

These external triggers can be:

-        Emails

-        Push notifications.

-        Etc.

Using emails, push notifications, and others, we can communicate personalised offers, discounts, loyalty programs, cross-sell/up-sell programs, etc.

Let us look at email marketing and push notifications in a little more detail.

Email marketing is a versatile communication channel. It can be leveraged for prospects and customers. There are broadly two types of emails: transactional and marketing emails.

Transactional emails are individual, one-off emails. For e.g. an ecommerce company may send out emails with a receipt and another email when the order has been shipped.

While marketing emails are strategic, and they need to be sent out in a certain logical order. These emails can be:

·       Lead nurturing.

·       Welcome emails.

·       How-to

·       Newsletters

·       Promotional offers.

·       Milestone emails.

·       Feedback emails.

·       Specific emails to certain user segment.

·       Re-engagement emails.

·       Abandoned cart emails.

Below is an example of different emails that can be sent across the lifecycle.

Push notification is a direct way of communicating with customers (once the app is installed). It is a message that pops up on a device, such as a sports score. These notifications must provide value to the user, or they will be ignored. Or, even worse, some users will uninstall the app. Once the app is installed, users have the option to opt-in or opt-out of push notifications.

As per studies and surveys:

·       44% of iOS users and 91% of Android users opt-in to push notifications.

·       Push Notifications have a delivery rate of 90%, 50% higher than open rates of emails.

·       The click through rate (CTR) is seven times higher than emails.

·       40% of users interact with push notifications within an hour of receiving them.

·       App users who receive one or more push notifications in their first 90-days have 190% higher average retention rates than those who don’t receive any push notifications.

So clearly, push notifications can significantly increase user engagement.

Using push notifications, we can keep customers informed of offers, nudges that result in a specific action, content that pique users’ interest, etc.

Other use cases include:

·       Guiding users in their app experience.

·       Updates complementing the app’s gamifying experience.

·       Time-sensitive offers and discounts.

·       Latest news updates.

·       Transactional updates.

·       Engaging with disconnected users.

·       Customer support.

Push notifications must be monitored and evaluated. Key metrics are click-through-rate (CTR)/open rate, opt-in rate, and conversion rate. Each of these metrics need to be measured with respect to its frequency and timing.

Like for emails, the Headline, Copy, Call-to-action for push notifications must also be tested.

Jump to blog 100 to refer to the overall product management mind map.

Source:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2021/08/25/whats-always-on-content-marketing-and-why-should-you-be-doing-it/

https://blog.oxfordcollegeofmarketing.com/2023/03/13/always-on-marketing/

https://www.moengage.com/learn/push-notifications-ctr-success-rate-and-metrics/

https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/lifecycle-email-marketing

I wish you the best for your journey. 😊