Every marketer is always on the lookout for the best communication platforms to garner maximum engagement to his website. They serve as the link between the website and the prospective customers.
Some examples of such marketing channels would be emails, social media, mobile app push notifications and so on. These are the traditional marketing communication platforms which online marketers use to reach out to new visitors and engage with existing ones.
However, a new player has come in the market and is completely winning the game today! Yes, you guessed it right, Web Push Notifications.
You might have been seeing the tiny popup window on websites lately, asking you if you’d be interested in subscribing to notifications?
These are website Push notifications. They are the marketing channel which has been missing from your communication mix.
They have a better click through rate than emails (a whopping 40%!!). They are better than mobile push notifications in the sense that they cover websites as well as mobile devices. They also have a better interaction rate than social media.
I guess, I’ve made my point clear by now. You gotta start sending out push notifications right now from your website to improve your traffic and engagement.
But before you start using it, it is imperative that you understand what exactly is a web push notification and why does your business need it?
Let’s get started.
What are Web Push Notifications?
They are simply clickable notifications or messages you can send from your website to your subscribers.
By clicking on these messages, you can direct your subscribers to your latest blog post, new discount offer, survey page or any other link which you want them to visit.
Web push notifications work in a similar manner to mobile app push notifications with the only difference that they can be sent to both desktops and mobiles.
They are pretty simple to setup and use. Let me tell you how these notifications work for subscribers.
How do Web Push Notifications work?
In the case of mobile applications, users give the app permissions to send them push notifications by default upon downloading it.
However, this is not the case with web push notifications. Here, you have to explicitly ask visitors’ permission to send them push notifications.
It’s a 2 step process:
- An opt-in from Visitors: As soon as a user comes on the website, a small opt-in box appears asking them whether they would like to receive notifications from the website.
If the visitor clicks on “Allow”, he is added to the website’s subscriber list.
- Sending out Notifications: As soon as the visitor becomes a subscriber, you can easily send notifications directly to their browser.
You can customize the image,title, description and of course the link to your page.
Also, push notifications are delivered in real time, So, even if the subscriber is not online at the time of sending the notifications, he will receive it as soon as he opens his browsers.
Why Web Push?
Let me tell you why web push notifications appeal to website owners and marketers.
- Web Push is easy to setup and use
Unlike promotional emails or other call to actions, web push notifications are effortlessly seamless both for the users and webmasters.
Visitors can easily subscribe to any website with a single click. As we mentioned earlier, after a visitor opts in, they are shown a small popup window asking them if they’d be interested in receiving updates from the website.
You don’t have to be a tech savvy developer to get your website push-ready. Using Notifyfox, you can set up web push notification easily. Once you have properly installed the Javascript code on your website, you can start sending notifications with Notifyfox.
- Web Push displays your message to the audience wherever they are
Content marketers have always struggled to find the right distribution platform to maximize their visibility and engagement. If we talk about social media channels specifically, a lot of research has to go into finding the platform where your business’s audience is active.
This is however not the case with Web push notifications. Here, you won’t have to worry about what is the most preferred social media platform of your audience.
Web push notifications are independent of networks and are delivered directly to the subscriber’s browser. Hence, your message is displayed no matter which website your subscribers are currently visiting.
- Web Push notifications expand your reach
If you look at most marketing communications platform, they are so crowded and noisy that it’s difficult to cut the line and reach out to your prospective customers.
With the hundreds of emails your users receive every day, getting your message across through email marketing is getting harder. And with the amount of clutter and noise on social media it is even more difficult to get to the top of your followers’ timeline.
Web push notifications help you overcome all of the above limitations. They offer a way to reach your subscribers wherever they are. Also, you can send these notifications on all devices. Hence, increasing your online visibility exponentially.
- Better Opt-in and Click-through-rates
Push notifications do not require emails Ids or other contact information of visitors. Also, subscribers have full control in terms of opting out from these notifications. Hence, web push notifications have better opt-in rates than any other form of communication channel.
Also the click through rate for web push notifications goes as high as 40% which is again, higher than most online marketing communication channels.
- Web push notifications do not require designing
Creating a web push notification, you wouldn’t have to spend hours brainstorming the message or the design. Also, you won’t have to go through the pain of testing your message over a plethora of devices just to make sure it is delivered with the right design and in the right format.
All you are required to do here is create 2-3 lines for your message and add a link (where the users will be redirected). That’s it.
The browser looks into how the message or the push notification would be delivered, so you don’t really have to worry about the design.
- Web Push notifications are delivered instantly
A major portion of people check their emails only 1-3 times a day. What if we want to send some urgent or time-sensitive information? Like an update on a discounted sale which is about to end in a few hours.
That’s when push notifications really become a blessing. They are delivered at the blink of an eye as soon as you go and click on “Push notification”.
Hence, with web push notifications, you wouldn’t have to wait for hours for people to open their emails and act on them.
Conclusion
Web push is indeed a very promising marketing platform for webmasters. But, you should remember, with great power, comes great responsibility. Just because you have the power to send any number of notifications at any point of time, doesn’t mean you have to spam your users. The opt-out time can be as quick as the opt-in.
Since this platform is in its infancy, I would suggest you make the most of it right now.
What are your thoughts on the topic? Share them in the comments below.