Contrary to the popular belief, sending a sizable amount of notification is a very effective way to retain user engagement on your Android app. Modern day developers have a rather conservative approach where they emphasize on not spamming the users over reaching out to the user, especially in the early days.
The interest in a newly downloaded app goes away gradually. It is the first few days in which the app needs to generate the most interest among its users. In reality, the user's attention is going to dry down at some point anyway. So there is very little to lose for apps when they send push notifications.
Importance of Early Notifications
Developers these days are very discouraging when it comes to sending early notifications. Statistically, there will be a long period before the user returns to the app after the first session. So to boost your app growth, the time between the first and the second session is the ideal time to lay out your best notifications.
Here is why sending notification early helps.
Inform
The first few days are the ideal time for apps to share vital information about your app to the user. If new information about the app is conveyed smartly through notifications, users are likely to note down the information, if they don’t use the app soon.
Build Habit
Once the important information is conveyed, it is about building a habit for the users. Sending careful notifications about user actions or features they might like can help your app build a usage habit.
Engage
Notifications about the app help create apt engagement from the users as push notifications are the only way to interact with the users without them opening your app.
Best Ways to Create Finest Notifications
Android recently recommended five ways by which your app can retain user attention through push notifications. Top Android development services already follow most of these ways. These ways even define how you can use the app data to win back some of the users who have turned the notifications off.
Here are five ways to create great push notifications for your Android app.
Control
As we move into a user centric era, it is very important for your app to send the user only the kind of notifications the user approves. The consent does not only mean barely asking whether they would like to receive notifications or not.
It is also about allowing the users about exactly what kind of notifications they would like to receive from the list of notifications on your app. It is very much possible that your users may want to receive notifications but not about everything from your app.
Relevance
Your app must use machine learning and come up with personalized notifications that concern the users based on their app usage. Personalization adds a personal touch to the app and offers interest specific information to the users through those notifications.
Let your app learn the user behavior based on the sharing, interactions and other analytics your app gathers. Use the analytics to decide the time for your notifications. Sending locations based on location is also a very intriguing way.
Filter
Based on the user’s interaction to the features, there will be a firehose of events generated from every interaction. These events generate a large number of notifications. It is important to filter these events and match them based on the data your app has.
The filtering will keep the noise away and make sure only relevant notifications are sent to the concerned users. Standard filtering process includes sending more notifications to those who engage and keeping those who don’t interact in a quieter track.
Win Back
Users tend to turn the notifications off from the first instance itself. This happens at onboarding i.e. right when the app is installed. It is important to motivate them to turn the notifications back on every time there is an interaction from them to the app.
Your app must elaborate its value at every interaction. Ask users to turn the notifications on in a prompt message along with every feature interacted.
Data
Data alone should dictate terms when it comes to making decisions for your Android app. It is the analytics that will give you the true insight into retention, conversion and opt-out data. You can run tests to reassess how effective reactivation prompting was based on this data.
The study of the analytics will help your app understand the perfect timing and frequency to prompt reengagement requests. Data will also help you understand which types of notifications are performing better and which ones need a revamp.
Conclusion
When it comes to sending push notifications, it is about maintaining the perfect balance between relevance and frequency. Carefully crafted notification strategy will surely help your app grow. But more than the content that sits in the notifications, it is the methods that define the effectiveness of your push notifications. The above mentioned methods will work just fine if you are struggling to create apt engagement your business strives.
