Many marketing specialists are looking for the best way to deliver information about a brand or a product to a customer. They put forward their best effort to create a loyal customer who would download and use their brand application. Upon downloading the app, it may be commonplace for an amateur marketer to assume, “Voila, we’ve got them!” A mobile application is a direct channel to feed clients with anything that may profit the company and/or the client.
The reality is, it doesn’t always work like that. Here I’ll shed some light on how SMS and push notifications are different.
Definition of push notifications and SMS
Push notifications
Push notifications are short, but may open a screen that contains not only text, but may play sounds, display icons, include images, links, attachments, and interactive buttons. On the one hand, they bring a higher level of engagement, entertainment, and retention. On the other, despite the opt-in /opt-out permission and the possibility to adjust push notifications settings, they may be annoying for some users and even cause these users to uninstall your application.
Push notifications are useful because they can remind users about activities, i.e. in an airline’s app. In a fitness app, they can encourage users to take some action with regards to their workout regime, inform them about achievements or progress made in a game, and display new chat messages in a social app. Geofencing features may increase shopper satisfaction by displaying push notifications about special offers in the right place and at the time.
On the contrary to SMS, push notifications can be free and unlimited in number. There are two possibilities to send push notifications: find a third-party vendor and in-app development. There are some rules and etiquette regarding the usage of push notifications for mobile marketers, such as sending useful, engaging and clear messages, avoiding morning hours, not being sticky and so on. That helps this tool stay highly effective — up to a 65% open rate.
Currently, nine out of ten companies demand the development of push notifications in their mobile applications, and 70% of those who require push notifications want social and geolocation features as well. Such an approach allows a company to include the implementation costs of a push into their mobile application development expenses and obtain a communication channel for free and unlimited messages.
Let us include some examples from our experience to illustrate the number of requests for the above-mentioned tools. Rozdoum’s mobile development team recently created an open-source social application that has push notifications as an embedded feature. Our goal was to build a template for an application with the most popular features and simplify the development process (not only for our team). The Social app is available for every developer to use as a base to build a custom application within shorter terms. It is a good showcase of a relevant answer to increasing customer demands.
Conclusion
Both push notifications and SMS messages are effective channels of direct communication with users of a mobile application. They are not incompatible or mutually exclusive and may be used in one app simultaneously to enrich the user experience. Every business decides for itself what bests fits its goals.
