Newsletters still remain one of the most viable ways for a brand to engage parties. The best ones almost get an automatic open rate as the subscribers are genuinely interested to consume that content. The following figures put a lot of faith in newsletter marketing:

Segmented newsletters have an open rate 14.32% higher than non-segmented ones.

Open rates increased from 31% to 34.1% in a year, according to a Q3 2016 Epsilon benchmarks review.

Email has a median ROI of 122% – four times higher than social media, paid search and direct mail.

But despite these numbers and brands investing hours in curating niche and interactive content, newsletters are experiencing a downtime.

The propensity of being nagged by the inbox for consumers is at an all-time low. They don’t want to either open the newsletters or react on the content as the timing isn’t correct for them. No wonder there is a gap between targeting/retargeting and newsletters for driving traffic.

This is where

web push

wins the race. It is the ultimate tactic to not only hook the audience on the website but also to serve up those brand loyalists who just can’t seem to get enough of a brand!

Timing Your Push Notifications Right: Why and How 

In one of our previous blog posts, we have already talked about how annoying push notifications can be if not optimized. As push notification service providers, we understand that this channel of communication can be tricky. Have you read about how just a little carelessness proved extremely harmful for Myntra. The app spammed its users with too many notifications, about orders which were not even placed as claimed by users. Here is some venting shared on social media: 

Using this channel of as a means of generating sales and engagement can be tricky. This is what Eric Karjauluoto, the founder at Office Hours, has to say about push notifications:

“Our approach is to use notifications sparingly and judiciously, so we don’t bug our members. As such, we only send notifications when doing so is critical.”

Erics’s idea of making push notifications work is simple – time them well, and don’t spam!

Having formed a case for timing web push notifications, let us know see how this can be done.

Why Marketers Need To Time Notifications Right

Marketers are missing out on a lot of potential website engagement and conversions by not timing their push notifications right. However, 35% of push notifications are still broadcast messages. Though this trend has been despised by many, marketers have still not been able to nail the timing right.

If your user is saying, why did I receive this notification now when I don’t need it, then your notifications service has defeated its purpose. Imagine a countdown sale that is running on weekend, and you are notifying your users on a previous Monday. They are likely to forget about the upcoming sale in a few hours. Your notifications will surely not fetch you much engagement in this case.

Your Push Notification Timing Strategy Is Everything

Remember the Time Zone

Your users are all across the globe and you cannot target them all with notifications sent out for a single time zone. A Monday sale notification will not work for users in the part of the world where it is a Tuesday today.

Push notifications have come a long way from when they were still in their nascent stage. Today it is possible to schedule alerts according to time zones and ensure they are least disturbing. You can ensure that no notification goes out at the time when your users are asleep. Scheduling your notifications is one of the must do’s if you are sending out notifications. Send out alerts at a particular time and day, and make sure that your users around the world receive the notification at the same time. Here’s an interesting post on the do’s and don’ts of push notifications just in case you’d like to give it a read.

Important Note: While sending out push notification by time zone will make your notifications relevant and non intrusive, pushing them out at the optimal time will skyrocket engagement. How do you define optimal time? Where scheduling as per time zone takes users as a collective segment, optimal timing considers individual app engagement. Notification is pushed out automatically depending on the when users are most likely to open them and engage. Each user is sent notifications as per personalized timings based on their history.

Set the Frequency Right

Not just the timing, but the frequency or the intervals at which you send out your web push notifications also plays an important role in making them effective. Though sending reminders or notifications repeatedly can increase recall, make it too frequent and you will only put off your users. For eCommerce websites, such as fashion or apparel brands, the right frequency would be three to four times a day for an ongoing sale or seasonal discount.

Plan Your Campaigns Before Hand

Is Christmas arriving in a month or so? You’ll need to gear up for your web push notification campaigns beforehand. Sync up your event calendar and notification schedule. Make sure that general notifications do not overlap with Christmas campaign specific notifications. In the holiday season, it becomes all the more important to set the right frequency for your notifications. Sending too many notifications will only make your users miss out on the important ones.

Important Note: Keep in mind that you start sending your notifications about sales or festive discounts at least a month before the festival’s date. Do not send any important alerts or messages on the festival’s date itself while people are busy celebrating and might actually miss out on such alerts from you.

Decide the Day

Is there a ‘good day’ to send out your notifications? Any fixed day of the week that will fetch you more click throughs or conversions than a notification sent out on some other day? While you cannot pick a day from your week that shows you better results than the other, it always makes sense to send reminder alerts just one day before the actual sale or event. For example, if you are an online blog running an online contest for young writers, and your event is planned for the weekend, you should send out reminder notifications on a Friday to all those who have registered.

To Wrap Up

One of the elements of habit forming products is timing. A Nir and Far post talks about what it takes to create notifications that are hard to miss. You need to align the external and internal triggers correctly to fetch maximum engagement and conversions on your push notifications. Imagine you are just 10 minutes away from a store that sells umbrellas.

It is a bright sunny day and you are in dire need for one. Better still, you get a notification showing lovely umbrellas on discount. You’ll be tempted to walk right to the store and buy one, won’t you? Timing is indeed the key to effective web push notifications. So, if you don’t want to be labelled as an annoying push notification service provider, take note of the points covered in this post.