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Creating a marketing strategy is not a simple thing to do. But if we want to break it down to the most crucial steps →
- the very first one would be to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with it
- the second one should be to define your weapon/weapons of choice
- and the third step is all about aiming it right and giving it your best possible shot
Clearly, you don’t have to pick only one weaponry. On the contrary, it’s preferable to allow complementary tools to fight together for the highest possible level of user engagement. And combining push notifications with email marketing can help you achieve exactly that.
According to Statista, 9.8 billion emails were sent in the US only, in 2023, and email marketing revenue worldwide should be around 11 billion dollars by the end of the year. Take these numbers and add the fact push notifications have a 50% higher opening rate than email, and you will understand why mixing these two is such a good move.
What’s the best way to do it? We are about to explain. Plus, you will get an example of how communicating with your users through both channels would look like in a real case.
Let’s dive into the subject.
Advantages of multichannel marketing
Where one is struggling to deliver, the other one will shine and push through. This sentence perfectly illustrates the relationship push and email marketing have when working hand in hand.
The truth is, each one of them has some shortcomings the other one can bridge easily. So, when you allow them to work as a team, it can make a big difference in terms of audience retention.
The whole idea is to try and keep your users engaged and interested in what you are offering, but in a way they don’t find your campaign too intrusive or overbearing. It’s about balancing and conveying a certain type of message through an adequate channel.
Push Notifications VS. Email: When to use one and when another?
To better understand how to combine push and email you need to be aware of their biggest strengths but also their weaknesses.
- MESSAGE TYPE
Depending on what you want to convey as a first message placed in front of your audience, you need to consider the amount of space you have at your disposal. Push notifications are very catchy and ideal for first contact with the users. But they do have limitations in the number of characters.
This means that if you have a lot to say, you can start with push, use it to intrigue the audience, but do the follow-up with an email, which can be as long as you want it to be.
With an email, you can present some extra information (the one that’s not crucial but is still relevant), a detailed product or service description, and lure readers deeper into the subject. Also, you can include more visual elements, push allows you to place only one small image, and you can add links to relatable sources.
- URGENCY
The strongest suit of push notifications is their immediate delivery and visibility. They are an ideal option when you want to send important information to your users, some breaking news, present new offers or limited-time contests, remind them of something, etc.
You can just set the time for its delivery, and it will pop right in front of users’ eyes. It will be hard for them to ignore it. Especially if you define it the right way, emphasizing the urgency through the title and the rest of the content.
Emails, on the other hand, don’t have such visibility. Even though your audience will be informed when a new email arrives, it will be rarely opened immediately. This means emails are not a tool to choose when pressing matters are in place.
Also, push has a significantly higher open and click rate. And with urgent messages, you don’t want to risk them being overlooked. On top of that, it’s much faster to launch a push notification than an email (considering the time needed to write the text, select images, check the layout, etc).
However, email marketing can have an important role in urgent matters as well, by showcasing a wider context behind the message. As an addition, here you can include some rich media formats that can add to dramatics and raise awareness of the issue (like a countdown clock we are about to include in our example later on).
- MESSAGE LIFETIME
We all know emails are here to stay. At least, until someone deletes them. But the fact is, almost nobody does that anymore. They are safely stored in your Inbox, so in case you need to remind yourself about details of an email you received a long time ago, not a problem, you can find it and check it in the blink of an eye.
However, push notifications are like butterflies, with a very short life to live. They will be on your screen up until you click on them, which will dismiss them for good. But this is not to be taken as their disadvantage.
In the world of information that rotates too fast (and what was interesting yesterday is no longer interesting today), push is a perfect tool to keep up with that speed and focus on trends that change rapidly. This way, push + email will help you kill two birds with one stone.
- SUBSCRIPTION
It’s important to bear in mind that not all of your email subscribers are at the same time your push subscribers, and vice versa. You can have completely different audiences in one and another subscription base. Which is one of the main benefits of the multi-channel marketing approach – you can reach them all with both push and email.
But when the subscription process is in place, the truth is subscribing to push is a bit more simple. All your users have to do is click on “allow” when asked whether or not they accept to receive push messages. And you can even customize the opt-in prompt.
However, when subscribing to newsletters, a person needs to leave a name and an email address. Which is one demand more than when considering accepting push notifications.
- DELIVERY
With emails, there’s always a risk the newsletter could end up in a spam folder, and therefore – stay unseen. According to statistics, in 2022, almost 50% of emails were spam. Which is a bit discouraging especially when you have in mind the importance of some messages you wish to present to your newsletter subscribers.
Push notifications often come with guaranteed delivery, at least Notix service can promise you that. This means you can trust the message will pop up on users’ screens without an exception. Even in a situation when the user’s phone is turned off or you don’t have the Internet, the notification will arrive as soon as the phone is back on.
This aspect places push in front of email when notifications of great importance are in place.
E-commerce push notifications/email strategy
Now, here’s an example of the push notifications-email campaign flow we promised to show.
Let’s say you own an eCommerce website, and you are about to run a limited-time sale, maybe announce Black Friday discounts, present special offers to your audience, etc. The main goal is to create a sense of urgency, and encourage your users to engage and convert.
Note: Below, you will see some guidelines that should be helpful when thinking of how to define marketing strategy, including these tools, but be aware that they are not to be followed blindly. It all depends on the specificity of the campaign, and we leave it to marketing strategists to give their final say.
Here’s how you can do it:
Step 1: Sale announcement email
Even though your initial thought was probably to kick things off with a push notification, especially given the high urgency factor, we suggest you inform your audience about your upcoming sale with an email.
This will allow you to present all the details about the event, the conditions to participate, if there are any, and to include a CTA to, for example, register/create an account and get a 15% discount on any purchase right away.
Step 2: Sale announcement push (the SAME day)
A couple of hours after your first email, you can send a push notification to all of your push subscribers, just in case they missed the email, but also to inform those who are not enlisted in your email subscription base.
What you should do is make this alert hard to miss, with some emojis and attention-grabbing title.
Make sure to rely on audience segmentation, and send push only to subscribers you assume would be interested in such an offer.
Step 3: Sale reminder (2 DAYS later)
Send an email reminding your audience about the upcoming sale. Also, emphasize that it has limited duration. It always looks good when you include a timer in an email. In this case, it could count down the days till the sale STARTS.
Disclaimer: It’s crucial that the timer, if included, always showcases a reasonable amount of time left, not to be used to falsely raise the level of tension among users.
Step 4: Push reminder (the NEXT day)
It’s important not to overdo it with these announcements, so your audience doesn’t start feeling pressured and lose interest in your sale. You should send only one push message on this day and highlight the fact time is running out for them to ride this wave of discounts.
Step 5: Exclusive offer (2-3 DAYS days later)
In case you have different membership or subscription types available on your website, you can now present a very special offer to only those belonging to a certain group. For instance, an additional 20% for premium members only, on a specific offer or group of products or services.
Make sure to underline the exclusivity of this deal in your email. Make it clear that it’s only available for those of a certain status, you should even put it in the heading of the mail. This strategy often works very stimulating and pushes people towards action.
Step 6: Last chance push (24 HOURS before the sale expires)
This should be the last call for all who are still thinking about grabbing those discounts. Make the push alert clear, exact, and mention how much time exactly they have left.
Aim to your audience’s emotions – this is not something they should miss out on, or otherwise they will regret it.
An intermediate step: Order confirmation
The push notifications/email flow will be interrupted and changed only in case someone makes a purchase on your site, within the sales time frame. When that happens, you should send a push notification with order confirmation right after the purchase is made.
And once again, the message should contain the discount one seized thanks to this limited offer.
The results
You managed to inform your audience about the sale, point out the urgency of the matter, while having enough space to explain all the details, terms of the sale, present a list of products that will have a discount, etc, and showcase a visual element (the countdown timer) that makes it more tangible. With an image of a ticking timer stuck in their brain, they won’t be able to forget about this event.
Also, you kept your cool and didn’t spam your users with messages coming from only one channel. The chances they would stop opening emails with the same topic right after the second one are high. The same applies to push notifications.
And finally, let’s not forget that you had just the right platform to address those special site members and serve them with a special offer. As well as the fact combined approach allowed you to reach both push and email subscribers (as we already explained, it’s not always the same base of people).
Final thoughts
In case you are currently thinking of fresh ways to retain and engage your users, this is it. It’s not super innovative, combining push and email, but it can work magic when approached the right way.
When this tactic is in place, two things are crucial and will dictate the success of the strategy:
#1 The dynamics of the push messages and emails, as well as their pace
#2 How engaging is the content, on both ends; it is essential to make them work together, and for one to point toward the other
Join Notix today, and start working on your push notifications – email strategy.