6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 1
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 2
TABLE of CONTENTS
01 Now is the time that brands can finally deliver on personalization.
02 Recognize your users wait for information.
03 Deliver messages across channels in a seamless and engaging way.
04 Use context to service mobile moments.
05 Respect your user.
06 Understand push is a privilege.
07 Respect your user.
08 Next steps.
09 About FollowAnalytics
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 3
While we have more channels and ways to interact with our
customers, we finally have the ability with marketing engage-
ment automation to reach consumers in personal and relevant
ways—in one voice, across every marketing channel they use to
connect with us.
First we must think in terms of experiences instead of cam-
paigns. Previously siloed email or push campaigns can now be
connected using data in our CRM. Using an individual’s past
responses and preferences, we can communicate in a way that
is as relevant as possible to the recipient.
Second we must realize the mobile only user is a misnomer—
Americans switch between devices. When they wake up, they’re
checking a smartphone. At breakfast, they may pick up their
iPad to read the news. Then at work, they switch to a laptop
until they come back to a tablet or smartphone in the evening
while watching TV.
Consumers expect brands to provide an integrated experience
with an integrated communications flow. They want information
without being overloaded. And they have high expectations for
how we use the data we collect from them.
In this eBook, we’ll cover six ways you can use marketing en-
gagement automation to unify email and push notifications for
amazing, seamless customer experiences:
Now is the time that brands can finally deliver on personalization.
1 Recognize your users wait for information.
2 Deliver messages across channels in a seamless and engaging way.
3 Use context to service mobile moments.
4 Respect your user.
5 Understand push is a privilege.
6 Be as succinct as possible.
Mobile has really become a part of everyone’s lives, and is a touch point across your
customer’s lifecycle. 36% admit to constantly checking and
using their phones.
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 5
Consumers wait for information; seven out of ten consumers still
choose email as a way to communicate with brands and busi-
nesses. When your recipient believes something that has been
sent to him or her is of value, and they’re curious about what
it contains, there’s an opportunity for you to do effective push
notification marketing.
When consumers see push notifications as an experience that’s
good for them, you have the ability to engage and reengage
them. If you’re doing your jobs correctly—providing value—you
aren’t putting your brands at risk of opt outs.
SMS and push have been successful because the consum-
er understands they are in control; they can stop the flow of
information whenever they want to. You need to recognize what
you’re doing is a privilege, and perform to or above the consum-
er’s expectations.
At opt in, tell users why they should opt in. Share the value
they’ll get once they do opt in. With products like FollowAna-
lytics, you have a platform to deliver more relevant and more
personal content than ever before. Rather than aiming for 1 to
3% opt outs, set a higher bar—no opt outs.
Recognize your users wait for information.
Still choose email as a way to communicate with brands
and businesses.
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 6
More than four out of ten customers are more likely to make a purchase when
mobile offers are part of an orchestrated campaign.
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 7
You have decisions when it comes to how as a brand you reach
consumers. You have a number of different channels. Besides
pushing email, you also can deliver optimized messages direct-
ly to one’s pocket or one’s hands. You can do this many ways,
including through push, email, in app messaging and SMS.
Glean from what you’re doing or maybe what you’re not doing
and optimize across channels. Make your information some-
thing that somebody wants to take time to look at. Then provide
that information in a sensible way.
Consumers get a ton of emails; in 2015, the number of business
emails sent and received per user per day totaled 122 emails.
It remains best way to reach people at any given time. On the
other hand, push notifications or text messages are able to
break through, making it a great way to ensure somebody will
see your message in a timely fashion.
Consumers want push notifications that are suitable to when
they’re being sent and that aren’t overwhelming in length or
volume. Remember a push notification asks somebody to take
an action. It needs to be timely to be effective.
According to Forrester, push isn’t a replacement for email, SMS,
or other direct messaging tactics. It needs to be a complemen-
tary channel and should be a core component of any direct
marketing and relationship program.
The challenge to us as marketers is that users expect everything
to be in concert. You cannot repeat information; you must not
fall down and fail to account for information that isn’t relevant to
him or her or that somebody already had.
Deliver messages across channels in a seamless and engaging way.
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 8
Nine out of ten companies with strong omnichannel
engagement retained nine out of ten of their customers.
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 9
Mobile Engagement Automation, or Mobile Marketing Auto-
mation, enables you to deliver messages across channels in a
seamless and engaging way. And when you integrate Mobile
Engagement Automation with the rest of your marketing stack,
the major benefits you’ll see are engagement and retention.
As defined by Forrester, Marketing Engagement Automation
is marketing technology that uses real-time and contextual
insights to proactively engage with known users in the appropri-
ate mobile moment across the customer lifecycle.
A mobile moment is an immediate moment of need as
defined by Forrester for your end user. When you are able
to reach out to your users in that moment, you are servicing
them in their mobile moment.
With push notifications, we get valuable data and insights. We
see what folks react to. We see what is working for them.
Push allows us to bring context into effect, specifically where
somebody is and when they are there. To best leverage this
user information, choose Marketing Engagement Automation
technology that preserves the integrity of your data so that
you can have a unified view and that plays nice with what you
already have in place.
For a 360-degree view of your user, you need a solution that
offers true connectivity. Connectivity refers to the technology’s
ability to easily integrate with your existing marketing stack,
your CRM, and any other customer systems of record. We also
need two-way data sync to trigger mobile messages from CRM
triggers and to use your existing customer profiles along with
mobile data to serve them in their mobile moment.
Use context to service mobile moments.
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 10
Marketing Engagement Automation is about known users; it’s
not focused on customer acquisition. The goal is to help you
interact with your users in a one-on-one way across channels,
especially mobile.
To successfully engage with your users, you need to know
which channel gets the best results and how to keep them hap-
py. You can’t rely solely on studies such as those from Nielsen,
Comscore, or Pew Internet for user information. They’re great
information at the 30,000 foot level, but they don’t supply details
about your users.
Ask your users for details and communicate to them in any
way you can that is as relevant as possible to them. Do your
own testing. Run tests amongst your best user groups. Learn
which channel gives the best results as well as how to keep
them happy.
Marketing Engagement Automation is the catalyst for your
omnichannel experience. Segment users that are more likely
to respond to mobile communication and start your interaction
with them through push. For a different group who prefer a
different touch, start out via email and then move to push based
on the response.
Mobile is the most personal, real time, and contextual channel
available to you. Use the data and insights you get from mobile,
sync that to your existing user profiles, and make your customer
profiles even richer. Start creating robust experiences for your
users. Be sure you can share data among channels and trigger
mobile messages from data coming from anywhere and from
any of your marketing staff.
Respect your user.
For example, somebody on Facebook clicks an ad for a retailer.
Once they’re on your site, as a marketer, you’ll want to nurture
that customer. If the tools are correct and the communica-
tions channel is appropriate, you might want them to opt into
a newsletter.
Later, because you’re getting to know your user—especially if
Facebook is involved—you can provide a personalized email
and possibly include an incentive for an app download. When
the user downloads the app, this might trigger an onboarding
message relevant to that particular individual. We could also
send an email inviting the user to a boutique pop up weekend
event—a message that’s timely and very relevant.
Or, we might send a personalized discount coupon based on
geolocation. The coupon will be used to make the first pur-
chase. We’ll then have the opportunity to engage with him or
her again, sending a personalized email about the purchase.
We can subsequently send a mobile push to check on the qual-
ity of his or her experience. Hopefully the user likes his or her
experience and will do some social evangelizing.
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 11
Users who enabled push notifications launched an app an average of over 14 times a month—almost three times as many as those who didn’t
enable push.
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 12
Push is very personal. Users see it right away—their phone is go-
ing to vibrate. 97% of the time push notifications are read within four
minutes. Keep in mind that most of us sleep with our phones next
to our heads; ask is what you’re about to send something you’d
want to be woken to read. (Or be mindful of the time of day you’re
sending it.)
If you’re an insurance company and there’s something that you
need to let customers know about right away, sending a push
notification at an earlier time may be ok. Customers might even be
grateful that they were disturbed if the nature of what you are trying
to communicate is that important. Using geolocation, Allianz can
send updates about adverse weather conditions to users when they
fall in range of a bad climate. By sending personalized messages
based on certain triggers, Allianz saw a 30% increase in usage.
We really want to be relevant and timely. The last thing you want
to do is send somebody a push notification while they are asleep if
it’s not urgent. Best case your user won’t be able to take advantage
of an offer. Worst case you annoy a previously loyal customer and
they opt out.
We want to take care not to overuse push and feel like we are going
to somebody’s house and putting up our feet on the table or eating
their pizza and we’re going to leave whenever we want to. As ev-
eryone will have a different demographic, a different audience that
uses mobile in different ways, do your own testing.
Renault of Europe wanted to increase test drives. By connecting
into their CRM, we used CRM triggers to send push notifications to
people who had expressed interest in specific cars. Using timing
and geo location triggers, prospective car buyers received a very
customized push reminding them of their interest in a specific car
and that it was ready for a test drive near by where they were. With
the assumption, users have more free time on weekends than
during the week, notifications were only sent on weekends. Using
push, test drives increased by 17%.
With iPhones, we cannot send push notifications without an opt in.
We have to ask people to consent to get a notification push to them.
Our iPhone users are actually raising their hands and saying that
they want to have a conversation with us.
Six out of ten enterprise users opt in to push notifications.
Push gives us an opportunity to raise awareness for an app and the
ability to get a user to open an app that might have fallen out of their
consciousness.
Understand push is a privilege.
Insurance giant, Allianz, partnered with FollowAnalyt-
ics to personalize promotions and increase customer
engagement with more contextual interactions. Fol-
lowAnalytics allowed Allianz to achieve this through
its Contextual Campaigns feature, sending personal-
ized messages to users based on certain triggers.
For example, Allianz can notify a specific user about
a reimbursement or the status of a claim. The trigger
can also be based on geolocation, such as sending
updates about adverse weather conditions to users
when they fall in range of a bad climate.
Allianz Boosts Engagement Through Contextual Push Notifications
Over 40% open rate for out-of-app push notifications
Increase in usage
6 Best Practices for Unifying Email and Push Notifications 13
Think about how your message will appear to consumers, how
they’ll be reading it. 75% of the 900 million Gmail users access
their accounts on a mobile device. Email is now the primary
mobile channel. Understand that people are potentially reading
emails on a mobile device; ensure your message renders prop-
erly on devices.
Provide snackable information—information that’s avail-
able, that’s quick, that’s timely, and most of all that’s wanted
and effective.
Keep push notifications simple. You aren’t looking to deliver a
book’s worth of information, what you really want to do is to pro-
vide an avenue for somebody to find something around them,
to take a step to potentially make a purchase. But an app alone
won’t get you there, you need to know your user.
Now more than ever, our customers want information from us.
At the same time though, they have high expectations as to
what information we share, how we share it, and when we share
it. Luckily with mobile engagement automation, we have the
power to reach them in a more personal way.
Be as succinct as possible.
Next steps.
Louis Vuitton wanted to offer a curated travel experience
that allows users to feel like they’re part of something
elite. By acting as a mobile CRM, FollowAnalytics lets
Louis Vuitton act as personal tour guide. Through
customer segmentation and profiles with location-aware
maps, they deliver off-the-beaten-trail suggestions to us-
ers in more than two dozen cities and 12,000 locations
across the world.
Contact FollowAnalytics today to start offering your customers
an amazing, seamless customer experience.
FollowAnalytics is an enterprise-class mobile marketing platform
that makes it easy for marketers to boost engagement through
their mobile apps by creating personalized customer journeys.
About FollowAnalytics
They are trusted by brands like Wells Fargo, Cartier, Louis
Vuitton, Allianz, Axa and BnP Paribas; and are headquartered in
San Francisco, with offices in New York, Montréal and Paris.