One of the most concerns in leveraging customer engagement through direct marketing is web push notifications. Things are changing, sometimes back; emails dominated the world of direct marketing. However, now new things are coming up and we are now entering the age of web push Notifications.
What are web Push Notifications
Web Browser Notifications are in simple terms instant messages which are sent via web browsers to everyone that has subscribed to receive them. The good thing is that web push Notifications work across a number of devices including macs, computers, mobile devices and android tablets. They act as one of the best channels of communicating your message direct to the customers.
Once the customer has subscribed to receive them, they are likely to receive them every time they get online. One thing that people have really been misled on is the saying that web pushes only work when you are on the seller’s website.
Why are they important to my business?
There are several reasons why web Push Notifications are great for your shop. First thing first, you have a simple, direct and an immediate way to send tailored and customized messages to your customers. You have a channel to send immediate updates to your customers. Your customers should at all-time stay updated and at the same time have a clean channel of getting what’s new on your shop.
The good thing is that these push messages communicate trust, real commitment to the service and engagement. It also acts as a clear channel of telling every customer when there are price drops. II bet everyone loves low prices. Price drop pushes are likely to increase purchases and sales. You can as well segment them to increase sales. You can venture in all sides of the market and have a chance to make known every product to the customers.
There is much to know when it comes to web push notifications. If you haven’t yet had a clear notch on browser web push notifications, then find help here beginners guide to Browser push Notifications.
How to send Push Notifications to web browser?
As I stated earlier, web Push Notifications allow users to opt-in to timely updates and also give you a chance to engage them with customized high class content as a mechanism of developing following. Push API and Notifications API are available on Chrome version 42. However, Push API on chrome relies on several technologies including Service worker and Web App Manifests.
Registering a Service worker
You need to have a service worker to implement push messaging. What this means is that you can as well retain a background right of deciding how to handle a push messaging. When a push message is received, the browser is supposed to start up a service worker which in turn dispatches an event which on the other hand helps you to decide how to handle the message.
What this means is that you have to register a service worker and when the registration is completed, we call initialiseState. There is a global variable which is bestowed with the mandate of tracking if push messaging is currently subscribed or not.
Set Up the initial State
You need to set up the UI’s state after you are done with registering the Service worker. The reality of the matter is that customers expect a simple UI to either enable or disable web push Notifications. They also expect the UI to keep them up to date with the changes that occur.
There are several states that you are supposed to take into considerations and not just Enable and disable states. There are several UPIs that you are supposed to check before you enable the button. The first thing to take into justification is what the customers expects from you. You don’t have to feed them with web push notifications after just subscribing to your account. You should set the UI into ‘’disabled’’ state so that they will have a chance to either leave it like that or just update it.
Steps to sending up your own web Push Notifications
There are four elements of a web push notifications as explained below.
- Title : This is the headline of your web push notification. One thing that you have never noted is that this is the main point of reference for the customers. This point is where majority of them makes a decision from.
- Message : This is where you write the content you want to convey to your customers. In the body of the push notification is where you write the real message. You have to communicate the real details here in a clear and a precise manner.
- URL : This is another very important part of the web push notification. It helps them to notice where the message is coming from. It can as well be used to direct users to other places. You can choose to direct them to your home page or to a product website.
- Image : This is a visual aspect of the message. If the image is beautiful and catchy, it is likely to catch the leaders attention.
Create new messages in the Urban Airship Message composer
This is the first step. Just create a new message but ensure you first of all define the audience. Just modify the platforms that will receive your Notifications as necessary. After this, choose your messaging type.
After you have dealt with the above, just select the web browser to send a web Push Notification. There is also the likelihood that you can just create a message on Urban Airship and either sends it as a web notification or a mobile app push notification or both.
Write your message
This is the real deal here. Just ensure you write a message that makes sense to the users. The reality of the matter is that the length of the message varies by device. What this means is that if you are sending the message on Chrome, you should keep the word count below 180. The reason for this is to make them easy and simple to read within the shortest time possible. Majority of people don’t like reading longer push notifications.
180 words on Chrome will offer the best user experience for both mobile and desktop devices. If you are sending them to Opera or Firefox, then you can reduce them to 30 characters.
Give a direction to the customers
After you have wrote your message, then choose a path that users will follow after clicking on the notification. Select where the users will go after clicking on the notification. In this case, you are only limited to two alternatives. One of them is that you can send the users on a different URL and the second alternative is to send them to the Home webpage. This is usually your websites home page.
If you plan to send them to a different link, then ensure that it is to the product link or your social media account. Any of the two will work well for your shop. Just select the ‘’web page’’ and enter the URL that will guide them.
Configure the optional components of your web Notification
Your customers now have a path to follow after they click on the web notification. After this, configure the optional components of your web Notification. You have fewer options, Custom keys, title and icon. Custom keys allow you to pass extra information through your web push notifications consignment for use by custom codes in your website.
You are also given an opportunity to add a custom title for your web Pushes. If you want to add a custom title for your device, you can just do it here. If you don’t add it here, it will just appear as the default title that you set up. In most cases the default title is the company name.
Choose your delivery date
Now that maybe you have directed your customers to make a purchase, you need to be specific about the delivery date and time. You can either inform your customers right away with a push notification or just set it to be delivered later in the day. Some message composers allow you to customize send times for different time zones. You understand the differences in time across the world and hence you should at all cost ensure that every customer’s needs in every part of the world are met.
Preview the notification
This is the final step. The purpose of this step is to proofread the final notification on each step and ensure there are no errors. You also have to confirm that the figures you have included and the message you intend to send to your customers is really what you want them to see. You can preview the whole story with a built-in preview window available in several service providers.
After the notification is reviewed, you can either send it or schedule a date when it should be available on their side.