Push notifications are short, real-time messages that reach users directly on their mobile devices - either on the lock screen or in the form of a small banner. When they include relevant information for a customer like reminders, updates, and important offers, they become a highly effective tool for engagement. However, if they are misused or abused, they can lead to unsubscriptions. For that reason, understanding best practices ensures that push notifications add value for your institution without overwhelming the recipients.

Characteristics of Effective Push Notifications

To create push notifications that invite your customers to engage with your campaigns, consider the following suggestions:

• Brevity: Keep your messages short and to the point with 15-30 characters for the title and 120-140 for the body. People are more likely to read and act on notifications that are concise and easy to understand.

• Personalization: Use campaign or user data to address your customers by name or reference their recent interactions with your institution.

• Clarity: Run the text through a readability test like Grammarly or generate it via Prisma AI to ensure that it is easy to understand, has the right style, and avoids jargon or complex terms that could cause confusion.

• Value: Provide valuable information or offers that benefit the customers. Refrain from sending notifications that are purely promotional or irrelevant to the customers’ needs and interests.

• Optimization: Test different variants of your push notifications to identify what drives better engagement with your customers. Turn on the A/B testing switch to create and compare different versions (Push, Push A, and Push B in the image below) and optimize your messaging strategy.

• Visual improvement: Consider including emojis to convey an emotion quickly and potentially save space. However, use them sparingly (one or two emojis per notification is usually enough).