PUSH NOTIFICATION BEST PRACTICE – EXPLAINED
Mother Dairy uses push notifications extensively as part of their app based customer program. What is important to know is that Mother Dairy carefully consider what kinds of push notifications make sense for their customers. Push notifications should always be valuable for the app users.
Many of the push notifications that Mother Dairy are sending are automated and specific to the customer based on where they are in the customer lifecycle. Mother Dairy welcomes new opted-in users and on day 2 after registration they underscore the value proposition of having opted in. At registration users get a sign-up reward and at issue also a push notification is sent. The sign-up reward is valid for 7 days and set up with “push on expiry” which means that a reminder push is sent to users that have not redeemed, 3 days before it expires.
On day 5 all users get a push notification promoting the recruit-a-friend function of the app – to ensure that users are aware of this feature and uses it actively. Another push notification is sent on day 20 with almost the same communication – again focusing on the recruit-a-friend opportunity and the reward you will get.
Further Mother Dairy sends a push to users on day 10 if they have yet to redeem any coupon in-store. This push is focusing on today´s special and the fact that every day there is a new deal in the app.
On day 15 app members that have not started to use the milk stamp card gets a push notification communicating that they just got a scratch card in their app and a chance to win their first stamp on the milk loyalty card. Mother Dairy have set a high probability to win a stamp for users that plays. The scratch card is promoting the milk stamp card and help draw the customer´s attention to the stamp card, which is the core of the Mother Dairy program.
Some of the push notifications Mother Dairy are sending are connected with the rewards users get. Every time a Mother Dairy app user get rewards such as the birthday reward, or the recruiter or recruited reward push notification is used in order to notify the app user. On these rewards push on expiry is also set so that users get a reminder to redeem. The reminder push is sent three days before expiry of the reward and is sent to the user only if they have not redeemed the reward.
Mother Dairy uses separate rewards for their Milk stamp card. This means that after the 10th purchase a separate reward on a 1/2 litre milk is issued into the user´s app. The reward can be saved for later or given away, but is only valid for 1 week after issue. At issue of the reward Mother Dairy do a push notification to make sure the customer knows the reward is in her app. The coupon expires 7 days later and 3 days before expiration date the customer is reminded to avail the reward before it is too late.
Also on selected stamps prior to the reward Mother Dairy use push notification messages to engage with the app users. The communication is simply focused on promoting the benefits of the program and thank the customer for their visit.
Mother Dairy runs multiple campaigns in their app all the time and for customers that uses the app even more content is added to their app 1:1. On many of their campaigns Mother Dairy set up follow-up coupons in order to increase purchase frequency and get customers back sooner. The example below show how Mother Dairy triggers a Flat Rs. 50 off coupon on use of the 1 litre Cow Ghee Pet Jar coupon. The follow-up coupon is communicated as part of the Cow Ghee Pet Jar campaign as a customer promise and automatically the customers receive the Flat Rs. 50 off coupon 24 hours after their initial purchase. The follow-up coupon is issued with a push notification and the coupon is valid for the day of issue + 3 more days. If the customer has not used the coupon already she will get a reminder when there is 2 days to expiry. Follow-up coupons are always 1:1 and a perfect opportunity to use push notifications.
With follow-up coupons you can either be clear and transparent in the initial campaign promising that there will be a follow-up coupon, or you can simply deliver over expectations and surprise and delight the customer. The push notification text can be clear on what´s in the app, but sometimes it is even stronger to encourage the user to open the app to disclose themselves what they just got.
Every now and then, when Mother Dairy launches new products they may ask customers to give feedback on these products by using the survey functionality. A survey is issued into the app and supported by push notification to make the app user aware of the chance to give feedback. The survey is typically a follow-up on redemption of a coupon that was on the new product.
As a best practice, Mother Dairy tries to create app openings every day. The program drives app openings by design. Users proactively open the app to see what today´s special is or what the new weekly, weekend or monthly offer is. At the same time this dynamic approach to campaigning also allow many exciting opportunities for sending push notifications. Mother Dairy communicates today´s specials, weekend offers, weekly and monthly deals by using push messages in many different ways. Sometimes they are specific about what the offer is and sometimes they want the app users to see for themselves. Below are some examples.
Mother Dairy also uses gamification to a large extent as part of their program. Engaging content such as a hurry or chicken campaign, or a competition or game such as a scratch card or memory game in the app is always a good opportunity to create push notification messages. These exciting push messages tend to give solid conversion rates. Below are some examples.
When games are used as campaigns typically there are multiple days in a row where the app users can play for prize once a day. During such a campaign it makes perfect sense to remind the app users e.g. every 4th day about the game or about the prizes that are available. The push notification messages can also be linking to the recruit-a-friend function in the app and motivating app users to promote the game for friends and family. Typically Mother Dairy experiences higher new member registrations during periods of games in their app which are driven by word-of-mouth.
Coming back to push notifications that Mother Dairy are sending automated and specific to the customer based on where they are in the customer lifecycle. If a user is inactive in the app for more than 20 days Mother Dairy uses push notification to try to activate and retain this user. All users that do not have a single app opening within 20 days get a flat Rs 20 off on any Mother Dairy product and this is communicated with a push message. If this churn prevention action fail to activate the user and the user is still inactive after 40 days a flat Rs 40 off on any Mother Dairy product is sent to this app member. This offer is communicated both via a push notification and a SMS message.
BUSINESS IMPACT
Mother Dairy invests in getting new app members every day and by using push notifications they make sure that these new members are on-boarded to the program in the best possible way as well as kept active during the life-cycle. Any opportunity to engage with the customer is taken.
According to Urban Airship there is a very strong correlation between notification frequency and mobile app retention rates. 95% of new, opt-in app users churn within the first 90 days if they don´t receive any push notifications. That means 95 cents of every dollar spent acquiring them is wasted. Apps that sends one or more push notifications a day have 90-day app retention rates that are 3x higher on iOS and 10x higher on Android than apps that send none.
Mother Dairy continuously monitor the effect of their push notifications as well as the campaigns that offers the chance to communicate with the customer. One important measure is also the percentage of app users that they are able to reach each time they do a broadcast push to all users. This depends on how many of the app users that have accepted to receive push notification. This gives an overall guidance to their push notification strategy.
CAMPAIGN OPERATIONS
Mother Dairy set up all push notifications via Liquid Barcodes dashboard. In many of the examples above the push notifications are closely connected with the campaign and set up as an integral part of the campaign wizard. Mother Dairy can also set up separate push messages that goes out to all users or selected member groups. Push notifications that are following the life-cycle of each app member, for example the messages that are part of the on-boarding program are set up using the activation module.