Push vs SMS Notifications
For any marketer, text marketing using the medium of smartphones has become an extremely popular option. Because everybody nowadays possesses a smartphone and has access to the internet, there is much greater scope for marketers to push their advertising messages to a much greater target audience. Their advertisement experience can be tailored specifically according to the individual needs of the customer to personalize and target the right ads to them. This is achieved by the power of big data tracking that reveals a lot about consumer tastes and preferences. For this reason, the two primary methods of text marketing in smartphones are either Push notifications or SMS notifications. Both of them have their advantages.
Push Notifications
Push notifications are the short body of text that is sent or ‘pushed’ by a third-party application. This means that the conduit of passing the notification is the application. Push notifications can be scheduled to go off at particular times or be caused by particular triggers. The Push notification feature was first launched on Apple’s iOS in the year 2011. The specialty of push notifications is that you get the notification from an application without having to keep it open. This allows marketers to use push notifications to send you adverts throughout the day, and make them visible, even if you’re not using their application.
SMS Notifications
SMS Notifications are text messages where the marketer can send texts up to 160 characters long in length using an SMS text client. SMS is used by many kinds of businesses and organizations to send messages to a wide group of people. You don’t need a smartphone or internet connectivity to get SMS notifications. These can be used to send promotions, reminders, sales discounts, and offer codes. These have a greater reach, however, they are also less attention-grabbing.
Points of Comparison
Receipt
In order to receive SMS messages, a user needs to send a specific phrase or sign up for it, in order to appear on the company’s recipients list to which they will send the SMS. This is the way in which consumers consent to officially opt into the marketing communication of the company. For receiving push notifications, all one needs to do is install the application, and navigate their phone settings to allow the application to send push notifications.
Delivery
SMS messages are delivered directly into the recipient’s inbox. They do not need any third-party software or applications in order to see these messages. The SMS can also be accessed at any time the user desires. Push notifications are delivered through the application, irrespective of whether or not the application itself is actually being used.
Visibility
An SMS text is usually visible to the user right from the phone’s lock screen or in the text message inbox. Scientific data suggests that most people open their SMS notifications within the first four minutes, instead of leaving them for later. However, depending on the volume of the push notifications, they can be lost in the crowd. Moreover, once they are opened, you cannot go back and access the original push notification anymore.
Content
The maximum text limit of SMS messaging is 160 unique text characters. Users can also insert hyperlinks that can lead consumers to the company’s website. The content of the SMS can be of any kind and is suitable for many different kinds of industries. Push notifications have a similar length and usually are not more than one or two sentences long. The use of emojis or graphics is very common to boost the visual appeal of push notifications.
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Intrusiveness
SMS Notifications go into the inbox without creating a considerable notification, so they don’t really intrude on the current user experience. However, push notifications appear over the phone screen no matter what you are doing on the phone, and thus intrude on the user’s activities. Though they are better able to grab the attention of the consumers at the right time, without the need for them to actively use the app, oftentimes, constant unwanted notifications can be annoying to the customers as they disturb their activity.
How to Create an Effective Text Marketing Programme?
Initially, you need to make a choice whether you want to use SMS or Push notifications. Luckily, neither of these options are mutually exclusive, so you can use both at the same time to make the best of both worlds! The benefit of SMS messaging is that it is more formal and can reach a wider consumer base, while Push notifications can be funky, funny, and attention-grabbing, being pushed even when the consumer isn’t directly focused, thus creating subconscious awareness. Three factors need to be kept in check while designing a text message.
- Firstly, the content. Because text messages only allow a limited number of words, you need to choose them carefully. Your text message needs to be able to grab the viewer’s attention in a short amount of time. This builds their curiosity to actually open the notification and follow through with what it says to explore more of it.
- Secondly is the frequency of messaging. If a consumer continuously keeps getting messages asking him/her to buy products online, it might incite a negative reaction as the consumer feels like you’re desperately trying to sell them something and thus wasting their time with your disturbance. However, the texts also need to be frequent enough that the brand recall always stays fresh in the minds of the consumers. Thus, a perfect balance needs to be struck.
- Thirdly, the target audience. It is important to recognize who wants what. Tracking data usage trends helps marketers narrow down what products to market to what demographics, so that they can advertise to the winning demographic that will appreciate their promotions and buy them out of need.
With this, we hope that we have adequately educated you about the types of text marketing and how to utilize them. SMS notifications and Push notification both have their unique benefits, but it is important to grasp the nature of their operation in order to truly harness their potential to succeed!
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Author Bio
Mohd Shees has been specializing in content development since 2015. He currently works as the content development manager at Ubuy Technologies.
He is an MBA graduate and loves to write articles about different topics ranging from science, human relationships to the latest technology to share his thoughts, ideas, and knowledge with the world.
