Do you think writing an email is very ‘90s? You’re not completely wrong! But everyday 293.6 billion emails get sent and received, so I guess you’ll agree with me when I say they’re still fundamental. However, using emails as a stand-alone tool to reach your customers is old school. I mean, emails are still a useful and effective method to get in touch with your users, but they’re not enough. What I’m trying to tell you is that emails should be part of an omnichannel marketing strategy which includes, at least, push notifications.

Wanna know something interesting? By combining emails with push notifications you can increase by 3 times the engagement rate! You got it right. That’s AWESOME! By studying and implementing an omnichannel strategy, you’ll be able to achieve extraordinary results.

 

E-mail marketing strategy

Overview

“An email marketing campaign is a series of emails a business uses to communicate with current and potential customers. They are used to persuade customers to engage with the company. Email campaigns are an important part of inbound marketing.” (Source: HubSpot)

Now let’s see some data about emails. I want to start by stressing that for every $1 spent on email marketing, marketers receive an average of $42 in return. Not bad, uh? But, what about emails composition? They mostly consist of newsletters (70%), which means that emails are still perceived as an informative communication tool. In second place, we find DEM (Direct Emailing), which includes messages sent in order to acquire new clients, build customer loyalty and retention with a CTA.

Finally, transactional emails, covering only 2%, are messages triggered by customer behavior (e.g. login credentials, purchase notifications, tracking, etc.). That’s why this kind of email registers a high open rate.

Source: Osservatorio Statistico 2020, MailUp

 

Emails’ main goal

The primary goal of emails isn’t just getting users to open them. What you really want is to re-engage users in your app. According to some research, users who open e-mails have 40% more weekly sessions compared to those who don’t. So, catch them all!

Email is a fantastic communication channel to reach app users and prompt them to re-engage or re-install an app. Indeed, 85% of users check their emails on a mobile phone (Source: Adobe), are you thinking about the same thing? Yes! This is a great incentive to implement push notifications!

Read on if you wanna know more about push notifications.

 

Push notifications

Finally, we got to my favorite part: push notifications, i.e. messages that appear on users’ smartphones if they’ve enabled push notifications! What a push notification is, should be clear, but… Wanna be sure to know EVERYTHING about it? Check out this article.

Think about emails: it’s pretty easy to ignore them. You can decide not to open them. Do you think you can do the same with a push notification? I bet that if you receive a customized push, saying you Hi! We’ve missed you! coupled with a discount code with your name, you’ll open it! For sure.
However, remember that push notifications are a powerful tool to use carefully and wisely. That’s why I suggest you check push notifications’ best practices to implement an effective mobile marketing strategy and boost your user engagement.

 

Email + Push notification

The omnichannel strategy

Here we are: the winning formula! What if I tell you that this strategy is very cheap to implement? What you really need to know is that:

• increasing email frequency does not directly lead to increased unsubscribes;
• email is great for re-engaging dormant users. Including dormant users in your email segmentation mix may convince half of them to come back to the app once more per week, on average;
• push notifications are really effective to get your users attention, and can be customized for every user.

Combining emails with push notifications is an invincible marketing strategy for convincing dormant users to come back to your app. Indeed, half of dormant users who receive an email come back to the app. Plus, sending push notifications increases retention by 20%.

The focal point is: how many emails should I send? When are they too many? When aren’t they enough? Study your user, do experiments, produce always interesting content, solve your users’ problems, and encourage them to come back.

As we said before, you can achieve excellent results by sending e-mails to dormant users, but what about the active ones? For sure, if active users receive a nonsense email, they’ll be more likely to unsubscribe or uninstall the app. From your point of view, what’s a successful way to get in touch with active users? … Still wondering? I’m thinking about in-app messages. Yes, I’m talking about pop ups that are only displayed while the user is actively using your app. They’re mainly used to drive interaction and discovery within your app. Wanna know more about this innovative tool? Check this article!

 

Main differences between emails and push notifications

Emails and push notifications have some similarities, while the methods and strategies used in email marketing are quite different with respect to what is required to be outstanding with mobile push notifications.

Both emails and push notifications can be sent to customers to promote special sales or new app features. However, while emails can serve directly as content, push notifications don’t really have this ability, except for push notifications including rich media.

In an email, you can provide users with a long white paper to read, and inform them about new technologies in the market or you can decide to give a complete message without any CTA. On the other hand, push notifications try to get users’ attention. Their goal is to push users to click on the app and take further actions. Due to these differences, it’s not complicated to understand that emails and push can be used as complementary tools.

In a nutshell, don’t make the mistake of copying and pasting your email marketing strategies into push notifications. Indeed, these require an entirely different approach, and need their tailored campaigns to truly capitalize on the power of push! Wanna know more about push notification? Check out this article, and find out push notification best practices.

 

Wrapping Up

If your goal is implementing an effective omnichannel marketing strategy, segment your emails and push notifications’ audience in order to send personalized messages based on users behavior, interests, and needs. Remember that you should get in touch with your loyal users more frequently, while you shouldn’t give the same treatment to less engaged users. Why? They may unsubscribe. Keep in mind that emails, and even direct emails, are still working out great, especially in certain sectors like B2B and consumer retail.

All in all, align your email marketing strategy with your push notification strategy, combine these powerful tools, and enjoy impressive results.

… and NOW?

• I think you get how much is fundamental to implement an omnichannel strategy to effectively reach your users! Wanna lean more tips about your target audience? Have a look at the winning customer life cycle marketing strategy
• Would you like to improve your omnichannel strategy? Let’s start from the basis. Have a look at our Engagement Platform and discover how to reach your users 🤩