Are Emails Relevant For Apps With Push Notifications?

Many application developers wonder whether emails are still a viable form of marketing when push notifications are already enabled. This question arises primarily due to the understanding that these two marketing efforts are designed to do the same thing - engage your customers.

While the primary objective of these two is the same, they go about it in very different ways. As individual methodologies, they offer pros and cons which are perfectly counterbalanced with one another. Continue reading to learn what we mean.

Push Notifications

When push notifications are enabled they appear on a person's phone. This "push" means the users do not need to enter the application itself to receive the notifications — or messages as to what is occurring within the game or system.

Pros

• Prompts more engagement with the application
• Quick bites of information can be read and processed quickly
• Can assist users in staying on track with what the application assists with or provides
• Can redirect to website or social media page for additional information

Cons

• Can not relay large pieces of information
• App users have the ability to turn them off, rendering them useless
• Can not be shared by customers

Emails

Emails are direct (albeit mass) communications between a company and their customer base. Those receiving the emails have registered their information and agreed to communication efforts. This marketing tactic has been used nearly as long as there has been an Internet and has remained moderately effective in an ever-changing society.

Pros

• Emails can relay large pieces of information to customers
• A more personal form of communication versus push notifications
• Easily shared by customers via forwarding services
• Prompts more engagement with the company itself

Cons

• Can end up in the spam folder where they will not be seen and thus, become ineffective
• Does not effectively increase application engagement

Tips For Success

In order to succeed you should leverage each strategy in the way most fitting its engagement method. Push notifications, for example, should be used for those things which require a minimal amount of communication. This includes things like:

• game energy being full
• the day coming to an end
• a weekly special event
• reminder for scheduled events (ex. exercise or to-do apps)

Emails are best used for those instances where more than one to two sentences are necessary for conveying your message. This might include things like:

• announcing one-time special events
• big sales, discounts, or promotions
• in-person events pertaining to the application
• referring customers to the company blog for more information
• promoting available merchandise associated with the application

Working Together

As you can see by the pros, cons, and tips for success listed above, push notifications and emails balance one another almost seamlessly. By this, we mean that the cons of one are the pros of the other and vice versa.

For this reason, it is highly suggested that application developers still make use of emails, despite having push notifications enabled on their phone programs. By utilising the two together you will reap all the benefits while simultaneously negating the downsides.