As a writer, I am often asked to help with push notifications. Designing a push requires both time and energy and it's never an easy task to do especially if you are a technical thinker.

What I mean by a "technical thinker" is that a lot of people see one side of a push notification; they have something to tell their users and they just tell it. Usually through a very generic message. This is way too technical.

But the fact is that a push notification is a marketing tool no less important than SMS and emails. So, app makers need to be careful with this. Mastering the technique of making a push is not enough.

You have to convey a message in a very user-friendly way. So, let's examine my algorithm of designing mobile push notifications that do not suck. Here you are!

When to send the push

Some apps ask users to enable push notifications at first launch. As a user, how likely do you think you would be to say yes? Unless you're an auto-clicker, you're unlikely to accept that. This will only work when the requirement for push notifications is immediately obvious.

Otherwise, users do not want to open the door to potential spam notification. They do not know your app, if they like your app, or if they want to keep it on their device. Why should they give your app special permissions before they can even evaluate it?

What to say

Notifications are not a mandatory component of your app. Sometimes notifications are a bad idea. Before designing push notifications for your app, you should be absolutely sure that they are necessary or valuable to the user. If they're not, any smart user will disable notifications.

And users are already wise to spam game notification. Research conducted by Localytics shows that 52% of users view push notifications as "an annoying distraction."

Which type notification 

Transactional push notifications are used to deliver information to the user at a specific time. When you get notifications about an order shipping, your arrive, or a flight delay, these are all transactional notifications. They are the most useful and practical notifications. Users see the value in this type of notification.

Engagement notifications are used to get the user to open your app. These are the most irritating for the user. They bug you to open the app, with a prompt that's supposed to gin up your interest. The problem is, most of the time, the content is not interesting. Commitment notifications are typically open to everyone. And users hate that.

How to say it

Every push notification has two main parts: title and text. Make sure both of these things are useful. The title is like an email subject line: it should grab the user's attention and encapsulate the content of the notification. The text below is the body text. This is where you flex your micro copy muscles.

Personalizing notifications is the best way to improve engagement and click through rates. Remember that personalization means more than just the user's name.

With marketing automation, you can slice users into smaller segments and send notifications that are especially relevant to that segment

A few push notification best practices

Some apps help their users meet their goals like offering to open the app to grab a boarding pass…

Here, the push notification serves as a reminder for the user to check their boarding pass

while preparing for the trip.

or to request a ride ASAP to avoid surge pricing ...

Other apps hype an upcoming event ...

Ideally, you can send a push notification like this a few hours before the event. In this example, we would like to encourage users to slide to their guests.

Some apps encourages users to achieve a new level in a game or a contest ...

While some other apps create a feeling of urgency to make you buy something ...

It all depends on what you want to accomplish with a push notification and how your users are going to respond to it.

So what?

Just be careful with what you send to your users. Push notifications can make or break the deal. And if you ever bore, you're going to lose them forever. I know that's pretty sad. So, make sure to be relevant, nice, accurate, and timely. Good luck!