In today’s highly competitive retail space, with hundreds of businesses offering similar products and services, customer loyalty plays a crucial role in ensuring consumers choose your brand over others. Implementing a loyalty rewards program is a strong way to build long-term relationships with your customers, increasing their loyalty, retention and profitability. With AIQ, you’re free to design your own innovative, strategic program that speaks to the character of your brand, backed by reliable tools to power your experience.

Achieving Customer Loyalty With Essential Membership Offers 

A valuable membership program fosters a loyal customer base while continuing to drive sales. Where do you start?

1. Establishing a system of core rewards: The most important layer to a successful loyalty program is the rewards system it’s built on. An effective program should target customers during key moments in the retail journey, like the first time a customer joins your program.

Other examples include a bonus offer once a customer completes their first purchase to incentivize a return visit, rewards triggered when points & spend milestones are reached, a special birthday bonus and membership anniversary gifts. All touch points are designed to keep the customer connected to your brand by personalizing the retail experience through automated rewards.

2. Create a two-tier system: A two-tier loyalty program separates customers into two groups: (1) customers who signed up for your program and (2) customers who signed up and opted in to receive direct notifications from your brand.  

The reason? Having immediate access to notify your customers directly with unlocked rewards, targeted campaigns, and promotions gives you the platform to achieve optimal returns on your marketing & sales activations. 

Using AIQ Sign Up forms is an easy way to achieve this, and can be strategically displayed on a kiosk in-store, embedded into your website, or accessible via QR code to ensure the process is simple and generates opportunity for customers to opt-in post sign up.

3. Individualized treatment to drive retention: Maintaining loyalty becomes a top priority once a customer has joined your program. To do so, retailers must treat each shopper as an individual, not just a faceless number. This builds an emotional connection between the brand and customer, which is key in establishing long-term loyalty. 

Using AIQ’s Audience segmentation capabilities, you can reward customers based on their purchases, target them when established milestones are reached, and generate campaigns centered around customer buying behavior like favorite product, average basket size, and total loyalty points among many, to ensure you have the necessary tools to accomplish an individualized approach.

4. Exclusive experiences generate interest: Traditional loyalty programs based solely on transactions (earning points, redeeming rewards) are no longer enough as membership programs become increasingly popular. Customers compare membership programs, and it is vital yours has clear value and connects to your base. Strong loyalty initiatives focus on retention across all touchpoints with exclusivity incorporated throughout to ensure joining your loyalty program is beneficial. 

What does this look like? Examples include exclusive shopping rights to extended sales, early access to deals, and pop-up rewards available only to loyalty members, making customers feel special for being a part of your membership program.

A great way to accomplish this is incorporating AIQ’s Ongoing Campaigns throughout your shopper journey, automating the process to ensure it’s sustainable, and effectively reaching your base during valuable, key moments without any manual work required.

Download AIQ’s Comprehensive Strategy Guide on Loyalty Rewards, deep-diving into essential program structure & membership offers in retail

Best Practices For Building An Effective Customer LoyaltyProgram 

Here’s some best practices to follow as you begin strategizing with your team to develop your loyalty program: 

• Define your goals and objectives: Before launching a loyalty program, you should have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure your success. For example, do you want to increase customer retention, spending, referrals, or data? How will you track and analyze your results? Defining these key metrics with AIQ’s Analytics tool ensures you will be able to effectively measure your successes, and see where improvement could be made. 
• Know your customers and their needs: You should design your loyalty program based on customer segments, behaviors, and their preferences using AIQ’s Audience Builder. With this, offer rewards that are relevant, valuable, and appealing to your customers, using AIQ’s Discount Builder to populate customer profiles with these available rewards, communicated to customers using our campaign tool to optimize visibility. 
• Make your loyalty rewards program simple and easy: Ensuring your loyalty program is easy to understand, join, and use helps staff better market your program to customers which in turn, helps customers see the value and want to sign up. Avoid complicated rules, restrictions, and expiration dates so the customer doesn’t feel confused or shorted by the program. Make rewards easy to earn, redeem, and access using AIQ App Wallets to bring this experience to life, with clear and consistent messaging + branding across all channels.
• Make your loyalty rewards program unique and differentiated: Your loyalty program needs to stand out from your competitors and offer something that they cannot. Using your brand identity, values, and story to create a distinctive loyalty program helps build that customer connection to ensure they prioritize your membership over others. Great ways to stand out are using gamification, like AIQ’s Prize Wheel, and personalization throughout the program, which can be accomplished through AIQ’s Personalization Macros and AIQ Audiences.
• Continuously Improve Your Program Structure & Membership Offers: A loyalty program should evolve over time to stay relevant and effective. Continuously seek feedback from customers and analyze program data to identify opportunities for enhancement. Update rewards, introduce new tiers or benefits, and keep the program fresh and exciting. Regularly communicate changes and improvements to your customers to keep them engaged and informed.

By incorporating these strategies, retailers can boost customer satisfaction, retention, spending, and referrals while collecting valuable data to refine their marketing approaches.

Download our 2024 Marketing & Loyalty Playbook for details on getting started on building your program on the AIQ platform today.

The Benefits: Investing Into Customer Loyalty Pays 

• Increased customer satisfaction: Customers feel valued and appreciated when they are rewarded for their loyalty. They are more likely to perceive and recommend the brand to others positively.
• Increased customer retention: Customers are more likely to stay loyal to a brand that offers them rewards and incentives. They are less likely to switch to competitors or look for alternatives.
• Increased customer spending: Customers are more likely to spend more when they are part of a loyalty rewards program. They are motivated to earn more rewards, redeem them, and take advantage of exclusive offers and discounts.
• Increased customer referrals: Customers are more likely to refer their friends and family to a brand that has a loyalty rewards program. They can share their rewards, invite others to join, and spread the word about the brand.
• Increased customer data: Customers are more willing to share their personal information, preferences, and feedback when participating in a loyalty rewards program. This allows the brand to collect valuable customer data and use it to personalize its marketing campaigns, products, and services.

Deep dive further into the benefits of loyalty programs by checking out our post: 10 Reasons Loyalty Programs Have Undeniable Power. 

In summary, building an effective loyalty program requires a strategic approach and a deep understanding of your customers. By setting clear goals, designing attractive rewards, simplifying the enrollment process, and continuously improving based on feedback and data, you can create a loyalty program that drives customer retention, increases sales, and fosters long-term brand loyalty. Invest in a well-crafted loyalty program and watch your business thrive as you build stronger connections with your valued customers.

Connect with the AIQ team now to learn more

What does this mean?  Single tech stack = streamlined processes, increased efficiency and performance optimization overall. 

With the new arrival of AlQ Ecommerce, retailers can easily access Ecommerce from their account using our one-click preview tool. For your convenience, we have implemented a single sign-on option for staff accounts to move freely between the two tools seamlessly. Simply pick your POS provider, and your payments, and we’ll handle everything else!

We’ve also dropped exciting new feature enhancements to expand on AIQ Ecommerce’s already powerful capabilities. Let’s break it down!

Key Features:

• Mobile app enhancements 
• Simplified customer opt-in process
• AIQ loyalty badges synced directly to Ecommerce menus
• Look up customers via email or phone record to access & redeem points 

1. Mobile App Enhancements 

For retailers with an AIQ Native App using our Ecommerce solution, feature enhancements include: 

• Single sign on (SSO) implementation
• Ecommerce menus built directly in-app 

These updates allow retailers to gain valuable insight into customer shopping preferences and buying behavior by capturing customer data from in-app purchases. 

In addition to these enhancements to mobile apps and analytics, there are feature updates that alleviate work and add some fun to the shopping experience. 

2. Simplified Customer Opt-in Process

To top off the enhancements, Alpine Ecommerce menus will sync directly with the AIQ system, now requiring one signature instead of two to confirm customer consent. 

• Opting into retail marketing notifications can all be done in one place
• Simplifying the customer opt-in process by creating less work for the customer
• Creates greater opportunity for retailer’s to achieve opt-ins & grow subscribed customers 

3. AIQ loyalty badges synced directly to Ecommerce menus

• Syncing AIQ loyalty badges to Ecommerce menus creates a gamified experience for the customer 

Best practices for AIQ badges: 

• Loyalty status: Creating distinct badges for each loyalty tier allows customers to see their membership status, which helps guide them to understanding their current member perks. 
• Product preferences: Implementing badges that speak to customer’s most common purchases personalizes the shopping experience.
• Milestones reached: Rewarding badges to customers who reach milestones like points earned or YTD spending further personalizes the retail experience, making customers feel valued for their loyalty.

4. Look up customers via email or phone record to access & redeem points  

Retailers shifting to email based customer records can use this contact information to access and redeem customer points, no longer being limited to phone number lookup. This means, as more and more retailers move towards email based customer communications, collecting phone numbers will not be necessary for all systems to work as needed. 

On top of these enhancements, the foundation of Alpine Ecommerce offers the benefits of:

• Customized, branded menus 
• Order management tools
• Advanced deals engine
• SEO optimization

These features are all easily manageable by your internal team on one platform to optimize your operational efficiency. 

Ready to transform your online shopping experience? Schedule a demo today to learn more about AIQ Ecommerce.

Questions? AIQ live chat is available M-F, 10AM-4PM EST for customer support.

Here’s some ideas you can try using AIQ’s tool suite:

Offer a special ‘Pot O’ Gold’ reward or bonus points for customers by activating a Wheel of Prizes on your App. This is a great way to utilize gamification to promote your retail native app and engage customers. 

To add rewards to your prize wheel, create the offer in AIQ’s Discount Builder and switch the prize wheel toggle to ‘Yes’.

Create a special discount for customers who wear green or show St. Patty’s Day spirit when they shop at your store or online. Using AIQ’s Discount Builder, you can easily push this promotion to all of your customer’s Rewards Wallets so they can prepare to take advantage of this offer. To maximize visibility, use AIQ Campaigns to directly notify all subscribed loyalty members of this promotion.

Create a themed reward tier or badge for customers who reach a certain amount of points or purchases during the month of March. For example, you can name it “Lucky Leprechaun” or “Pot of Gold” and offer exclusive benefits or prizes for those who achieve it. To implement, upload a custom badge to any audience directly in the AIQ Audience Builder. Customers will see this badge in their Rewards Wallet as soon as they meet the requirements.

Run a contest or giveaway for loyalty members, making it themed for St. Patrick’s Day. You can reward them with things like free product, store credit or an exciting surprise, easily managed using AIQ’s Random Lottery Campaign tool. 

Create a St Patrick’s Day-themed quiz or survey and invite your customers to participate. You can reward them with points, coupons, or freebies for completing it, using AIQ Surveys to collect the information.  You can also use this as an opportunity to get feedback or reviews from your customers.

Want to learn more about AIQ and how it can service your organization?

Now with Alpine IQ, your web wallet and app have been completely redesigned for you to easily create an incredible first impression on your customers. Not only will you be able to drive more sales but we’ve also streamlined the review process so you can establish credibility with social proof!

The Updated AIQ experience will include:

New Home Page Experience

• Popular products at your store:
  • If you have Jane or Dutchie, you won’t have to lift a finger because the products will be auto filled with the most popular products and order history.  But don’t worry if you don’t have Jane or Dutchie! Getting your most popular products on your home page is easy. Simply create an assortment of products that AIQ can add to your product feed.
    
• Products customers can buy again: 
  • This will pull from your customers most recent purchases
    
• Products to review: 
  • This will pull from your customers most recent purchases
  • *Hot tip* – You can trigger points/ discounts and campaigns to go out based on product reviews made within the app and wallet.
    
• Customer points, deals, discounts, and latest updates

Order History:

Your customers never have to worry about digging around to figure out what product they loved. The order history allows them to keep track of their purchases, loyalty points, and any returns or refunds. And you will be able to ensure easy access to past orders to encourage repeat business, making it extremely convenient for customers to reorder items. 

Updated Styling:

As a brand experience creator for your organization, you can now seamlessly update and customize everything about your apps in one place with instant updates and eye catching theme components.  

Leveraging Alpine IQ’s Updated Features

By leveraging the full potential of web wallets and native apps, businesses can not only stay competitive in today’s digital world but also increase revenue, build customer loyalty and offer a unique customer experience.

This is why Alpine IQ, the leading tech solutions provider for highly regulated industries, has created a simple and secure web wallet specifically tailored for you. When integrated with Alpine IQ’s native app, retailers and brands can provide a seamless digital experience for their customers.

To learn more about Alpine IQ’s web wallet and native app, check out our website to get started!

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Apps serve different functions and essentially make our lives easier. For businesses, apps are among the most convenient ways to reach customers at the touch of their fingertips, especially now as we slowly adapt to the new normal. Apps can be a mean for customers to:

• learn more about your products/services
• engage with your brand
• easily purchase your products

For businesses, having a native app is important — it can hugely improve the customer experience while staying compliant to regulations.

How can you leverage the benefits of apps for your business? Alpine IQ has the answer: our native app service offers an extensive amount of AI-powered features to help harness the power of apps for your business.

What is a native app?

An application, or app, is a type of software that allows you to carry out specific tasks that it’s programmed to do. Apps can run on various devices, such as desktop or laptop computers (desktop apps), web browsers (web app), smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices (mobile app).

A native app, in particular, are developed for a specific platform (i.e., Android, iOS, or Windows) and are installed directly onto a mobile device through application stores such as Google Play or Apple’s App Store. 

Native apps function as a standalone app (no web browsers are needed), so it typically performs faster and more efficiently than mobile web apps.

Another benefit of native apps is that they can take full advantage of a device’s native features and hardware — thus the term, native. For example, a native app programmed to edit photos can access a device’s phone storage and photo album; a ride-sharing app can have access to a device’s location feature; and so forth.

Alpine IQ’s Native App for Your Business

The decision to have an app for your business can be a difficult one — e-commerce apps, in itself, are not easy nor cheap to develop, and there’s concerns about the ever-changing regulations in highly regulated markets. 

Alpine IQ, however, has you covered. We can take the burden off of you by offering a native app that’s designed to work especially for you, whether you’re on iOS, Android, or Windows.

Put your brand just a tap away from your customers’ mobile home screens, and enjoy these features and more with Alpine IQ’s Native App:

• In-app ordering: Streamline the shopping experience with your own fully customizable e-commerce app. Enjoy features such as live embedded menu with checkout, custom splash page, customer onboarding, and more.
• Synchronized e-commerce and data management: Make the customer experience more seamless by syncing up your POS, e-commerce, and social profiles. Our native app is also cross-device compatible.
• Push notifications: Widen your reach and let customers be in the know of the latest updates about your brand through push notifications.
• Loyalty programs: Enable loyalty programs and refer-a-friend campaigns and sweeten the deal even further with discount tier progress, multiple redemption methodologies, and instant points and rewards right after signup.
• Smart APIs: If you already have an existing e-commerce app for your business, you can make it better and smarter with our suite of APIs, which includes granular data analytics, audience segmentation, and many more.

Why Choose Alpine IQ’s Native App for Your Business?

Since Alpine IQ’s inception in 2019, we have developed several groundbreaking tools to push highly regulated markets forward and help businesses like you reach your audiences much more easily, all while meeting multi-state/provincial regulatory environments.

What makes Alpine IQ’s native app service the best choice for you?

1. Proven record of excellent service 

Our support and proven ROI are two of the many reasons why we are supporting over 1,800 + stores.

2. We listen first and speak second 

We are a data company first. We believe that our customer’s data should be used to improve their experience. Our data analysis tools provide a clear picture of what your customers want. Listen to the data and watch as your conversions and ROI responds.

3. Built for highly regulated markets 

We understand highly regulated markets and built our platform for you. Operators both large and small rely on us because we are the only vendor that truly provides unparalleled support to single-store, multi-store, and multi-market operators.

4. Baked in compliance and peace of mind 

Compliance is our top priority. We know how fast this industry moves and how quickly regulations change. Hundreds of operators in the US and Canada rely on us to ensure all their consumer facing messaging is compliant.

5. Transparency

Our goal is to maximize the impact you have on your customers’ experience while minimizing your financial burden. The structure of our partnership allows full transparency into your campaigns and marketing initiatives. When you work with us, you won’t struggle to find deliverability stats for your campaigns.

Apps in general are indispensable to modern life — this kind of cutting-edge software can have any number of functions depending on what it’s programmed for, and they essentially make life easier with just a few taps or clicks on your phone or computer.  

For businesses, having a native e-commerce app that customers can easily download to their mobile devices widens your reach and streamlines the customer experience. 

However, developing a native app isn’t as easy as it sounds, but Alpine IQ can help you with that — we offer native app development that’s especially designed for you.

Are you ready for the next step? Contact us at https://alpineiq.com/ to get started!

To get the latest updates on our suite of services, make sure to subscribe to our blog today!

In today’s mobile device-driven society, native push notifications, or mobile app push notifications, have become a standard channel of communication for marketers. And this is for several good reasons:

• 42% of mobile users prefer to enable push notifications on their devices
• 48% of users who have received prompts through app push notifications made an in-store purchase
• App push notifications can increase engagement by up to 88%
• It can also increase app retention rates by 3 to 10 times more

However, despite the many benefits of native push notifications, they can also be easily misused if marketers are not careful. Here are some of the best practices you should be mindful of when creating your mobile push notification campaign.

Avoid default permission requests 

Default permission requests are opt-in prompts that are provided upfront—for example, the moment users first open a newly downloaded app. While asking upfront is important for critical permissions (for example, asking for location access for location-based apps), it’s best practice is to avoid this tactic as much as possible.

A more effective approach is to ask permission in context. This helps in better opt-in and open rates because users will be informed as to what they’re allowing app push notifications for—it’s all about the right timing and the right reasons. 

A few things to remember when sending context-based opt-in requests:

• Build a relationship first. Monitor app usage to determine the best time to ask users. For example, a user who has opened and used the app more than 3x a day in a week is more than likely enjoying your app. They will be more amenable to receiving push notifications from you if you ask.
• Choose a specific point in the customer journey to opt-in requests. For example, for e-commerce apps, you can ask permission to send notifications to users after their first purchase.
• Explain the value of subscribing to app notifications from you. Following the previous example, enabling push notifications on their device will let them know about shipping updates in real-time.

Here’s a sample copy for a good opt-in request:

Allow “X App” to send you notifications?

Get real-time updates on your orders and other important account activity and promotions.

Maybe Later / Yes!

Important Tip: For OS-specific guides on asking app permission, refer here:

• Android – App permission best practices
• iOS – Asking permission to use notifications

Personalization

Personalization and relevancy are crucial in marketing, and more so for app push notifications. Specifying the user’s name is one way to personalize your message, but it’s not enough. In a study by MoEngage, customers want more granular customization in push notifications beyond having their name mentioned. 

What this means is that your push notifications should be relevant to the individual needs and preferences of your audience. Personalization also includes the following: 

• considering where they are in their user lifecycle
• how frequent they like to receive notifications
• what content type they’re interested in

By doing so, you can engage more effectively with your audience, and they will most likely click through your calls-to-action (CTA), ultimately leading to better conversions. Personalization also improves the user experience, as well as your relationship with the customer.

Segmentation plays a huge role in providing granular personalization in your campaigns, which we will discuss in the next section.

Segmentation

Push notifications that are personalized based on audience segments have much better results than generic ones. Segmenting allows you to provide the right message to the right people at the right time. Overall, it helps in boosting your conversions, as audiences are more interested and receptive to your marketing message.

Segmentation involves classifying your audiences into different “segments” based on specific attributes such as:

• Location: Location-based segmentation is the most common practice. For example, you can notify users in a specific area if there is an ongoing sale in a store nearby. Another example is automatically setting the language of your notification based on the user’s location.
• Demographics: This can apply to an audience’s age, gender, education, occupation, and income. Segmenting by demographics can help you gain insight into a user’s behavior and preferences.
• User behavior: Behavioral segmentation can be based on their purchasing behavior and tendencies, their interests and preferences (i.e., the benefits they seek), their engagement level, and the stage they are in the sales funnel/customer journey.
• User engagement: This looks into how customers are using your app, what specific actions they usually take, how often they engage with your brand, and more. Engagement-based segmentation usually goes hand-in-hand with behavioral segmentation.

Timing

We previously mentioned that timing is everything to effectively send native push notifications. A basic strategy is to segment users by location and to consider their time zones. There is no ideal time to send push notifications, but it’s prudent to send them when users are most active in using your app .

As a general rule, the most effective notifications should be sent after a trigger event to add context—for example, right after a user places a purchase (order confirmations), after setting up their profile (welcome discounts), or earning specific loyalty points.

Important Tip: Set expirations for your push notifications as much as possible. This means that if a user is offline, there’s a set time limit for when a message can be sent. For example, if a user comes online after a time-limited sale is done, then they can no longer receive the push notification, as it’s no longer relevant.

Cadence and frequency

How often you should send push notifications depends on the type of app and your respective industry. The following are the average frequency of sending push notifications per app type according to iZooto and PushOwl:

• Dropshipping/e-commerce: 3 to 7 times a week
• News: As much as 3 to 4 times a day
• Fitness: 3 to 4 times a week
• Games: Once a day
• Travel: 2 to 3 times a day

As a rule of thumb, it’s best to use push notifications sparingly; otherwise, users will uninstall your app altogether.

Save for news apps, it’s most acceptable for users to receive 1 push notification a day for all other types of apps. A few exceptions are when there are specific trigger events that would prompt push notifications, as we’ve discussed earlier. 

Content best practices 

How you curate the content of your push notification determines whether users will click-through your message or ignore it. A few things to keep in mind:

Headline

• Power words: Your headline should be strong and attractive enough to compel users to take action. Use power words at the beginning of your headline for a bigger impact—some examples include new, limited, exclusive, and join. Here’s a longer list of power words you can use for your copy.
• Character limits: For Android, the character limit for headlines is 65. For iOS, it can be  178. However, the more succinct your headline, the better.
• Emojis: Using emojis on your headlines can increase open and engagement rates. The emojis you choose should be relevant to your message and consistent with your branding. Consider cultural context too, along with user preferences. Emojis, however, should be used sparingly; one emoji is enough.

Descriptions 

• Relevancy and value: These two factors carry the hugest weight in determining the open rate and CTR of your push notification. The description should be relevant to the needs of the user, as well as the context. It should also be clear what value the users will get from taking action. Personalization is key when writing good descriptions.
• Make it easy to read: Avoid long sentences. Keep your message snappy and brief yet powerful. 
• Use “urgent” messages sparingly: These types of messages when overused can be intrusive and annoying to customers. Treat power words with care, and use words connoting urgency only when the message is indeed critical and time-sensitive.
• Optimal text length: For Android, there’s a limit of up to 240 characters for the description. For iOS, it’s between 140 and 180 characters. However, it’s best to keep your description short and sweet. A message within 40 to 50 characters often yields better results than longer ones.

CTAs 

• Make your last sentence actionable: For mobile push notifications, the last sentence serves as your call to action. Be clear on what you wish your audience will do after reading your message. Use actionable power words such as get, save, contact, or explore.
• Be benefit-oriented: Generic-sounding CTAs such as click here or download are bland and unclear. CTAs that convey the value of taking action perform better in prompting click-throughs. Some examples include Stay connected, join the fun, and save 50% today.
• Ensure consistency: Your headline, description, and CTA should all be consistent with one another. Double-check the landing page as well; it should direct users to the right page where they can complete the action.

Imagery

A study by Airship found that rich push notifications—those with images, GIFs, videos, etc.—can boost open rates by as much as 56%. If you’re adding images to your mobile push notifications, here are a few thing to keep in mind:

• Mobile OS versions: For Android, users must have v4.1 or higher. For iOS, the device must be running on iOS 10 or higher. 
• Orientation: Landscape is preferable for both iOS and Android, as portrait images may look too small on some devices.
• Aspect ratio: For Android, an aspect ratio of 2:1 is recommended. For iOS, it can be displayed in two ratios, 3:2 and 1:1.
• Size: For both OS, a minimum width and height of 300px is recommended. The maximum width allowed is 2000px. The file size should not be bigger than 1MB.
• File format: PNG or JPEG

Note: GIFs and audio in mobile push notifications are only supported in iOS devices.

Best types of mobile push notifications to send 

• Behavior-triggered push notifications: As the term suggests, these are highly personalized notifications triggered by specific actions. Some examples are abandoned cart and shipping update notifications.
• Event-triggered push notifications: This often crosses over behavior-triggered notifications, but these are more granular. Examples include welcome messages, birthday discounts, and achievement notifications.
• Promotional push notifications: These notifications look into a user’s purchasing behavior to provide personalized offers. Some examples include time-limited offers, exclusive/member-only deals, etc.
• Location-based push notifications: This includes notifications on local events and promotions, and weather forecasts. For this type of notification, it’s crucial to send a separate permission request to access the device location.
• Informative push notifications: This includes updates to a user’s account, new content notifications, and app updates.

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Additionally, with GDPR and other privacy laws in place, it’s more important for marketers to leverage native push notifications as it works on the principle of permission-based marketing (at least on iOS devices—this will be discussed in more detail later).

1. What are Native app push notifications?

Native app push notifications, also referred to as mobile push notifications, are short messages sent to a user’s device where the respective app is installed. 

These messages pop up in the notification center, the lock screen, and as a banner, depending on the mobile operating system (OS) you use.

The notifications can be sent at any time, whether or not the user is actively using the app, as long as the device is connected to the internet.

2. What’s the difference between web push notifications and native push notifications? 

Oftentimes, web push notifications and native app push notifications are referred to interchangeably, as web push notifications can also be sent to a mobile device. However, they are quite different from each other:

Web push notifications

• For web push notifications to function, it requires a website with a web push code installed.
• It can be sent to both the user’s desktop and mobile device, regardless if they are actively using your website, as long as the browser is open.
• Unlike app push notifications, web push notifications cannot leverage device features.
• It can only support large images and only on Chrome version 56 and above.

Native app push notifications

• For native app push notifications to function, it requires a native app installed on a user’s device. 
• Its reach is limited to mobile devices (smartphones and tablets).
• It can utilize users’ device features, such as the GPS, camera, contact list, etc.
• It can support rich media, such as images, GIFs, videos, and audio.

3. How do native push notifications work?

The process begins with the app publisher registering their app with an OSPNS (Operating System Push Notification Service). Each OS (e.g., Android or iOS) have their own respective OSPNS.

The OSPNS then provides an API to the app publisher to allow communication between the app and the service. The app publisher then adds an SDK to their app to enable native push notifications, then uploads the app to the app store.

Depending on the OS, an API call will trigger an opt-in prompt once the user downloads the app to their device. For Android, mobile app push notifications are enabled by default. For iOS, however, an opt-in is necessary. 

After this, users will start receiving push notifications from the app. The app publisher can then use unique identifiers (IDs) from the device and the user’s preferences to personalize the messages they will send.

As mentioned earlier, notifications can be sent any time of the day, regardless if the user is actively using the app. However, an internet connection is required.

When users click or tap on your notification, this will open the app and they will be taken to the specific landing page. 

4. What are the benefits/advantages of using push notifications?

Push notifications are virtually among the best ways to communicate directly with your target audience. Here are some of its top benefits:

• Real-time notifications: With a well-strategized push notification campaign, you can send the right message to the right users. Every time you have new content, new promotions, and so forth, you can send these notifications to users in real-time.
• Personalization: Since app push notifications can leverage user and device data, you can personalize your message and make it more relevant to each recipient.
• Increase engagement: App push notifications are great tools for retargeting and retaining customers. According to a study by Invespcro, push notifications can boost app engagement by 88%. The same study also found that apps with push notifications increase app retention rates 3 to 10 times more than those who don’t.
• Increase conversions and sales: When done well, you can boost conversions and sales with app push notifications by providing users with relevant reminders at the right time. The study mentioned previously found that 48% of mobile app users have made an in-store purchase after being prompted by an app push notification.

5. Do users have to opt-in?

For Android devices, native app push notifications are enabled by default. Users do not need to opt-in.

For iOS devices, they are disabled by default. Users need to opt-in before you can start sending them app push notifications.

6. What is the anatomy of a native push notification on an iPhone and Android?

App push notifications on an iPhone or Android both have the following “parts” in their “anatomy”: an icon, the app name, a timestamp of when the notification was received, the title and message, rich media (usually an image), and calls-to-action (CTAs).

However, while native app push notifications appear similar on iPhone and Android devices, both have subtle differences:

iPhone

• iPhone users first see the title and the subtitle. The notification can be expanded to reveal the banner image. Maximizing/minimizing can be done by swiping to the left.
• Aside from the notification message, iOS allows for an option to add a subtitle.
• The banner image/GIF is picked up automatically from the content and used as the icon. There is no option to add an icon of your choice.

Android

• You have the option for a small and large icon (usually your brand logo). If a small icon is not defined, Android automatically uses its default bell icon.
• To maximize or minimize the banner image, users can click the inverted arrow (^) beside the timestamp.

7. How are push notifications delivered to a user’s device? 

As mentioned, native app push notifications can be shown in 3 places depending on your mobile OS: the notification center, the lock screen, and as a banner. There are also differences in how the notifications are delivered to a user’s device based on the OS:

iPhone

• Notifications are delivered to the notification center by default. If the phone is locked, however, users cannot see them on their lock screens unless they manually enable lock screen notifications.
• To add to its subtlety, notifications are delivered silently on iPhones and do not appear as banners. Users will have to swipe down on their notification center to see any new app notifications in chronological order. However, there is also an option if you wish to receive push notification to be “Delivered Prominently” (i.e., with sound or badge/banner).

Android

• Notifications appear by default on the notification tray. If the phone is locked, notifications are also shown on the lock screen. The notifications, however, disappear once the user unlocks their phone. Notifications on lock screens can also be manually disabled. 
• For lock screen notifications, users have the option to show or hide sensitive information—that is, only the title will be shown, not the message.
• Android is more prominent in showing push notifications. By default, they appear as banners and the sound and LED light notification are also enabled. This can, however, be manually disabled or snoozed.

8. What kinds of messages are best to send through native push notifications?

• Promotional: These kinds of messages are the most common types, especially for the e-commerce industry. Promotional push notifications include special offers, time-limited discounts, and even behavior-based product recommendations or updates (e.g., “An item in your wishlist has just been restocked!”)
• Transactional: These messages are triggered by a user’s previous interactions with the app—for example, shipping and delivery updates, abandoned cart reminders, and payment confirmations.
• Lifecycle: These types of notifications can go hand-in-hand with transactional push notifications. The main difference is that with lifecycle messages, the triggers are mainly based on timing. Some examples include welcome voucher notifications, special birthday promos, and re-engagement reminders for inactive app users.
• Educational: For non-e-commerce apps, educational notifications are the most common types to use. Publishers may use this to inform users in real-time if new content is available. It can also be used by e-commerce apps to provide relevant tips in using the app and/or their products and services.

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This goes without saying that mobile apps offer businesses a huge opportunity to maximize their marketing strategy, especially for those in highly regulated markets. Businesses need to one-up their approach to have an edge over the competition — ​​and a native mobile app can help you achieve that.

Here are three ways a mobile app can drive your business to success:

1. New marketing channels 

On June 7, 2021, Apple changed its App Store Review Guidelines, allowing legal and properly licensed highly regulated businesses to have their own apps. This paves the way for new marketing channels for retailers, as the highly regulated markets are still restricted in most marketing channels. 

Additionally, one of the most important features that a native mobile app offers is push notifications. These are messages that pop up on mobile devices and usually appear at the top of your screens. 

For marketers, native push notifications enhance your strategy by allowing you to provide tailored content to consumers, such as location and behavior-based alerts. It also widens your reach, as you can send them notifications at any time (as long they opt-in), whether they are actively using your app or their device. 

According to FlowHub, 75% of customers who use a mobile app opt-in to receive push notifications. The same study revealed that mobile push notification open rates for businesses are between 20% and 25%.

2. New way to easily increase revenue

Another good reason why people prefer mobile apps is that it makes everything easier: the buying process can all be done conveniently at the tip of their fingers. Several studies have also been conducted supporting the fact that purchasing decisions are highly influenced by the quality of customer experience. 

This is all the more significant to businesses—having a dedicated retail mobile app adds a new way to reach customers and increase revenue. And as we ease into the new normal, having the option to buy products online provides a huge advantage to businesses.

Additionally, one of the appeals of mobile apps is the ability to offer loyalty rewards and discounts to customers. What delineates this from discounts provided by retail websites is that with mobile apps, there’s more personalization, and rewards can be tailored to fit the needs of each of your customers.

One study found that 75% of customers favor brands that have built-in loyalty programs—it makes them feel special and highly valued. People are also naturally more eager to take advantage of good deals, which translates to better conversions and increased sales.

3. Keep your customers coming back

As a related point, the combination of personalization, loyalty programs, and trigger-based push notifications all add to the customer experience, which will entice consumers to keep coming back to you.

A study has shown that 80% of consumers are more inclined to buy from a brand that offers tailored experiences. With mobile apps, customers can create profiles and save their details, which will allow you to gain more insight into their unique preferences, purchasing and browsing history, and more.

Businesses can then use this information to customize the customer’s experience through personalized SMS, email campaigns, and push notification messages. In turn, this fosters a stronger relationship and increased loyalty with the business and the brand.

Get a Fully Branded Mobile App for Your Business

Highly regulated related mobile apps are still sparse in the app market now, and this means you have a huge advantage over the competition by launching your own mobile app.

Here at Alpine IQ, we offer a completely customized mobile app solution for you. Get your own fully branded mobile app that is fully compliant with Apple and Google App Store regulations, in addition to the following features:

• Highly customizable white label solution 
• Ability to enable push notifications
• Syncs seamlessly with your POS, e-commerce providers, and social profiles

With Alpine IQ, you can onboard customers to an app that is truly yours. Your app, your brand, no marketplace competition.

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