Both push notifications and in-app messages are the next waves of communication channels for Parcel Delivery app businesses.
Most Parcel Delivery apps often find themselves in a constant scuffle to choose the best channel for their marketing purposes. They might differ in features, but using them together often results in better user retention with a multi-channel approach. That is why most targeted marketing campaigns today between brands and consumers have started to create content around these channels.
At first glance, you might fail to differentiate between them as they function in a similar manner. However, that’s not quite the case.
Introduction
Research shows that 7.3 billion people worldwide will own a smartphone by 2025.
With a valuation of over $658 billion by 2031, the Parcel Delivery app market is also not looking to slow down anytime soon. With a simple UI, faster loading, and excellent user support, the competition for building a mobile app might never end. Instead, new mediums of communication, namely, in-app messages and push notifications, have turned this business into the forefront of innovations.
Let’s highlight their unique traits along with best practices, so you can develop a Parcel Delivery app that uses both.
Push notifications
Push notifications are the standard notifications that app users receive on their lock screens or notification trays. They alert users to any ongoing activities and have carved out a place as a tool to capture their attention. Parcel Delivery apps can use push notifications to draw users back into the app to maintain user engagement.
In-app messages
In-app messages are notifications delivered to your users while they are actively using your mobile app.
With a limited time window, in-app messages are much more content-specific than push notifications. You can use lengthy in-app messages or short ones as well, depending on the place that it pops up. These messages usually target the audience more directly based on their interactions and app usage habits.
Parcel Delivery apps can use in-app messages and pair them with visually appealing elements to make them more attractive.
Key usage differences in Parcel Delivery apps
Understanding key differences between in-app messages and push notifications makes things clear about their role in your Parcel Delivery app.
The objectives of In-app messages and push notifications
Your customers can see push notifications as alert-style messages on their devices.
In other words, they don’t necessarily need to open your app to see the push notification. However, for push notifications to work, your customers need to have your app installed on their devices. That being said, push notifications primarily help with raising the app’s user retention to a great extent.
Think of your user, whose last activity was 30 days ago. You can still use push notifications to reel them in. However, to obtain the desired result, you need to time the push notifications with the right content. Not only does this maximize the impact, but it also urges the user to open your app.
Push notifications help you grab user’s attention when they’re not using the app. On the other hand, in-app messages help you directly interact with users during different stages of the customer journey, such as while on boarding, reward announcements, etc. And while you can personalize both, the latter makes messages more relevant for your customer.
When to use push notifications?
When it comes to push notifications, you have to be particularly careful with the content, timing, and frequency aspects. They are more product-centric than customer-centric.
Overdoing them can backfire too. Constantly interruptive push notifications can break your user’s faith in your app. It’ll also lose the goodwill you’ve built up with them so far, eventually affecting your app’s ratings. The worst case scenario is your users uninstalling your app for good.
With the above factors in mind, here’s how to make your Parcel Delivery app relevant with push notifications.
- Share order confirmations, payment confirmations, and delivery updates
- Special offers, limited-time deals, promos, and discounts
- Incentive offers to remind your users what they’re missing out on
- Alert your users that they have left an action incomplete
- Alert them about all the important things that happened while they were away
- Time-sensitive parcel delivery alerts and reminders
When to use in-app messages?
When it comes to in-app messages, you have to be even more careful about placing them in the right step. As your customer will be using your Parcel Delivery app, the errors must be slim to none.
Most in-app messages can take the form of full-screen pop-ups. When done right, these messages can be used to communicate in a natural way at that particular moment. Moreover, in-app messages can act as a guide to suggest new features or explain best practices. That being said, this level of personalization cannot be matched with push notifications.
With the above factors in mind, here’s how you can make use of in-app messages to drive your Parcel Delivery app growth without turning your users away.
- Communicate with new users
- Offer guides to point them to a handy feature
- Explain how a certain aspect of your delivery cost works
- Ask for feedback at the right moment
- Super relevant messages to users when they are going through a new feature
It is important to keep in mind that your users can turn off push notifications through app or device settings. However, in-app messages cannot necessarily be disabled since they are part of the app UI.
Which one performs better?
A study revealed that push notifications had a considerable 20% open rate and scored a click-through rate of 28%. Whereas, in-app messages had a surprising 75% open rate but scored a mere click-through rate of 7%. Hence, declaring one as a “better” medium of communication against the other can be quite a stretch.
Combining in-app messages and push notifications
Some messages are more appropriate as push notifications. In contrast, others are best to work among your users if sent via in-app. Above all, your Parcel Delivery app should always have a joined-up strategy to achieve the best user experience.
Combining two very different but somewhat similar communication channels works in the following ways:
- An in-app message alerts your user that their delivery request has been sent, and a push notification encourages the driver to take action.
- A push notification alerts your user about a new feature. Upon opening, the in-app message guides them through the new feature.
- In-app messages notify your users in real-time about their parcel status. Meanwhile, push notifications provide a summary of the status at suitable intervals.
- In-app messages remind your users to complete the parcel delivery process, a push notification might remind them after a while.
Overall, if you want to remind your customers about renewals or expired payment methods, use push notifications to do that. Later, when the user taps the notification to open the app, the in-app messages will guide the user to start the process.
Cutting through the noise of Parcel Deliveries
In today’s app development climate, the competition for attention is higher than ever.
As a result, it’s important to take a cross-channel approach without worrying about messages getting lost in the shuffle. Both push notifications and in-app messages are crucial components of your user engagement when sending and receiving parcels. So, developing a Parcel Delivery app that uses both forms of messaging as a feature is imperative. You can easily drive stellar results with the right content in mind.
Moreover, the design and UI of the in-app messages present inside the app play an important role in grabbing the attention of the user. It should align with the overall look and feel of the app itself. That means when you start the development process, keep in mind these functions in the long run.
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Conclusion
To reiterate, push notifications and in-app messages attract users to interact with your app.
Hence, if you had to pick one, choose one that offers your users more diversity and an outlook on your vision. Most on-demand delivery businesses opt for push notifications as their best ally. In contrast, others go with in-app messages as the better alternative.
For this reason, you must have both of these features to retain old users and attract new ones as well.
