21 Brilliant Push Notification Ideas You Can Use in 2023

Through the medium of Push Notifications, MoEngage was successful in delivering: a 16% increase in in-app purchases for Big Basket, a 120% uplift in Gaana+ premium membership, a 25% increase in customer retention for Nostragamus, and the list goes on!

These numbers pack quite a punch in favor of push notifications and their ability to induce favorable results throughout the customer lifecycle. It can be one of the most versatile attention-grabbing forms of communication, having immense scope for personalization and brand voice incorporation. Most importantly, it bridges the customer-brand communication divide while improving the customer experience.

Here are a few push notification ideas that you can implement in 2023 to win over your customers:

1. Incorporate a Little Humor

If you have missed the memo, funny and creative push notifications are ” in.”

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Businesses are no longer wooing their audiences with plain, old, boring messages that get lost in digital noise. In its place, marketers are attracting and retaining customer engagement through humor. It allows them to forge stronger bonds based on human emotions, keeping your brand at the forefront of their minds. Most importantly, push notification ideas that receivers genuinely enjoy will make them look forward to hearing from you!

2. Introduce Gamification

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Gamification stokes the flames of emotions like competitiveness, winning, curiosity, and learning. It is an effective way to keep the app customers hooked and coming back for more. You can introduce gamification by counting the app usage through streaks, displaying a leaderboard, indicating a stage, updating a status bar indicating percentage completion, and more. You can then offer rewards for touching milestones to maintain customer engagement.

Apps like Duolingo or Candy Crush are possibly the best examples of leveraging gamification to maximize app retention.

3. Send Location-Specific Messages

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Location-based push notifications offer actionable information based on your geographical location. Your marketing campaign could include geotargeting (targeting a specific geographical location), geo-fencing (establishing a virtual geographic boundary), and geo-framing (granular geo-fencing) to trigger push notifications in real-time. These messages could be directions to the closest physical or pop-up store, weather forecasts, traffic updates, promos, or even ongoing or live events.

4. Cut Right to the Chase

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Sometimes, beating about the bush only dilutes the efficacy of a push notification. So whether you are a no-nonsense brand or tired of sending similar messages to no avail, one of the best push notification ideas is to get straight to the point. Of course, it is best to pair such push notifications with interactive or call-to-action buttons. As a result, offering instant value without sugarcoating the facts could tip the scales in your favor and help you achieve the desired results.

5. Notify About Updates

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Informing customers regarding app-related changes can be helpful in two ways – it allows them to extract maximum benefit from the app and ensures that they control their app data. App customers can particularly draw from these notifications during the initial days when they are just beginning to use the app. You could guide them in the next course of action, put a feature in the spotlight, or simply encourage them to use the app. Additionally, keeping the customer in the loop empowers them, whether you are notifying them of a new addition to the catalog, informing them of a new feature, or sharing an updated customer policy.

6. Use Emojis

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According to a Hubspot study, push notifications containing emojis registered an increase of 85% and 9% in open rate and conversion rates, respectively. It is one of the quickest ways to personalize the message without putting too much effort into copywriting. As such, it can be an excellent substitute for words when you run out of push message ideas. Think of it as a seasoning to spice up an existing punchline and make it more fun.

Don’t know where to get started? We have a detailed guide for using emojis in push notifications. Check it out now.

7. Send Contextual Notifications

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Contextual push notifications are the low-hanging fruit that almost every business can exploit. Using these personalized push messages, you can essentially send the standard message but in brand-new packaging. Based on customer attributes, you could link the message content with the product or service or even customer behavior to make it contextually appropriate. The change may not seem like a lot, but the one who receives such notifications may be impressed by the way you think outside the box.

8. Drive Their Curiosity

The classic drip-feeding of information can pique the receiver’s curiosity as they will now be tempted to click on the push notification. Ideally, such push messages contain a crisp yet sensational title that begs to be clicked. However, avoid using anything that is clickbait-y as it does not fit into the push notification best practices and can only work once or twice until you become the boy who cried wolf.

Extra brownie points to you if you can milk creative push notifications to drive their curiosity. (Think “Guess the song using emojis”!)

9. Weave a Narrative

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The secret to a successful marketing campaign lies in your ability to spin a yarn. Even if you are saying the same material as what ten other apps are telling the receiver, it is how you convey the message that makes a difference. Unputdownable stories boost customer engagement and nudge the receiver to tap on the app or web push notifications to reveal more information. For the success of this strategy, you will need some excellent copywriters in your team who can sell even the most mundane stories as click-worthy breaking news.

10. Remind Users to Complete an Action

Do you want new customers to link their social media accounts or complete their profiles? Or have they abandoned the cart after almost reaching the checkout page? A friendly reminder never hurts anyone. In such a situation, it would be best to go one step further and include a call-to-action button that redirects them to the target page on the mobile app so that they can complete the desired action. It may not seem like a lot, but this reminder could be the fine line between someone abandoning the task entirely or carrying it out until fruition.

11. Invoke Flattery

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Let’s face the truth; everyone loves compliments. Think, what happens when you receive notifications that manage to leave behind a lingering smile on your face? You tend to recall the message and the brand better! Don’t forget that marketing is about outdoing your competition and making your customers feel special; if you have to bring flattery into the mix, then so be it.

Flattery, in this case, does not necessarily mean merely complimenting them. You could also shower them with your attention through promos, offers, discounts, and limited-time deals. The fact that you have valuable customer data can help you curate special offers specific to the account!

12. Tap Into the FOMO

While FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a buzzword in the industry, it is a stark reality for many customers. For this reason, several push notification ideas position FOMO as a reliable instigator of action. It allows marketers to foster a sense of urgency that will push the audiences to take action immediately. It can be the recipe for a successful re-engagement marketing campaign that gradually loses steam.

13. Make Use of Puns

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You can hardly go wrong with puns when looking for app push notifications ideas. These clever and witty one-liners could be the key to improved app retention and higher customer engagement rates. Of course, the success of such an initiative primarily depends on your brand voice and your audience. Throwing an occasional pun here and there will only earn you appreciative nods.

14. Create an Event-Specific Hype

Topical or calendar events that are often the talk of the town can set an excellent premise for sending out push messages to your app customers. It shows that your brand is “woke” and knows what is happening around you. However, inserting your brand in a seemingly unrelated event will require every ounce of creativity you can muster without such a gimmick backfiring. And as always, the timing matters a lot here, so you cannot afford to mess it up. In this case, it is always best to use an automated push notification system to ensure timely delivery.

15. Write Something Cheeky

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As brands adopt a more conversational and human tone, traits like sarcasm, audacity, and eccentricity gain more value. And even though some messages toe the fine line between crass and humor, they reinforce that the recipient is interacting with another human rather than a business. Some brands even play around with profane push notifications ideas as they can offer that “shock value” that delivers the much-awaited response – a click from the customer.

16. Ask a Question

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Sometimes, a simple question can set a string of events in motion. So how about asking questions to establish a dialog?

Here, the question could be about a recent purchase, in-app experience, or simply checking in on customer wellbeing. Eventually, you should frame the question to be as open-ended as possible so that it elicits a response from the receiver.

17. Make Personalized Recommendations

Everyone appreciates product or service suggestions. And personalizing these recommendations according to the customer’s preferences is no less than a cherry on top!

With E-commerce, personalized recommendations unlock opportunities for cross-selling and upselling related products. With content-based mobile apps (think news or streaming services), these recommendations will guide the customer toward similar or related content. You could take a completely fresh approach and recommend something diametrically opposite from what the customer prefers. It encourages them to try new stuff and get more value from your app.

18. Promote a Limited-Time Deal

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You can send push notifications to inform your customers regarding any ongoing flash sales, special offers, discounts, and limited-time deals. These push messages can effectively capture customer interests, especially during the holiday season or live events. Apart from offering discounts, you can use it to announce any upcoming sales and events scheduled to play out later.

19. Use Rich Media

The use of rich media in push notifications has been a game-changer. When paired with custom call-to-action buttons, the interactive GIFs, videos, photos, and audio clips can consolidate your standing as someone who takes creative push notifications seriously. Plus, you can forgo the pains of personalizing the copy or making it witty, as the media content will primarily grab all the attention (but that does not mean that you stop putting in the effort!)

20. Collect Feedback

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Customers want to be heard, and what can be a better way of giving them a platform than asking them directly for their opinion? Requesting the customer to share their customer experience, whether for the app as a whole or a particular product or service, can be an excellent way to put push notifications to good use. Review management through push notifications also makes them feel involved and can serve as a source for constructive criticism.

21. Try Negging

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Negging can be a double-edged sword, with the results going either way. However, given the success of witty, pun-laden, and bold messages in the current age, negging could “challenge” the customer to behave the way you want. So unleash your snarky, sassy, and saucy best to test the waters!

Final Thoughts

The above push notification ideas can be an excellent jumping-off point if you wish to test the waters and gain traction amongst your subscribers. Don’t forget to keep push notification best practices in mind before trying out any drastic lest you start losing customers or noticing higher app uninstallation. When done right, you can deliver impressive results by incorporating push notifications within your marketing campaigns.

At MoEngage, we have an array of push notification templates to meet your varying requirements. Most importantly, you can customize them to meet your brand requirements and start using them immediately. So what are you waiting for? Get pushing on push notifications now!