According to Forrester, only 8% of the marketers using push notifications are using rich push notifications today. But the opportunity for driving better engagement with rich push is massive. In fact, our data shows that rich push notifications can increase direct open rates by up to 56%.

In the webinar, Jeff and I shared the stats, best practices, use cases and real-life examples of brands using rich push to drive better outcomes. .

Read on to see highlights from brands who are maximizing the benefit of rich push, and get the webinar recording to get the scoop on everything you need to get started with rich push notifications.

Rich Push Notifications Drive 18% Improvement for NCAA March Madness

March Madness is one of the largest digitally consumed events in the world, so keeping users in the loop and keeping them engaged is paramount.

In the past, NCAA used push notifications to drive more app views of video and other content. In 2017, they introduced rich push notifications into their app to bring fans closer to the action — sharing clips of buzzer beater moments or alerting users to close games.

Rich notifications outperformed standard, text only pushes by nearly 18%, illustrating fans’ appreciation for visual content alongside typical push notification content.

Rich Push Drives More App Opens for USA Today

Media companies are also prime candidates to take advantage of rich push notifications. Many media companies have above average opt-in rates, but below average direct notification open rates. Rich push notifications are a great way to draw users in with the power of picture or video and interactive buttons allow them to save a story to read later, share or learn more.

USA Today reaches nearly 80 million unique visitors each month across digital platforms. Their goal is to provide a more engaging notification experience and drive more users to open its app. USA Today has embraced rich push notifications, with 95% of their push notifications now including rich media. This has led to a 18% increase in the number of app opens per month attributed to notifications.

25% Increase in Direct Open Rates for Ecommerce Brand Dinda

Retailers can showcase the latest clothing, shoes or other products with rich notifications and even include CTA buttons to shop now or see more.

Brazillian ecommerce retailer, Dinda saw a prime opportunity to engage users with rich notifications, as mobile is one of the source of the majority of its their traffic. Together, paired with segmentation and A/B testing, rich notifications have led to a 25% increase in direct open rates and an even higher influenced open rate. (Learn more about their strategy in this deeper-dive case study.)

Best Practices for Rich Notifications

Check our our blog post on mobile marketers’ rich notifications FAQs to get all the technical details you’ll need about file types, sizes, CDNs and more to make rich push notifications successful in your program.

And remember, best practices for rich notifications are the same as for any push notifications: make sure the messaging is a win/win for your contact and your brand. And ask yourself:

• Identify the goal: what do you want users to do?

• Is this message timely & relevant?

• How targeted can I make this message?

• Would interactive buttons help me learn more about my contacts and capture insights?

• Would rich media add immediacy, utility, excitement or other value?

More often than not, the answer for the last question will be yes!

Rich Notification Information and Inspiration

To learn more about the ins and outs of rich notifications, check out our webinar with POSSIBLE Mobile’s Jeff Hasen. And if you’re looking for more ideas on how you can use this channel, check out our Rich Notifications Inspiration Guide, or contact us.

The post How Top Brands Are Using Rich Notifications to Drive Results appeared first on Airship.

Below are top mobile trends from five of the best in the business.

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1) Messaging Everywhere

Chris Maddock, Director of Technology, AKQA: 

“We want to move toward creating more experiences — and a more holistic view of brand interactions. We’re looking at messaging everywhere: from Google Home to a VR headset. I want my smart home assistant to tell me my first meeting of the day’s been re-arranged and I need to hurry.

Understanding how and where people want to receive information and offering options is really important. Because, after all, it's a person that receives a message, not a device.”

>> Case in Point: Browse the Work section of the AKQA website

>> Related Urban Airship Resource: Our SVP of product and engineering on our APIs for open Channels & open profiles

2) Adding More Value to Every Customer Interaction

Robby Egan, Strategy Director, R/GA: 

“We’re challenging ourselves and our clients to ask the question: how can we add value?

We need to interact with people to get our message across while providing a meaningful, engaging service — as opposed to a gimmick or a coupon.  

With mobile, there are so many ways to bring something really interesting and really valuable to the table, versus just pushing a call to action that feels empty or annoying.”

>> Case in Point: Samsung and Rihanna’s ANTIdiaRy album release

>> Related Urban Airship Resource: Our perspective on the importance of defining your mobile value propisition 

3) Redefining Loyalty Programs

Jake Montgomery, Business Development, Bottle Rocket: 

“What's hot for us is digital loyalty. It’s exciting to be in a time where we’re redefining what loyalty is.

In the past, loyalty was mostly limited to a tiered system — buy 10 smoothies and get one free. Now — because of the ways we can personalize interactions — digital and mobile loyalty can really transform the way brands are able to connect with customers.

Let’s say a customer goes to a coffee shop four times in a week. On the fifth visit that week, you might surprise and delight them with a free coffee, just because.

The ability to personalize and segment on mobile is critical to be able to do this well, and we’re really just at the beginning of exploring the possibilities.”

>> Case in Point: Chick-fil-A app

>> Related Urban Airship Resource: How mobile wallet helps create new loyalty program opportuities

4) Helping Customers Unlock the Potential of Their Customer Data

Jay Gyuricza, Group Account Director, POSSIBLE Mobile: 

“One major focus for us is helping customers put their data to work much more effectively.

For example, we’re looking at making push notifications even better by helping clients send really targeted pushes — at scale. Customers need to be able to personalize pushes based on user behavior — whether it’s in-app actions, or actions outside the app, on any channel or platform.

One of our current clients has a database of 20 million users from across lots of their properties — mobile and not. When they launch a new product, they want to be able to use that database to send personalized messages to segmented lists. We’re helping them get there.”

>> Case in Point: PGA TOUR app

>> Related Urban Airship Resource: Strategies for personalizing push notifications with time, location and content

5) Showing Clients the Way to a Digital-First / Mobile-First Mindset

Erick McNett, Group Channel Director, VML:

“We’re working with a lot of clients who are using more traditional forms of marketing. So a big part of our work right now is showing them a new way to look at their opportunities, because they know they’re going to have to start accelerating towards those new opportunities — and they know there is major upside waiting for them.”

>> Case in Point: Tennessee Department of Tourist Development

>> Related Urban Airship Resource: How to grow with mobile: 15 essentials

What are you focused on for 2017? We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a comment below, or catch us on Twitter at @urbanairship.

And if you’d like to chat about any one of these top mobile trends, get in touch anytime. We have the tools and the deep client experience to help you tackle your toughest mobile and digital marketing  issues — and use cases that demonstrate the value and potential of mobile growth. Let’s talk!

The post Mobile Marketing Trends for 2017: 5 Things Top Digital Agencies are Focused On appeared first on Airship.

Brand Innovators attracts a strong assortment of marketing leaders from a variety of industries, all with a unique perspective on digital marketing for their individual brands.

This year, our own Judy Chan, Senior Product Marketing Manager for our mobile wallet marketing platform, Reach, presented some of the many use cases for leveraging mobile wallet as a new marketing channel, piquing the interest of many in attendance, from quick service restaurants (QSRs) to travel to loyalty executives.

This year’s overarching theme was the future of consumer engagement,  and driving traffic with digital. So what were my key takeaways from what I heard from presenters and fellow attendees? There were three big ones:

1) Staying relevant in an ever-changing world.

Consumers are more averse to traditional marketing than ever. It’s important to find ways to reach them in their moment of need – at the right time, with the right message and on the right device. Technology is essential for bridging this gap – whether it’s AI, AR, mobile wallet coupons or other means, and harnessing data to ensure tech is used properly is important.

2) Even winning teams need to find new ways to connect with their target audience.

Senior marketers at the Atlanta Hawks and Jacksonville Jaguars showed the ongoing challenge of boosting attendance and cultivating brand loyalty for their teams – and how a combination of segmentation, customer level analytics, prescriptive technology stack, word of mouth, brand remarketing and a little bit of hip-hop can create a movement for current and future fans.

(Related: See how the Cleveland Cavaliers use Airship’s platform tools to boost mobile engagement with their fans.)

3) It’s all about customer experience.

Even a beloved brand like Cinnabon can evolve and grow based on customer preferences. Their team talked about making upgrades to the onsite bakery experience, tweaks to packaging and positioning, and insights from crew members that have helped the brand evolve. But they’ve also relied heavily on technology and business intelligence advances to help them better serve their loyal customers. Social also played a key role in branding efforts, culminating in viral PR that couldn’t have been planned or crafted any other way.

Bottom Line

It may not be earth shattering, but it continues to be true: staying on top of new mobile, digital tools and channels, (like mobile wallet, smart-home tools and devices like Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa, etc.)  plus leveraging user-level data to deliver better, more personalized experiences continue to be the keys to success for marketers.

Want to accelerate your mobile marketing strategy? Schedule a consultation with our Strategic Services Team today, and we’ll share the latest ideas and use cases we’re building for brands – and help you see new possibilities. Get in touch anytime!

The post Three Key Takeaways for Mobile Marketers from the Brand Innovators Summit appeared first on Airship.

It’s All About Mobile

These days, it’s no longer about being “a mobile-first company.” It’s about being a mobile company — period. In order to keep pace with technology and how consumers are using their smartphones for everything, digital agencies must find the right partners that share not only their vision, but their client's’ vision, of the future. They require partners who propel the brands they support as forward thinkers, using mobile for every means possible.

Mobile Engagement DNA

No other company in the mobile space has had more success driving mobile marketing forward than Urban Airship. Much like breathing, innovation at Urban Airship is part of our DNA. That comes in the form of understanding the market landscape, where it’s headed and anticipating the needs of the future today. Case in point: we executed the very first push mobile engagement campaign, exactly when Apple released push in 2009.

Since then, we continue to actively listen to the market, helping our clients and agency partners focus on delivering experiences that enable them to be innovators in the mobile space. We want our agency partners to look brilliant to their clients and make their lives easier through streamlined digital strategies that maximize ROI with proven results.

In a 2015 study, Forrester Consulting found Urban Airship’s clients experienced an average 878% ROI by using our platform. Not only does working with us pay huge dividends, but our partners trust that we will help them stay on the cutting edge of innovation as we anticipate needs in the marketplace before anyone else, and develop solutions that can scale.

The Next Big Marketing Channel: Mobile Wallet

So, what am I sharing with our agency partners these days? If you’ve read, heard and seen anything around the mobile payment space, you’ll know that there’s exponential growth projected over the next few years. What you might not know is how to take advantage of this disruption now.

Mobile wallets aren’t just the latest shiny mobile object. While still nascent, wallet has longevity. With the rise of mobile payments, mobile wallet passes that act as a complementary marketing solution within the same ecosystem make a lot of sense.

At the Top of the Mobile Game

Mobile wallets are perfect for those clients not in current need of a native app, or still evaluating the ROI of building one. Wallet bridges the gap for these brands as it offers many of the conveniences of a mobile app, and more:

1. It puts the brand in customer’s hands easily, without taking up valuable homescreen space.

2. It’s ubiquitous. Brands can immediately leverage mobile wallets via the Apple Wallet and Android Pay apps, which come with every device.

3. Mobile wallets help brands stay connected with its consumers in a relevant, timely, personalized manner directly via their smartphone.

Some quick examples of how to use mobile wallets include:

• Loyalty cards, which can reflect points added or redeemed

• Membership cards, which can be used to check-in and/or be used as punch cards

• Boarding passes, which can be updated with gate and departure time changes

• Coupons, which can be downloaded and updated often as an engagement channel

• Event tickets, which can be redeemed at the venue

• So many more!

All of this is possible without needing the consumer to sift through emails, log into accounts, etc.  Additionally, mobile wallet passes can be made location-aware. Meaning, brands have the ability to use a mobile wallet loyalty card to craft personalized welcome messages (or other types) upon entering a store. They can also be used as an acquisition tool — the back of a wallet pass can include a link to download the branded app.

What Matters Most for Agency Partners

With so many features and functionalities, it’s no surprise that digital agencies are eager to get their brands up and running with mobile wallet. Urban Airship Wallet brings the right innovation at just the right time for agencies.

It’s this partnership that agencies value most in us: the solutions we bring, including Urban Airship Reach, keeping them at the top of their mobile game. The ways to use mobile wallet items are endless.

If you’re an agency and would like to talk more to me about how we can partner, please reach out. I’d love to chat.

The post Keeping Agencies at the Top of Their Game with Mobile Wallet appeared first on Airship.