No digital marketer can deny the value of mobile today. It is the digital hub of our lives – not only our communication needs, it is central to all of our movies & entertainment, shopping, finance, education, even health & spiritual needs. And, unlike our global counterparts who went from desktop to laptop to mobile, Indians leapfrogged into the mobile arena directly from the desktop stage. This means that the Indian user’s impulse to prefer mobile tech over anything else is even stronger. This is an important factor for the mobile marketer to consider.
India’s smartphone penetration rate of 36% has already been achieved[1], while the number of smartphone users continues to grow ~16%, which is the highest growth rate of any country in the world[i]. India’s rural mobile internet penetration may be low at 18% but urban stands at ~59%[ii]. This means that the mobile marketer is looking at an upwardly mobile market, quite literally. The outlook is bright for app marketers since this is the year India became the world’s fastest growing market for mobile apps (iOS and Android). We also rule when it comes to the number of mobile app downloads[iii]. And, we spend roughly 3 hours daily on our smartphone[iv], which shows the immense potentialities of customer engagement and ultimately, app-based conversions.
The app space therefore becomes one turf where established brands can grow their user base, this being the area they are less likely to be challenged by competing start-ups. A huge upside to the brand having an app is that it lets the marketer gain a much deeper understanding of the user compared to any other channel or platform. Your app sits intimately on what is the control hub of her life – the smartphone.
App marketing, therefore, is largely about mastering the push notification strategy of content marketing. App Push Notifications (APNs) are to app marketing what email is to digital marketing: absolutely critical. Today, app owners spend dollars in acquiring customers and therefore, it is important to make it sticky. Considering that nearly 3 out of 10 apps installed end up getting uninstalled within 30 days of download[2], app stickiness can be achieved with the use of push notifications. Marketers today already have access to technology that can take them a step further even with APN. The Push Amplification.
It amps up the deliverability of APNs by nearly 30%. Any app marketer will know that APN delivery rate is a major pain point. Push Amplification comes as a reliable and handy fix for low delivery rates, which stand at an average ~60% due to various challenges, mainly posed by the network and Chinese OEMs. It makes an app marketer feel helpless when s/he factors in that nearly 40 out of 100 APNs do not get delivered to the user.
Delivery issues strangle your APN strategy right at the very start, giving no chance of success to the content crafted with great care. To note, 94% of smartphones run on Android and iOS platforms, out of which Android is expected to capture 73% market share[3] in the app space and this is the OS that Chinese OEMs use too. APN delivery rates will continue to pose a challenge.
Push amplification works by the Smartech SDK building a back-up delivery gateway, apart from that of GCM (Google Cloud Messaging)/FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging) & APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) and actioning its pull-back mechanism to trigger undelivered APNs directly to the user’s smartphone.
The question therefore is not whether one should adopt Push amplification along with APN or not; the question is whether or not one wants to grow the business. We can safely say that in the mobile marketing realm, there is no battle fiercer than the army of apps fighting for the customer’s attention & mindshare.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Kalpit Jain
CEO at Netcore Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Kalpit is a digital technologist with 2 decades of experience in the Digital Communication and Marketing space. He has performed his roles under various positions from a Software Programmer to COO at Netcore Solutions Pvt. Ltd. He has been instrumental in bringing innovations over an array of email marketing products.