Push Notifications: An Essential Marketing Tool For CME Events|eMedEvents

 As a CME provider, it is unlikely that your audience will check your app daily unless they are actively searching for accredited activities. Therefore, for every app that is not a popular social media platform, it can be difficult to convey updates and product information to your user base.

That is where push notifications come in.

Push notifications are brief pop-up messages that mobile apps send to users’ devices, even when the app is inactive. These alerts are intended to catch the user's attention and can include reminders, updates, promotions, and more.

While push notifications may resemble SMS text messages and other mobile alerts, they are only sent to users who have downloaded the app. This feature is available across all mobile platforms and service providers.

Push notifications provide a way for app developers to engage with their users directly. They don't get caught by spam filters or left forgotten in inboxes, and their click-through rates are twice as high as email. They can also remind users to use an app they have not opened in a pre-established period of time.

Some of the many CME marketing uses for push notifications are:

• Promoting CME events or special offers to increase activity registration
• Improving user experience
• Converting unknown app users to regular customers
• Sending receipts immediately following transactions
• Prompting users to other marketing channels, such as social networks

Push notifications can be customized for specific app users and targeted to certain segments of your user base. When compared to SMS text messaging, this is a significant benefit. They do, however, necessitate the maintenance of user-identification data. They also require a specific interface for authoring, targeting, and sending messages.

How do push notifications appear to users?

For the most part, users see these notifications as banners or pop-up alerts while they are using their phones or tablets. No matter what the user is doing, the notification will always appear—even if the device is inactive.

Push notifications are displayed in a single window on most mobile operating systems, though it can vary by brand. For the majority of devices, notifications will appear at the top or bottom of the screen while the device is in use; if the device is inactive, push notifications will appear directly on the lock screen, similar to text messages.