The Dos and Don'ts of App Messaging: Why it matters
We are sending more and more messages to our users. We want to be heard; but do our customers want to listen? Are our communications valuable? This is the first post of a series.
We’ve grown indifferent to messages; or have we? Mexico is currently undergoing a heatwave. Weather in my city is hitting the high 90F and low 100F. Last week I got an email regarding discounts in air conditioning. I chose not to ignore that email. Have we really grown indifferent?
This is the first post in a series related to App Messaging. In this series we’ll cover what are communication fundamentals, which types of messages are there, how to plan a message (Notion Included), when to send a message and how to track message performance beyond deliverability.
The goal of this series is to make it practical. We will do a fictitious example for a Horse Racing Gambling App. There is no particular reason for this with the exception that it is an easy to grasp concept. I also don’t have a relationship with a company in that space.
What is App Messaging:
App messaging is a catch-all term for messages sent to our users or customers. These messages come in varying shapes and sizes. Messages have different intentions, goals, channels, and media.
Messages are sent throughout the customer journey and customer lifecycle. These messages may be related to related to Attraction, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue (Refresh on Pirate Metrics).
This series will not discuss Brand Awareness for brevity purposes. This series will assume your app sends in-app messages (notifications or toasts), push notifications, and off-app communications like email and SMS.
Are we doing it right?
I honestly don’t know. Could we do better? Definitely. The goal of communications is to share a relevant piece of information to the right person at the right time. In the context of software, I would modify the previous statement to: Share the appropriate message, to the right person, towards a specific goal in a specific destination. We should try to answer What, When, Where, Why and to Whom in every communication we send.
Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating – Joel, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I have seen companies that compensate their inability to do proper targeting with excessive communications. Their rationale is throw things at the wall and see what sticks. This brute-force attempt can cause churn, decrease brand affinity and hide valuable communications. Send too many messages and your customers will choose to ignore you.
Challenges:
The hard part of app messaging is that it is a transversal activity. Communication does not clearly fit the functional area borders. The biggest challenge in my opinion is how the organization is structured and how political the organization truly is.
Communication and messaging are part of the brand experience. Nevertheless, this does not mean marketing. In order to send relevant communications, we need to understand the customer journey and coordinate accordingly.
Are communications part of marketing? Maybe customer support? It sure is related to operations. Instead of claiming ownership for communications, just do what’s right for your customer.
There are 3 main category challenges with App Messaging: Technical, Organizational, and Associated Costs. These are catchall categories. The categories will be different depending on company size and team composition.
Technical Challenges: Is our technology capable of doing what we want to achieve? Do we have the data required to properly target our messages?
Centralization: Where should messages be sent from? Organizations will need to define which service will be used to send communications. If there is no centralization, duplicate delivery is the least of your problems. There are potential issues with Personal Identifiable Information.
Triggers: When should a message be sent? Organization should understand the dispatch rules, events and message flows. One big challenge lies in non-event driven architectures. Is your system capable to identify an event or a change in state to trigger a message?
Organizational Challenges: Is our organization ready to collaborate and share? Do we have the maturity not to see this as a turf war?
Cross Departmental Communications: People will most likely try to control their narratives. Departments must be aligned as to what will be shared and when. The lack of a proper journey map makes it harder for people to truly align.
Communication Silos: Silos lead to misaligned messages and inconsistent tone of voice. Old communications may continue to be sent even when not applicable which may lead to poor customer satisfaction. This issue is once again related to the non-existance of a Journey Map.
Data silos: Data silos are closely related to centralization. If the organization uses multiple delivery services, getting data; and, making sense of that data requires additional steps.. Shadow IT is real.
Associated Costs: Do we know how much our communications are costing us? Communications belong to everyone, but the cost must be associated to a cost center.
Financial Costs: Sending messages has a cost. Twilio, OneSignal, Sendbird, MailChimp are affordable, but as message volume increases the financial implications of messaging increases.
Brand Perception: Brands that send too many irrelevant messages annoy customers. The affinity to the brand is reduced and the perception of value decreases.
Cost Tracking: Brands that send too many irrelevant messages annoy customers. The affinity to the brand is reduced and the perception of value decreases.
Conclusion
Frequency and volume are the easiest variables to explore. Send more, more people will see your messages. Will they eventually start ignoring you? Yes, Most definitely. Our job is to create frameworks and systems that enable different stakeholders to coordinate messages. The organization will be able to face its challenges and create real value for its customers.