Overview
At Cordial, we view mobile app marketing as any interaction that's sent to your mobile app, and any interaction coming back from your mobile app. It's a proven method for creating delightful brand experiences and building lasting relationships with your customers.
Push notifications
Push notifications are the most commonly used option for mobile app messaging with Cordial. Many brands use push notifications to encourage users to open their app. But the best push notifications are simple, urgent, and actionable (when applicable).
For example, sending a push notification that a sale starts in 24 hours is not urgent or actionable. Instead, you could send that notification just a few minutes before the sale begins and have it take the user directly to applicable items on your site. Rich push notifications contain images, GIFs, and other media along with the notification to make the experience more engaging.
Allowing users to customize how often and what types of messages they receive will lead to a much higher opt-in rate.
How push notifications work
When you start to plan your mobile app marketing strategy, it's helpful to have an understanding of how messages get sent to your mobile application. When someone installs your app and agrees to receive push notifications, the app is assigned a device token. This token uniquely identifies that instance of your application on that specific device. Along with your app's authentication information, device tokens are used to send requests to Apple and Google to deliver notifications.
Push notifications are not actually delivered directly to devices. Requests to send are handed off to Apple and Google and then delivered to devices via Apple and Google's servers. While Apple and Google are highly reliable, neither of them guarantee that notifications will be delivered to devices. This is where in-app messages come in.
In-app messaging
Sending in-app messages through Cordial provides a lot of value, because they display when someone is already inside your app and don't require contacts to have push notifications enabled.
In-app messages have several possible use cases, such as advertising something new, highlighting current offers, explaining the value of push notifications before asking for permission, or sending a survey. Finding the right time to show these messages is critical, as you don't want to overwhelm users with messages while they're trying to use your app.
Cordial's SDKs allow you to block showing in-app messages until told it's okay. This is a great way to ensure that critical actions (such as checkout) are not interrupted.
Inbox messaging
Inbox messaging is awesome for storing messages. Inbox messages mirror a lot of use cases that email is suited for (reservation/order confirmations) but also have unique implementations, such as providing a record of activity in a community (post comments, new followers, etc).
Not every app needs inbox messaging, so make sure to consider if it would add value to your brand experience.
Events
Event data empowers you to listen to people the moment they engage with your brand. Your app can send signals back to Cordial at each and every interaction someone has with your app in the form of event data. These events inform exactly how, when, and on which device you respond to customers.
Events can be used to track all kinds of scenarios, from basic ones such as app opens to more advanced ones such as time spent watching a video. These events can be incredibly useful, but they can also pose privacy issues, so make sure to only collect what's needed.
iOS requires you to disclose the information you collect and give a summary of how it's used. Visit this article for more information on iOS guidelines.
Tip
A great way to decide which events to collect is to write out the questions you want answered and the use cases you want to implement. You can then work with us to figure out which events you need.
Cart items and orders
Tracking what users add to their cart and what items actually get purchased gives you leverage to optimize both your messaging and your business. These also enable countless use cases for sending personalized messages through Cordial that provide clear user value, such as product recommendations or abandoned cart messages.
Location data
Location data continues to be one of the most private pieces of data apps can collect. Users are always prompted to either allow or block location permissions before an app can use their location. When designing your app, if you choose to ask for location permissions, make sure that you offer a high-value reason for needing people's location data, and only collect it when needed.
Also consider how your app would work without location permissions, such as allowing users to manually enter a zip code to find a nearby store.
Cordial SDKs
A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools put into a single package. In other words, an SDK is code that has been designed to be reused by multiple developers, which can easily be installed into appropriate code projects. Cordial's SDKs help reduce the time it takes to implement common functionality such as updating a contact or sending events.
The Cordial approach
Cordial's approach to mobile app marketing is to maximize flexibility while minimizing complexity. We understand that every app is different, every user is different, every interaction can be tailored, and that releasing an app update to enable a use case should be a last resort.
Our mobile app SDKs are built to allow you to get data back into Cordial quickly and easily. You can then use our platform's powerful tools to send the right message to the right person at exactly the right time.
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