When it comes to push notifications, each publisher hit on a few major areas of focus.
First, the outreach strategy falls squarely within the larger trend of news publishers seeking to establish and own relationships with their audience.
Like newsletters, push notifications flow directly from outlets to their audiences without any intermediary. This makes them relatively immune to the kind of algorithmic disruption posed by updates to search and social platforms, and therefore an attractive and worthwhile channel for investment.
They are also assertive. You might consent to push notifications, but you do not specify when they arrive, meaning the alerts can double as a surprise opportunity for publishers to get your attention, serving almost as a miniature moment of brand marketing.
At Bloomberg Media, in some instances, the breaking news alerts do not even link back to a story, according to head of product Marissa Zanetti Crume. Instead, they are meant to be self-contained, to convey the relevant information and no more. Such a product is a service to audiences, yes, but it also creates a subtle association between timely news and Bloomberg.
As push technology improves, enhanced personalization is a top priority. Right now, The Times, Journal, Bloomberg, and Guardian all allow for users to receive notifications based on authors they follow or specific topics, but soon those signals could grow even more individualized, sending out article recommendations based on historical behavior in the same way web pages recommend future reading based on your past proclivities.
Other granular areas for improvement include the specific wording of the alert, the time of day it was sent, and the inclusion of images in the copy, which, according to The New York Times’ Karron Skog, are actually quite powerful tools of engagement.
Critically, push notifications also come primarily from publishers with mobile apps, which have proliferated in recent years, as the chart below illustrates.
As open web traffic becomes more unreliable, publishers have sought to push their audiences to their mobile apps, which offer more controlled environments and yield clearer data signals.
As more consumers patronize mobile apps, push notifications will naturally reach a wider audience. They will also drive publishers’ most engaged audiences, which are more likely to use mobile apps, to frequent those products more often, increasing their engagement even further.
Naturally, this is a heartening audience signal only for publishers with sophisticated mobile apps and push strategies, which is to say that only a small number of well-resourced outlets actually stand to benefit from this trend. If anything, it is more reason for media brands to launch apps if they do not have them, or to at least try to approximate this dynamic through other similar channels, like newsletters.
If nothing else, the increase in traffic from sharing and push notifications is a reminder that not every trend line in media is pointed downward; in fact, among publishers’ core audiences, engagement is rising. The trick now is extending that pattern outward.
