Tips & Guide
How To Use Push Notifications To Bring Would-Be Guests Back To Your Site
Push notifications are nothing new. They’ve been used on the internet, and especially on mobile devices, for quite some time. Push notifications for hotel websites, on the other hand, are a relatively new phenomenon that are just starting to be used by hotel digital marketing agencies. They’re something all hotels should be looking into as part of their overall marketing strategy.
When consumers are browsing for a hotel to book for an upcoming trip, it’s very unlikely that they book the first one they lay eyes on – not the savvy consumers of today. They like to use comparison sites and OTAs to find great deals, and that might involve checking out a number of hotel websites before making the final decision. Imagine having a tool that could reel those website visitors back in after they’ve left?
A push notification is an alert that is ‘pushed’ to a visitor’s computer or phone screen. The notification will pop up and make itself visible no matter what the visitor is doing, even if they’re not currently on your website. The visitor must have accepted or ‘opted in’ to the notifications during a previous visit in order to receive them.
So how can you leverage these powerful pop-ups to bring potential guests back to your hotel’s site? Let’s examine some of the top ways.
Personalise your messages
Push technology allows you to personalise messages for certain user behaviours and preferences. So if a user was browsing your hotel website’s spa section before they left, you could use that as a hook to bring them back in.
Segment your visitors
Segment visitors by location, age and other criteria to ensure your notifications are personalised even further. You could segment based on active or inactive users, as well as previous site history, then create web push notification messages that are hyper-specific to each segment.
Always use push notifications for abandoned carts
Has a visitor to your website added a room to your cart and then abandoned it entirely? A well-timed push notification has a great shot at bringing them back. Perhaps they forgot about the booking, perhaps they needed a little extra nudge – whatever the reason, stay in the forefront of their minds and reduce cart abandonment rates.
Don’t be too ‘pushy’
Some people find push notifications a little intrusive, so try not to go overboard with them. Only send out messages when there’s something relevant to convey, whether it’s a new offer, a discount or information that you think will be useful for a certain audience segment. Sending out too many push notifications is the fastest way to cause users to revoke your push permissions.
Continue relationships after purchasing
Web push notifications don’t have to end when a guest has reserved their room or completed their booking. Keep the relationship alive and build brand loyalty with notifications that are relevant to future guests. Continue to upsell products or upgrades, and keep future guests informed about things like traffic, weather issues and events in the area.