Permission Marketing – What Is It?

Both newsletters and PUSH notifications are forms of the so-called consent marketing. What is this? Associate requests for permission to send notifications that are displayed to you on various websites? Until you confirm that you want the information … the website cannot send it to you. The same applies to the newsletter – to receive it, you must enter your e-mail address and confirm that you are interested in receiving messages from a given brand.

This “consent” factor ensures the sender is confident that it is reaching initially interested audiences. They may be at different stages of the marketing funnel, but contact with each of them is valuable and may sooner or later bring benefits.

There is one more important advantage, the psychological one. Since the recipient himself agreed to receive the message – he performed some action. Consequently, he is to some extent involved in the communication process. Such a peculiar “foot in the door” also increases the probability that the established relationship will result in a purchase.

However, it should be remembered that consent marketing also brings challenges: first of all, it requires building a database of people who have decided to subscribe to messages on their own. Nevertheless, the results are worth the effort, and skillfully planned and targeted campaigns bring good results. Therefore, it is definitely worth going in this direction.

PUSH newsletter and notifications: how do they work?

Before we answer the question about the advantages of individual consent marketing tools, it is worth taking a closer look at exactly what each form of communication looks like.

PUSH notifications

PUSH notifications are short pieces of information that appear on the screen of the user’s device with his prior consent. They can be generated, among others through applications installed on the phone, however, the most important role is played by sms and web-PUSH messages, i.e. those displayed by web browsers.

These notifications:
– are small – contain literally 1-2 sentences of text and small graphics,
– they appear spontaneously at the moment selected by the advertiser,
– are enriched with a CTA element, which most often refers to a website with more information.

Newsletter

A newsletter is a form of communication via e-mail. It is about sending new messages to the interested group – be it with information about new products and current promotions in the store, or with interesting entries on the company’s blog.

Newsletter:
– it can take various graphic and text forms – it can be very simple and minimalist, and it can contain a long message,
– also most often includes CTAs pointing to a website.

What are the similarities between these tools?

Apart from the similarity discussed earlier, in which in both cases messages are sent after receiving consent from the recipient, other similarities can also be indicated.

Both forms of communication:
– they can be used at every stage of the marketing funnel – to build brand visibility, arouse interest in products or the desire to buy immediately,
– they must be attractive for the recipient to be willing to interact,
– can be used in conjunction with marketing automation tools, which in turn improves the entire communication process and reduces service costs in this area.

The cost of sending both types of messages may also be similar, especially when you calculate the cost per click.

Newsletter vs PUSH notifications: the most important differences

Despite significant similarities between the discussed forms of communication, there are also many differences. Here are the most important ones.

A. The time it takes to plan your campaign
PUSH notifications work a bit like Google ads – they contain little content with a very high CTA saturation. As they are displayed by the browser, there is no need to design their graphic layout or make other tedious preparations. All you need to get started is a catchy, short text that will encourage action and small graphics.

In the case of a newsletter, you may need a much broader strategy – think about the layout, content, communication pattern and much more. Therefore, the preparation of an email campaign may be more time consuming.

B. Shipping time
Even automated mail sending to a large subscriber base can take a long time, with gusts of up to several hours. Such delays can cause the mail to be delivered to the inbox late and… ignored. PUSH notifications are displayed in real time.

C. Ease of Delivery to Addressee
PUSH messages in the browser are not blocked neither by AdBlock nor by other systems. The only limitation is whether the given user has the browser enabled when the message is sent.

In the case of a newsletter, it is not always so rosy – overly sensitive spam filters can intercept such an email. It can also get stuck in the less visited “offers” tab or remain invisible among dozens of other e-mails.

D. The speed of growth of the recipient base
In the case of PUSH notifications, 2 clicks are enough to start receiving messages. What’s more, the recipient does not have to provide any personal data or register anywhere. Subscribing to the newsletter requires at least an e-mail address and confirmation of willingness to receive the message by clicking on the activation link received.

These features translate into the effectiveness of acquiring new customers. As you can guess, the number of PUSH notifications subscribers arrives much faster than those subscribed to the newsletter.

E. Read / convert probability
PUSH messages usually assume an immediate response and require quick action. It could be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the user, for example, if he is overwhelmed with too many such messages, can reject them without looking. On the other hand, it may click instinctively, e.g. if it finds out that a quick sale in the store ends in 30 minutes.

E-mails are most often viewed at most a few times a day, but if the recipient decides to look at the newsletter message, they usually look at it more closely than quick notification. Something for something.

Does this mean that the newsletter should be replaced with PUSH messages? Not necessarily. The newsletter is part of any good inbound marketing strategy, and the effects of its conduct can bring long-term effects. Web-PUSH works more in the short term. So these tools are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary – they can complement each other.