Engage, personalize and simplify: 3 steps to effectively use emojis in push notifications👇

Engage, personalize and simplify: 3 steps to effectively use emojis in push notifications👇

Engage, personalize and simplify: 3 steps to effectively use emojis in push notifications👇

Engage, personalize and simplify: 3 steps to effectively use emojis in push notifications👇

Each day, billions of emojis are being exchanged among mobile phone users. But not all of those are part of personal communication. These little pictographic characters, capturing basic human emotions, became a powerful marketing tool and push notifications are benefiting from them more than companies may think

Effective usage of emojis can boost push notification performance through increasing open rates by as much as 85 %. Emoji push notifications are also opened 135 %  more among Android users and 50 % more among iOS users than those without emojis.

Why are emojis in push notifications so popular? They play with imagination while being interactive, personal and fun. 

Industries that benefit THE MOST and THE LEAST from emoji usage

According to data from March 2020, there are exactly 3 304 emojis in the Unicode Standard.

We created EPS, a guideline shortcut that helps to choose the right ones. It stands for engage, personalize and simplify.

1. Engage customers

Companies need to make customers feel like they are part of a conversation. In personal contact, people use both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. Plain text lacks the non-verbal part. This can be changed by including emojis. They mimic human emotions, so basically mimic non-verbal ways of communication. Using them in push notifications will cause customers to feel more engaged with whatever a company is trying to tell them. This is one of the reasons why applications that have emojis in their push notifications experience 26 % less chance to be uninstalled.

TOP 10 emojis to increase engagement

🙆 🍒 🐠 💃 🌤 💘 😔 💕 😢 💓

👎 DO NOT use emojis just for the sake of using them.

For example, automobile giant Chevrolet created all-emoji press release, which led to decrease in engagement rate. Relevance goes before aesthetics: Emojis should be meaningful and directly connected to the company’s business.

2. Personalize your message

A study in journal Social Neuroscience proved that an emoji causes the same chemical reaction in our brain as an actual human face. This causes that for customers, a push notification with an emoji evokes more trust than a plain, impersonal text. Using emojis is also a good way how to set a tone to a message – instead of giving commands, companies can support a positive vibe of their push notification by adding for example blinking smiley face 😉. Trust and positivity are why emojis can increase your retention rate by 28 %.

TOP 10 most popular emojis on Twitter (April 2020)

😂 😭 🥺 🤣 ❤ ✨ 😍 🙏 😊 🥰

👎 DO NOT use emojis for onboarding campaigns. Since emojis are considered personal, they will work best with customers who already know the brand well.

3. Simplify the communication

Since emojis are representing emotions, it means they are universal. It doesn´t matter if a push notification aims at millennials, teens or older people, everybody gets them. Thanks to emojis, people don´t even have to speak the same (or any) language in order to use company´s service. As a proof, consider Domino´s campaign from few years ago, when customers could order pizza just by tweeting a 🍕 emoji.

Emojis can also substitute certain terms. Saving space is a big advantage, since push notifications with ten and less words has the best click-through rates. By using emojis, the average CTR is 3,48 %, what gives an industry-wide average increase of 38 %.

TOP 10 emojis to encourage click-through

🐙 🐴 👖 🍒 🚂 🏳 🌉 🆓 👇 🎟

👎 DO NOT use emojis without taking a geopolitical aspect into consideration.

What means something in one area doesn’t necessarily mean the same in the other. For example, in western culture, this emoji 👏 means clapping. In Japan, it stands for making love. Important is also research on double meanings.

Conclusion

Some industries may benefit from emoji usage in push notifications more than others, but certain is they can´t hurt the business – if companies know how to use them correctly. The key is to personalize, engage and simplify. 
What to avoid: Including emojis to onboard campaigns, possible cultural and geographical misunderstandings and emoji overusing. Less is sometimes more.

Each day, billions of emojis are being exchanged among mobile phone users. But not all of those are part of personal communication. These little pictographic characters, capturing basic human emotions, became a powerful marketing tool and push notifications are benefiting from them more than companies may think

Effective usage of emojis can boost push notification performance through increasing open rates by as much as 85 %. Emoji push notifications are also opened 135 %  more among Android users and 50 % more among iOS users than those without emojis.

Why are emojis in push notifications so popular? They play with imagination while being interactive, personal and fun.

Industries that benefit THE MOST and THE LEAST from emoji usage

According to data from March 2020, there are exactly 3 304 emojis in the Unicode Standard.

We created EPS, a guideline shortcut that helps to choose the right ones. It stands for engage, personalize and simplify.

1. Engage customers

Companies need to make customers feel like they are part of a conversation. In personal contact, people use both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. Plain text lacks the non-verbal part. This can be changed by including emojis. They mimic human emotions, so basically mimic non-verbal ways of communication. Using them in push notifications will cause customers to feel more engaged with whatever a company is trying to tell them. This is one of the reasons why applications that have emojis in their push notifications experience 26 % less chance to be uninstalled.

TOP 10 emojis to increase engagement

🙆 🍒 🐠 💃 🌤 💘 😔 💕 😢 💓

👎 DO NOT use emojis for onboarding campaigns. Since emojis are considered personal, they will work best with customers who already know the brand well.

For example, automobile giant Chevrolet created all-emoji press release, which led to decrease in engagement rate. Relevance goes before aesthetics: Emojis should be meaningful and directly connected to the company’s business.

2. Personalize your message

A study in journal Social Neuroscience proved that an emoji causes the same chemical reaction in our brain as an actual human face. This causes that for customers, a push notification with an emoji evokes more trust than a plain, impersonal text. Using emojis is also a good way how to set a tone to a message – instead of giving commands, companies can support a positive vibe of their push notification by adding for example blinking smiley face 😉. Trust and positivity are why emojis can increase your retention rate by 28 %.

TOP 10 most popular emojis on Twitter (April 2020)

😂 😭 🥺 🤣 ❤ ✨ 😍 🙏 😊 🥰

👎 DO NOT use emojis for onboarding campaigns. Since emojis are considered personal, they will work best with customers who already know the brand well.

3. Simplify the communication

Since emojis are representing emotions, it means they are universal. It doesn´t matter if a push notification aims at millennials, teens or older people, everybody gets them. Thanks to emojis, people don´t even have to speak the same (or any) language in order to use company´s service. As a proof, consider Domino´s campaign from few years ago, when customers could order pizza just by tweeting a 🍕 emoji.

Emojis can also substitute certain terms. Saving space is a big advantage, since push notifications with ten and less words has the best click-through rates. By using emojis, the average CTR is 3,48 %, what gives an industry-wide average increase of 38 %.

TOP 10 emojis to encourage click-through

🐙 🐴 👖 🍒 🚂 🏳 🌉 🆓 👇 🎟

👎 DO NOT use emojis without taking a geopolitical aspect into consideration.

What means something in one area doesn’t necessarily mean the same in the other. For example, in western culture, this emoji 👏 means clapping. In Japan, it stands for making love. Important is also research on double meanings.

Conclusion

Some industries may benefit from emoji usage in push notifications more than others, but certain is they can´t hurt the business – if companies know how to use them correctly. The key is to personalize, engage and simplify. 
What to avoid: Including emojis to onboard campaigns, possible cultural and geographical misunderstandings and emoji overusing. Less is sometimes more.
Reach out to us for further tips & tricks on using emojis in the mobile engagement world!