Apps that communicate best with users

Leanplum has announced the results of a new study on consumer sentiment toward brand communication. Study results show that brands primarily fail because they send too many and irrelevant notifications, yet brands like Facebook, Wells Fargo and Bank of America are the best at communicating with their users.

Notification bombardment leads to app deletion. Mobile phones are an integral part of our lives, and brands rely on a multi-channel solution to build and maintain relationships with their customers via notifications. To garner insight into people’s engagement preferences (whether via email, push notification or in-app messaging), Leanplum commissioned a survey of 1,000 mobile phone users in the United States. Nearly 2/3 of those surveyed have a preference for when they receive notifications, split between morning, afternoon, and evening. All generations delete apps because of too many notifications including Baby Boomers, Millenials, and Generation Z.

The number one reason people delete apps is too many and irrelevant notifications clogging up their inboxes and notification feeds. Across all generations, from Gen Z to Baby Boomers, the most common reason to delete an app was because of copious notifications. Over 75 percent of Millennials are deleting apps that annoy them with unnecessary notifications. Brands are consistently having to navigate the fine line between keeping their users informed and notified while being sensitive to over-communicating. 

Surprisingly, respondents reported that the brands best at communicating with their users are social media and financial companies. From a list of popular companies, people selected Facebook, Wells Fargo and Bank of America as being the best at communicating with their users. Users who consistently disregard and are unenthused by notifications find that social media and financial brands send the most helpful notifications. Over 30 percent of respondents reported that they like to receive notifications for financial alerts and over 25 percent of respondents felt similar about social media companies. Brands like Facebook, Wells Fargo and Bank of America evoke positive reactions from users across all channels, including email and push notifications. A majority of respondents did not mind email or text notifications and almost 90 percent did not mind financial notifications. 

Respondents said they prefer email notifications to other forms of app communication. In other words, email is not dead; people just have a preference for when and how they like to be notified. Forty-six percent of respondents reported that they prefer to receive notifications in the form of email, while only 15 percent prefer push notifications. 

Across generations, email is the most preferred form of communication for brands on mobile devices. Forty-three percent of Millennials prefer to receive emails from brands compared to 28 percent of Gen Zs. Email is easily accessible on mobile devices and has emerged as the most preferred form of communication from brands. Ninety-one percent of users don’t mind email/ text push notifications and 87 percent of users don’t mind financial push notifications.

Users will delete apps whose notifications annoy them. Financial and social media apps are top-ranked for communication. Email is not dead, instead, it is the preferred form for users to be notified. Brands must understand how and when to communicate with their users, and brands must be conscious of their users’ communication preferences.

“Through our research, we are finding more and more that email is stronger than ever before. Because email is so accessible on our phone, it is being used in combination with push notifications, allowing for brands to craft communications with their users that are thoughtful, personalized and based on the unique characteristics of each customer,” said Momchil Kyurkchiev, CEO and Founder of Leanplum.

Interesting statistics include:

• Sixty (60) percent of people have a preference for what time of day they receive notifications. Of those who have a preference, the split between morning (27 percent), afternoon (38 percent) and evening (34 percent) was fairly even
   
• Seventy-two (72) percent of Gen Z (compared to only 43 percent of Gen X’s) like to receive messages/updates from friends/followers on social media
   
• The least annoying push messages to receive were from email/messaging apps (9 percent found them annoying) and financial apps (only 13 percent of people found these annoying)
   
• Forty-nine (49) percent of people find financial/banking alerts helpful
• Fifty-four (54) percent of people say they are most likely to open emails from messaging companies, and forty-one (41) percent are likely to open financial emails