Push notifications earn their keep at 4:40pm
A push notification arrives on the lock screen with almost no room to say anything. Timing does most of the work. Send it when people are deciding what to eat, and only then.
If your shop has an app, you have a channel that most of your competitors do not: the lock screen. A push notification appears where people look dozens of times a day. It costs nothing to send. It is also very easy to abuse.
Push is the most fragile channel a restaurant has. One annoying notification can be enough for someone to switch them off, and most people never switch them back on.
Timing is the message
A push notification has a few dozen characters to work with. You cannot tell a story. What you can do is arrive at exactly the right moment.
For dinner that moment is the late afternoon, when people start to wonder what they are doing about food. Somewhere between four and half past five on a weekday is often the sweet spot, a little earlier for families with young children and later for people who eat late. If you have the data, use each customer's own usual ordering time and send a little before it.
A push at ten in the morning about tonight's dinner is not much use. A push at nine at night about tomorrow's lunch is a nuisance.
Say one thing
Keep it short and concrete. The shop name, if the app does not already show it. One offer or one piece of news. A tap that goes straight to the right place in the app, ideally with the offer already applied.
"Your usual large pepperoni is one tap away" is useful. "Hungry? We've got something special for you!" is the kind of thing that gets notifications turned off.
Fewer than you think
Most customers will put up with an occasional push from a restaurant they like. Very few will put up with a daily one. A sensible starting point is one or two a week at most, and only to people who have used the app recently.
Keep an eye on how many people turn notifications off after each send. If one message causes a spike, do not send anything like it again.
Use it for things that are about them
The pushes people appreciate are the ones about their own account. A reward ready to use. Points about to expire. An order on its way. Those messages build trust in the channel, which makes the occasional promotional push more likely to be read.
Treat the lock screen as a privilege. Most of the time, the right number of push notifications to send is fewer than you were planning.
