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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION WITH A MOBILE APP
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION WITH A MOBILE APP
The Ultimate Guide to Strategic Communication with a Mobile App Ebook | 2
We’ve reached a saturation point when it comes to digital communication. Social media feeds show us streams of meaningless content, websites are full of unwanted ads, and unsolicited emails are showing up in our inboxes every hour. It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by all of the content coming at us.
How can you ensure that critical communications can cut through the noise? For universities, communications equipping students with the information to be successful need to rise above group text chains and inboxes filled with spam. A mobile app is perfectly positioned to do this. With the ability to land communications directly onto a phone’s homescreen, mobile apps can meet students where they already are with timely, relevant communications they actually want to engage with.
With a mobile app, you can deliver a variety of communications, ranging from breaking news to tuition deadlines. The following best practices will cover how to deploy mobile to communicate standard and critical information, equipping you with the tools to break through the noise and reach your student body.
Introduction
The Ultimate Guide to Strategic Communication with a Mobile App Ebook | 3
6 Best Practices for Mobile Communications
Source: American Express, Localytics The Ultimate Guide to Strategic Communication with a Mobile App Ebook | 4
1. Not All Channels Were Created the Same
Mobile communications come in many forms, from in-app banners and feeds to push notifications and text messaging. What is the best channel for you? Chances are, it depends on the information you’re trying to communicate.
Consider first, the urgency of the information. Are you communicating about an upcoming application deadline, or pushing out a new blog post? Reserve push notifications for the critical information that requires immediate action from the user. Gen Zers, who are in college now, are 22% more likely to prefer notifications.
However, push notifications are easily overused, so ensure you’re saving them for need-to-know information and using them to drive traffic to content within the app. Consider using rich notifications to highlight new blogs and videos, and integrate email and SMS to form a complete communication strategy.
Once users are in the app, it’s simple to highlight engaging, non-critical content with in-app banners and featured modules. While push notifications drive increased engagement with your app—users who opt-in to push notifications average 3x more app launches—in-app banners deepen that engagement. Apps that use in-app banners have 2x to 3.5x higher user retention. Use banners to showcase what’s new in your app, including videos, blogs, and updated features, and promote the great opportunities your institution has to offer.
Gen Zers, who are in college now, are
22% more likely to prefer notifications.
Advisor
Instructor
Advisor + Instructor
Source: Localytics The Ultimate Guide to Strategic Communication with a Mobile App Ebook | 5
2. Improve Relevance with Targeted Communications
Personalized push notifications receive a 50% lift in open rates, meaning that targeting your communications has a huge payoff. Proactively combat push notification fatigue by only sending communications that are relevant to your audiences.
With Modo Campus™, you have an unparalleled ability to tailor and target communications to meet your users’ specific needs. Create separate personas within your app for different campus groups, such as students, staff and alumni, so that they can experience the app in the way that’s most relevant to them. With Modo’s myPersona and Modo Communicate™, you can layer targeting based on any known user attributes, such as class year, major, or even the status of their financial aid application. The options are endless for highly-personalized communications, including push notifications, that people actually want to receive.
Allowing users to shape part of their app experience increases personalization and will make it more likely that they will return. Modo Communicate™ Opt-In gives users the opportunity to self-select into communication channels for specific interest areas, such as Boston meetups or the running club.
Source: Modolabs The Ultimate Guide to Strategic Communication with a Mobile App Ebook | 6
3. Create a Centralized Communication Hub
Checking websites constantly can be tiresome, even for those who love scrolling through their phone for hours. When it comes to a new blog feature, a webpage on the latest campus initiatives, or upcoming events, don’t make people dig for information.
Your campus app can combine information from many data sources, including social media and RSS feeds, into a single, centralized view. Make use of Modo’s many integration partners to offer app users a robust hub that allows them to access critical information on the go, without all the scrolling. When you deploy mobile as a centralized communication hub and bring together existing systems to form a full-circle digital ecosystem, you equip students with all the tools they need for success on campus in one place. Finding exactly what they need has never been this easy, so they’ll keep coming back for more.
With Modo’s open API, you’re able to pull in content from existing information systems, including emergency response RSS feeds, populating in-app modules and triggering push notifications when applicable.
Source: ComScore The Ultimate Guide to Strategic Communication with a Mobile App Ebook | 7
4. Increase Engagement by Avoiding Cluttering
Trends in push notification fatigue are reversing. More young adults now opting into push notifications compared to previous years. Ensure you’re putting the push notifications you send to good use by offering a streamlined in-app experience that users find easy to navigate.
When it comes down to it, communication is all about how you present information, and your users will thank you if it’s digestible and easy to find. Before launching your app, spend time planning how a user will navigate through your app modules to find what they need. Select a home screen navigation from one of Modo’s many screen types to get your users started on the right foot—from Mondrian to Spectra, Modo’s large library of screen types makes it easy to design for a positive user experience.
Then, once your users have selected a module on the homescreen, can they easily navigate to other parts of the app, without constantly hitting the back button? Deep linking between modules and screens allows users to navigate your beautifully-branded app to find the most engaging content without any frustration.
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5. Improve Relevance with Targeted Communications
You may be thinking, with all of these communication initiatives come lengthy approval processes and bottlenecks in campus departments. Fortunately, that doesn’t have to be the case. When you deploy an app powered by Modo Campus™, you set yourself up to communicate effectively without tapping campus resources.
Because the platform requires no technical skill to administer, you can delegate content creation and communication streams across campus departments and set up different admin views, privileges and responsibilities. Allow the Career Service department to update
content, such as recruiting event agendas in the careers module and accompanying push notifications, but require approval from the Marketing department for any changes in look and feel of the app design.
Opt-In Channels and other communication streams can be kept up-to-date when the subject matter experts on campus are directly responsible for scheduling push notifications. If you’re worried about overloading students with notifications through this decentralized communications strategy, designate an admin role that functions as the approver of all campus-wide and large group notifications.
6. Always Measure your Effectiveness
Don’t only take our word for it when it comes to effective communications. The key to ensuring your content is engaging and relevant is to be constantly tracking what’s working and what’s not. Modo Analyze™, our robust analytics platform, gives unparalleled insight into open rates, optimal delivery times, and what content is most accessed in your app.
The platform also helps you identify areas where the app experience could be improved. Are users faltering when it comes to finding financial aid deadlines and typing it into the search bar? Streamline the navigation in your financial aid module and institute push notifications about upcoming deadlines. Use data to intelligently evolve your app and prioritize new communication streams—spend time on the communications that data shows will have greatest impact on campus.
Conclusion
Ensure your communications are full circle, with personalized content, timely delivery and robust analytics that allow you to track outcomes and improve over time. With these six best practices, equip departments across campus with the tools to communicate effectively with your student body and ensure your students have the information they need for success on campus.
Ready to plan your mobile communications strategy? Reach out today to schedule a demo of Modo Campus™ to increase student engagement and success.
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