4 emails all mobile apps should be sending

Attrition rates for mobile apps are atrocious, often as high as 90% within the first few weeks. While building a great app is important, so is engagement with your users. That’s why CleverTap offers both push notifications and email to retain precious users.
Every app developer should include push notifications in their v1 product. If you don’t, how else will you communicate with your users? But our perspective, at least in the US market, is that email can play a critical role in your app success.
Here’s four emails you should be sending to help your app:
1. Welcome New Users
There are several ways to acknowledge new users. While usually not personalized, you can create a splash or welcome screen the first time they open your app. To create a more personalized experience, automate a push notification, at first, app opening. But what happens if your user just swipes away the notification or hits “Clear” and deletes it with the others they received that day? Send an email in addition to your push notification to ensure that your message gets across. Don’t risk making a bad first impression by not following up on multiple channels.
2. Haven’t opened the app in a week (or other designated period)
Engagement is the key to success in the app world. And no engagement or a decrease in engagement can mean your app is about to get deleted. CleverTap can monitor how frequently your users are in the app and when that usage decreases, it can automate an email. Obviously, a push notification would also make sense, but if they’re ignoring your app, they’ll probably ignore your notification. Email gives you another opportunity to remind them of the value of your app.
3. New product features or version of the app
While this one seems obvious, there’s a nuance to it that is easily missed. Depending on how robust your upgrade or feature changes are, you might not be able to communicate that in other ways. Could you adequately describe it in a push notification? Think about having two beautiful (and relevant) screen shots with a quick value statement about how they’ll impact the user? Email is the only vehicle in which you have enough canvas to do it.
4. The proverbial “Hail Mary”
It’s football playoff season, so the reference seemed appropriate. And while app developers don’t like to think about it, attrition is a harsh reality of building a successful app. The problem is once someone deletes your app, email is the ONLY way to communicate with them. It’s only marginally likely that you’ll get users back, at least, it shows that you’re interested. If nothing else, you can use it as a tool to get feedback on why they left in the first place.
I understand that if you’re building and promoting apps, push notifications, and in-app messaging should be your primary communication channel. However, many segments of the market still rely heavily on email for work and personal communication. It’s not hard to add a quick, effective email to your customer lifecycle process. And a well-timed email will only improve your adoption, retention and customer engagement process, helping you get those first ten thousand users (and more).
Sign up for a free CleverTap demo account and discover new ways to drive mobile engagement and personalization for your app.