Monday, July 29, 2013

Urban Airship adds an in-app message center

Urban Airship is a push notification company that allows marketers a way to reach customers on their mobile phones. The new addition allows marketers to send a message to an in-app message center rather than placing a message across the home screen. As the company states in the below excerpt, they don't believe every communication or message is worth disrupting customers. Marketers can also use Urban Airship's GPS functionality to send geo-targeted marketing messages.

I think there is a big opportunity for push notifications and the addition of this in-app message center over the next few quarters and years. Based on trends we're already seeing in the market, it is clear that mobile advertising will grow substantially over the next few years. Push notifications allow for brands and marketers to reach customers who may not be engaged in other post-acquisition methods, such as email. I think the concept of the in-app message center is especially great since it is less invasive and disruptive, and allows the customer to determine when they want to read your marketing message.

Urban airship has already closed almost $50M in funding so venture capitalists are also betting on this technology in the mobile space. I'm excited to see how well this marketing can convert consumers who download apps into paid subscribers.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/10/urban-airship-message-center/

“Not every single customer engagement opportunity we believe is worthy of interrupting a consumer’s screen, but there’s times when a brand wants to reach their customers with important communication,” said Brent Hieggelke, Urban Airship’s chief marketing officer, in an interview at our MobileBeat conference in San Francisco.

Marketers can now choose to send a note to their app’s messaging center just as easily as they can already send push messages. The feature will also take advantage of Urban Airship’s Location Messaging functionality, which lets marketers target consumers in specific locations.
In addition to disrupting users less, Hieggelke says the new messaging center can also train users to look in a specific spot for deals.

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