Because it’s a new way to distribute content, simply launching the service and taking your readers by surprise might not be the best idea.
When or before launching the service, we recommend you let your readers know about this new feature and explain the advantages and how they can manage their subscription.
We made a list below with what some of our clients have done when rolling out desktop push notifications and others that we think are a good idea:
- Create a simple page or post announcing the new feature and how they can subscribe and unsubscribe. Here’s a good example from iDownloadblog. Feel free to link to any information on our website or blog.
- Explain the new feature to your colleagues, staff or co-authors so they can take advantage of them as well.
- Keep a button, banner, sticky post or link on your homepage encouraging users to subscribe or explaining what Push Notifications means for them.
Also, here’s a sample announcement post to get you started. Feel free to use it and personalize it according to your audience:
Our website now offers you a fresh new way to subscribe to and receive the content that you are interested in.
We have just enabled a service that lets you receive your preferred content by using desktop push notifications. You have access and receive the content even if you’re not on our website or in a browser.
And this new feature is free and easy to use, with just one click.
Safari Push Notifications is a new technology similar to smartphone push notifications from apps, except you receive these straight on your desktop.
This is currently supported by Safari starting with OSX Mavericks. When visiting our page using Safari, you will see a pop up window in which we ask to send push notifications in the Notification Center and two options: “Allow” and “Don’t Allow”.
All you have to do is select allow and we will be able to instantly notify you about new content the moment we publish. If you select “Don’t Allow” it will not appear again. Note that Safari is only required for subscribing.
If at some point you decide that you don’t want to receive push notifications anymore, you can simply deactivate them by going to the “Notifications” tab under “Preferences” in your Safari browser.