How I write push notifications for apps

Product: non-disclosed reader app that provides book summaries. The app is monetised through monthly subscriptions, therefore retention of users is crucial. It is implemented through a personalised feed of book recommendations, challenges, achievements, and memory flashcards that have to be opened on a regular basis.

Task:
Below you can see four different user behavior scenarios. I had to provide a few texts for push notifications used in each situation.

Situation 1: A user shared their achievement in the Instagram stories and didn't return to the app. How would you persuade them to come back?

Situation 2: A user started reading a summary but never finished it. How would you motivate them to complete the summary?

Situation 3: A previously active user hasn't visited the app in a week. How would you get them to come back?

Situation 4: A new user got a subscription but hasn't interacted with the app in any way. How would you convince them to interact with the app?

I tried to imagine user’s journey to complete this task to make push notifications timely, personal, and actionable.

1. I tried to understand on which stage of the funnel we have the scenarios given. If the user stumbled during their first interactions with the app, maybe they don’t really understand the functionality of it. Would be weird to ask the user to finish a challenge during their first day, so we have to know where in the funnel they’re at to write a notification that would make sense to them.
2. Scenarios give us hints on which segment of the audience we’re targeting. Actions that users make divide them into groups ‘those who did this’ and ‘those who didn’t do this’, making it easier for us to understand who will get that push and personalise it for them.
3. Triggers with indicated time period give us even more context to play with in the copy.
4. “How would you motivate them to complete the summary?” and other questions in the task are goals that we’re trying to achieve through text in notifications. Idea is a hypothetical way of achieving that goal.
5. Text has at least two versions for A/B tests. Meanwhile, I tested all texts in push notifications preview tool and in Hemingway editor.
6. Opening page helps the user to complete the action we want, otherwise it’s just a frustrating message.
7. Key metrics help us to evaluate if we achieved our goal through text or we have to spend some more time on it and change it.