How to effectively activate new users?

Attracting new users does not mean activating new users. Activating new users requires users to experience the core value of your product and identify with that value. These are the truly activated users. This article shares seven effective ways to activate new users. Let’s take a look. I hope it will be helpful to you.

1. Definition of New User Activation

1. Definition of activation

Activation is a behavior that allows users to experience the core value of the product. For example, the activation behavior of Dingdong Maicai can be "placing an order for vegetables for the first time." The activation behavior of a live broadcast software can be to watch the live broadcast for 10 minutes and interact with the anchor for the first time...

Why is user activation important?

The users you attract (new users) are not necessarily your users. Only users who experience the core value of your product and agree that your product’s core value is beneficial to them are your users. After you attract new users, those users who are lost are those who have not experienced the core value of your product or do not recognize the core value of your product.

Data shows that the vast majority of apps lose more than 75% of their users within the third day, so if the new user experience is not good, no matter how many or how good other product features you add, they will be basically useless.

2. 7 ways to increase new user activation

So what are the common methods for activating new users? Next, I will share with you 7 methods for activating new users.

1. Map the road to your “aha moment”

Before we draw a roadmap to the Aha Moment, let’s first understand what the Aha Moment is and how to find the key behaviors of users;

The formula for finding the aha moment is: who (new user) completes what action (activation action) how many times (magic number, needs to be calculated) at how much time (activation moment).

Find the key behaviors:

Definition of key behavior: Allowing users to quickly understand the value of a product by taking a specific action and reaching the aha moment is called a "key behavior". The key behavior of each product is different and requires specific analysis. For example, the key behavior of an e-commerce app is when users complete several orders, and the key behavior of WeChat Reading is when users read e-books on the app.

We can find some key behavioral directions through the following questions.

• What behavior do you want users to perform every time they use your product?
• Which behavior of users is more likely to stay in the long term?
• Which indicator does the company care about most? Which indicator do you most want to improve? Which user behaviors directly affect this metric?
• Do you have several different product features, and what are they? What are the success metrics for each product or feature? Which user behaviors are related to it?

After finding the direction of key behaviors, determine the key behaviors through the following four steps.

1) List 3-5 possible key behaviors that are closely related to the information provided by the product

for example:

• Using a core function
• Completed the new user onboarding process
• Established some kind of connection with other users

2) Find the behaviors most relevant to long-term user retention through data analysis

For example, a game live streaming software may have the following key behaviors:

• Played a game with other users
• Watched xxxx minutes of live game
• Followed a streamer
• Sent xxxx private messages to a user

Then we need to compare the retention curves of new users who have had these early behaviors and new users who have not had these early behaviors one by one. If we find through comparison that the retention rate of the behavior of "playing a game with other users" is much higher than other key behavior groups, this means that the behavior of "playing a game with others" has a positive relationship with the long-term retention of users, and the retention of users with this key behavior will be higher.

3) Further confirm key behaviors through user research

Because data can only reveal correlations, after screening out the best possible key behaviors through data analysis, it is still necessary to confirm the key behaviors through qualitative user research.

User research includes common methods such as user questionnaires, user telephone interviews, and user observations.

Through user surveys, we can understand the reasons behind the "key behaviors" revealed by the data, and further confirm the key behaviors.

4) Find key behaviors and aha moments

After the above three steps, the user’s key behavior can be basically determined, and the user’s aha moment is the moment when that key behavior is completed.

Once you’ve found your product’s aha moment, the next step is to start drawing a roadmap to that aha moment. This can be done in three steps.

① The first step to crack activation is to find all the nodes leading to the "Aha Moment"

Taking Dingdong Maicai as an example, assuming that the user's Ahaha moment is when the purchased vegetables are delivered to their door in good condition and fresh, the time nodes leading to the Ahaha moment are as follows:

② List all the steps a new user must complete before experiencing the “aha moment”

③ Find obstacles, calculate the conversion rate of each step in the entire user journey, and find out the reasons why users leave

Taking Dingdong Maicai as an example, we calculated the conversion rate of each step, such as downloading, logging in, receiving new member gift packs, purchasing dishes, etc., and then found the link with the lowest conversion rate and the reason for the poor conversion rate.

2. Create conversion and fallout funnel reports

Create funnel reports that show the percentage of users reaching each key step in the user journey and track conversion rates for key actions.

3. User Survey

When faced with many uncertain product improvement methods, you can conduct user surveys to understand user preferences.

Typically, user activity reflects user confusion, such as when a user stays on a page for too long or leaves a screen or page on the website.

Conduct questionnaire surveys and interviews on users who are still using the product and users who have abandoned the product in the links with high churn rates to find out the reasons for churn. It should also be noted that only one or two questions should be asked in the questionnaire survey.

4. Remove friction from the user experience

Friction refers to the annoying obstacles that prevent people from completing the actions they want to complete. Every time a user crosses an obstacle, he or she needs to consume energy and his or her excitement index will drop a little bit. For example, when preparing to place an order and pay on an e-commerce website, an annoying marketing advertisement suddenly pops up. The user may give up the desire to buy because of the annoyance.

How to remove friction from user experience?

You can think of the funnel conversion report as a roadmap for finding sources of friction in the user journey. By finding the nodes with serious churn, you can discover which obstacles should be eliminated or redesigned first, and design corresponding experiments. Perhaps the biggest friction point is the starting point of the entire user journey.

In addition, it is necessary to remove unnecessary steps, hide excess information, and keep it as concise as possible.

5. Optimize new user experience

Because users have different preferences, backgrounds, and purposes for using products, we provide personalized new user guidance to maximize user satisfaction and increase activation rates by finding the most critical user groups within a limited time.

Two principles for optimizing new user experience:

First, when designing and optimizing a new user experience, the first principle is to treat it as a unique encounter between the user and the product.

The new user experience should be treated as a separate product. That is, you need to design a unique experience to attract users to keep using the product and see the value it brings. Creating a separate experience means creating a series of separate pages on the web product itself or on the brand website. Generally, many apps will have a separate new user landing page that specifically guides new users to quickly experience the product's aha moment.

For example, Dingdong Maicai’s new user acceptance page will direct new users to the new user zone page after they register and log in to receive a 108 yuan new user gift package. Here, an independent page is created for new users to make them feel that they have gotten a great deal and guide them to place orders quickly.

Second, the first landing page of a new user experience follows one principle: convey relevance.

Relevance: refers to the match between the web page and the visitor's goals and desires. Is this what they want?

For example, after a new user registers, the Tianwei APP (a social software) will first ask for some basic information such as gender, age, and preferences, let the user choose his or her occupation, personality, life experience, interests and skills, etc., and then match the corresponding user based on the new user's preferences. Instead of matching users directly right away.

Another application of relevance is to show the value of your product right after a new user signs up. This can quickly and concisely answer the visitor’s question: “What can I get out of this?”

For example, before users register on the Sweet App, after downloading and opening the app, the app will first directly convey the following value to users: this software is a female-friendly companionship social platform where there is no need to suppress emotions or disguise yourself, and all small emotions will be understood. If you happen to be a lonely woman working hard in a big city who doesn’t have many friends, would you be touched when you see these texts when you are lonely and bored one day?

After following the principle of relevance and delivering the product value, the landing page also needs to have an obvious call to action. For example, after the landing page in the figure below delivers the product value of "social companionship optimized for women", the "Enter Sweetness" button at the bottom is an obvious call to action button.

In addition, there are two more that have been proven to be very effective in eliminating friction and are widely applicable to various businesses and products.

(1) Single sign-on

As shown in the figure below, during the registration process, users only need to click "One-click login with local number" to quickly register their account, without having to fill in a lot of redundant verification codes, manually enter mobile phone numbers, etc. You must know that in today's impetuous Internet environment, users do not have so much patience to wait for registration and use your products. Maybe in the process of users filling in the verification code, more than half of the people have already lost.

(2) Flip the registration funnel

Before inviting visitors to register, let them experience the fun of the product first, and then slowly guide users to register later.

As shown in the figure below, after new users download Tik Tok, they can watch short videos without registering and experience the fun brought by short videos. However, if users want to perform higher-level actions, such as likes, comments or works, they need to register first. Such a setting can prevent users from being lost during the registration process.

6. New User Experience Gamification

Generally speaking, the more personal information people put into a product, the more loyal they will be to it.

For example, when game developers plan a game, they first let players challenge some simple tasks that can be completed quickly, and give them rewards for each level they pass, so as to make them familiar with the rules and environment of the game and slowly make them addicted to it.

If gamification can create challenge and fun, and provide meaningful rewards, it can be a powerful activation tool.

There are three main areas to keep in mind when designing a gamified experience:

1. Provide meaningful rewards
2. Create surprise and fun by varying the methods of earning and displaying rewards
3. Provide elements that bring instant gratification, such as immediate rewards for completing a task, and give real-time feedback to users' efforts.

7. Appropriate boost

There are two main prerequisites for using triggers:

1. Motivated: Users are sufficiently motivated to take action to a large extent.
2. Capable: The user has enough ability to take action after receiving the trigger.

Only when users have sufficient motivation and ability when they receive the trigger, the push will be more effective, otherwise everything will be in vain.

An important lesson to keep in mind when using triggers is that the motivation for reaching out to users should be to alert them to an opportunity that is clearly valuable to them, such as a price reduction on something in their shopping cart.

Some common push triggers that you can experiment with:

• Create an account: Encourage users who download the app or visit the website to create an account
• Purchase notifications: Encourage users to purchase items by taking advantage of short-term discounts
• Reactivation campaigns: Encourage users who haven’t visited your site or app in a while to come back.
• New feature notification: share news about product upgrades
• Action or status change: For example, if a friend takes an action or the value of an item in the shopping cart changes, for example, if a friend publishes a new work or a new comment, you can often receive a message notification pushed by Kuaishou official

When designing a trigger experiment, you can refer to the six principles of "Influence":

1. Reciprocity: People are more likely to do something because of a favor, regardless of what reward someone gave you before and what kind of help you need to give to others now.
2. Commitment consistency: People who have already taken an action are likely to take it again, regardless of changes in the size or content of the action.
3. Social proof: When people feel uncertain, they will first look at what others do before making their own decisions. For example, xxx percent of women adopted xxxx. This is the psychological principle mechanism of social proof.
4. Authority: People will refer to the practices of authoritative people to decide what actions to take. For example, the current KOLs and beauty bloggers actually use this psychological principle to promote products. When shopping, you will often see such words, such as "so-and-so big internet celebrity strongly recommends..."
5. Favorability: People are more willing to do business with companies or people they like than with companies or people they dislike or have no feelings about. For example, when a new Uber user accepts an invitation from an old user to download the app, the first interface he sees when he opens the app is the old user's photo and name, as well as a $30 new user reward.
6. Scarcity: People take action when they fear they will miss out on an opportunity. Limited-time, limited-quantity discounts are based on the principle of scarcity.

Finally, let’s summarize the 7 steps to activate new users:

1. Mapping the Road to the Aha Moment
2. Create conversion and fallback funnel reports to identify the lowest conversion rates
3. Understand users better and find opportunities for improvement through user surveys
4. Remove friction from the user experience
5. Optimizing the New User Experience: Communicating Relevance
6. New User Experience Gamification
7. Appropriate boost to activate users to a greater extent

Author: Maggie

Source: Maggie