Product promotion: How to guide new users?

In a product, new user guidance is essential. When we open a newly downloaded product, we will be prompted to provide authorization information, log in and register, recommend attention, interests and hobbies, etc., so that we can understand the product.

When you buy an electronic product, it comes with an instruction manual that tells people how to use the product.

For Internet products, some instructions are also needed to guide new users. New user guidance is part of the user growth system.

1. Why should we guide new users?

1) Improve new user retention

For new users, if there is no relevant guidance, they will not understand the product and will leave.

For content-based products, new users will choose to leave if they don’t see content that interests them.

If content is recommended to new users, they can be recommended to follow some users based on their interest tags; when users see some content that interests them, the probability of them staying increases.

2) Improve conversion rate

According to the conversion funnel, some products require a series of operations after users register, such as real-name card binding and recharge. If there is no relevant guidance, users will stop at a certain step.

3) Establish a new user growth path

Through novice guidance, users are guided to grow along a certain path and transform from newcomers to loyal and high-quality users of the platform.

4) Build trust with new users

The more users know about the company and products, the more trust they will have. Guide new users to the product introduction page to understand the purpose of the product and the company's values, dispel users' doubts, and establish a trusting relationship.

2. Analyze how to guide new users through 3 cases

1. Content-based product - Keep

As a sports and fitness app, Keep has taken the following measures for new users:

1) Free acquisition plan: allows new users to quickly understand the product, get started quickly, and lower the threshold.

2) Recommend to follow high-quality users: Recommend to new users to follow some high-quality users, so that users can see the sports experience shared by sports experts, and also see other people’s comments and reposts.

Make full use of the psychology of social recognition. Others are also exercising here and have achieved very good results.

3) Keep-Newbie Assistant: Similar to the platform customer service, new users can learn about some common problems and receive video guidance courses for beginners.

4) Newcomer bonus: Shopping bonus coupons for newcomers, equivalent to newcomer benefits.

KEEP mainly guides new users through free acquisition plans, recommended attention, new user assistants, and new user red envelopes.

2. Tool products - Jianying

Jianying is a video editing tool launched by TikTok. The guidance for new users includes one-click video creation and beginner tutorials.

1) One-click video editing: By using recommended templates, video editing can be completed quickly, reducing the difficulty for newcomers to make videos and increasing the interest of new users.

2) Beginner's Tutorial - Creative Academy

The Creative Academy includes compulsory courses for newcomers in photography, premium courses for beginners with no basic knowledge, and courses on making videos using templates. In addition to the official videos of the platform, there are also video shooting techniques shared by other users. The content is very rich and comprehensive.

3. Financial investment products - Lufax

The registration process for financial products is relatively complicated. In addition to registration, you also need to complete a series of operations such as real-name card binding.

Lufax’s guidance for new users includes:

1) Set up a new user column - a must-buy for new users, and give new users good instructions

2) Investment process demonstration - guide new users to complete subsequent operations through benefits to improve conversion rate

From a novice investor to an investment rookie, and then to an investment king, you will receive corresponding benefits for completing each step. For example: After completing the first investment by binding the card for the first time, you will receive an investment voucher and instruct the new user to follow the process.

3) Content guidance - set up wealth academy, live broadcast, community and other content to let new users understand financial knowledge and cultivate investment interest.

Through the above three cases, we can see that the platform guides new users mainly through the following aspects.

The platform improves new user retention and establishes a new user growth path through operational means such as instructions to new users, content guidance, red envelopes for new users, and customer service.

Different types of products have different focuses on guiding new users. For example, for content-based products, when new users come in, they will be recommended to follow high-quality users first; for e-commerce products, the first recommendations to new users are very discounted products.

3. What are some issues that need to be considered when guiding new users?

1. What is the first step you want new users to take?

When a new user uses the product for the first time, we hope that the new user will do something so that the new user can stay.

For example, for content-based products, new users come in, read a few interesting pieces of content, and then stay. Then for new users, the platform should recommend some high-quality content based on their interest tags.

In addition, we can analyze the users who stayed, what actions they took after their first visit to the platform that made them stay, and then use that information to guide new users.

2. What do you want new users to know?

New users' trust in the platform is based on their understanding of the platform's products and their identification with the company's values.

For some more complex products, customers should be guided to understand the product first, such as the product features and its value to users, rather than asking them to make purchases right from the start without them even knowing what the product does.

3. Establish a new user growth path

For a product, it is very important to establish a growth path for new users and guide them along the growth path.

Content-based products, the growth path of new users:

E-commerce products, the growth path of new users:

4. Common Mistakes in User Orientation

1) Don’t complete tasks just for the sake of getting new users to complete tasks

For example, for some products, after users follow the instructions and click through, they are confused and may not even know what the product is used for. For this type of product, users should first understand what the product is used for and whether it is valuable to users.

2) There is too much content in the new user guide, and users are impatient

For basic products, most users already know how to operate them. What the platform needs to do is to recommend the content or services they want to users as much as possible.

3) Ignoring guidance from other users on the platform

Most users have a sense of social identity. If a new user sees that many people are using a product and that it has good reviews, the probability of the new user using it will increase greatly.

Try to guide new users to read other users’ comments, usage experiences, etc. After all, the content is more objective and sometimes more effective than official promotions.

4) Designing an unreasonable growth system for new users

Some products set up unreasonable systems for new users. For example, new users are asked to apply for membership cards as soon as they register, which undoubtedly increases the usage threshold for new users.

V. Conclusion

Guiding new users is not just a unilateral product matter; it also requires the coordination of content, activities, users and other operations.

• Product design: Design that is more convenient for newcomers to operate, such as one-click operation, newcomer plan, and process guidance.
• Content: Newcomer training, operation process demonstration, product video introduction, company introduction, and other user experience reports.
• Activities: benefits for new members and benefits for those in the growth stage.
• User operation: user conversion, customer service.

Author: Le Wei

Source: Lewei