Guide Users Engaged With Product Bumpers

Empty States

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About This Course

This course is like a crash course in dissecting what the top 1% of SaaS companies are doing when onboarding their users — so that you get inspired and drive incredible activation and free-to-paid conversions in your own organization.

In this course, you will:

  • Learn the product bumpers you can use to help guide users to their very first “Aha!” moment
  • Identify common mistakes when it comes to product tours, tooltips, empty states, and other product bumpers
  • Create and start implementing a plan to improve your product’s product bumpers

Ramli John:
The third thing is empty states. Empty states are things, when you sign up for the first time, particularly for an app where you need the data input from the user. It's empty, right? So, what you want to do is really prompt relevant auction that users need to take to begin filling that empty state. Now, there's a few ways to do this. It's super important because people who are lost tend to go back to where they came from. Imagine you get lost in the woods what do you do? So, one thing you can do, and a lot of people would, is to turn back around and go back where they came from. So, that's what you don't want to do. You don't want people to feel lost at all. Going back to the progress making forces anxious about change. They're anxious. You don't want them to run away.

Ramli John:
A great example that I find is very minimalistic, is Userlist. So, rather than empty state, they have some copy with links to how to integrate their app to your product, and they've provided even planning worksheets. If you have an app or a product that you require IT to get to connect their app to yours, this is one way you can do it. You can just clearly give an instruction. It's easy to read, it flows well, and it has all the links.

Ramli John:
Another example, and let me know what you think about this because it's a totally different example with this minimalist view, is Fullstory where you sign in for the first time, and this is what you get. Ready to record? Install Fullstory snippet. It has a piece of code. What do you think about this? Do you like seeing that code for me? That gives me a lot of anxiety, because it's like, "Oh, my goodness, that's code." And if you're not familiar with code, I would be like, "What the heck? It's time to run away."

Ramli John:
Here's what I really love. Here is an empty state from Wave. Wave is one of my favorite onboarding experience. It says it's personal invoicing is more than just a way to say, "Pay me,."love that. That's a great personal copy. Care and detail you put into invoicing can do wonders for your brand and future business. Take these actions. Then they're giving you options here. They're giving you create invoices, add customers, add payments, create estimates. Choose a different starting point. So, they're giving you the option on where to go. This is like one of those games where you choose your own adventure. I really love experiences like this.

Ramli John:
Another thing you can do is use directional cues, so you can make it funny, but like when you have a picture of a face or an arrow, any way that you can point people to the right direction really does make wonders. This is Webflow. There's this way to create a website. But really, they made it personal. They made it their own. They use a meme or an image of a person there.

Ramli John:
So, that's empty States. The opposite of that, and for me, another critical thing, empty states are important because your app will probably be empty in the beginning, right? This is the starting point.

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Ramli John
Ramli John
Managing Director at ProductLed
Author of the bestselling book Product-Led Onboarding: How to Turn Users into Lifelong Customers.
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