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:
Ramli John:
So the importance of product bumpers. Why do you think it's so important to have those in-app triggers, or those in-app pushes that really engages your users? Such as tool tips, welcome messages, product tours. Well, the way you look at it, there's this theory or there's this idea that was created by somebody named B.J. Fogg, he's a scientist. And he said that in this behavioral model after studying several people, that there's two main factors to get people to adopt a new behavior.
Ramli John:
The first one is motivation, and the second one is the ability to make those changes. So what we want to do really is to increase motivation and also increase the ability for users to do that. That's where the magic happens. So when behavior changes, it's when it's easy to do and the motivation is high. And that's all we've been talking about previously, with this four progress-making forces, as you want to make sure you're thinking about removing as much friction as possible, because we have to overcome the habit of the present and really overcome that anxiety. The more things that you throw at users, the harder it is? Then the more likely they'll run away. But at the same time, we need to be pushing people towards that new solution, or really pushing people away from the current situation.
Ramli John:
The reason why is that we need to capitalize on the initial enthusiasm of your users. When you sign up for something for the first time, that's when you're the most excited, you're super excited to try it out. Francois Bondiguel, he is the growth lead at Canva, but we interviewed him when he was the head of growth all the way at deputy. And he said that they found that the level of enthusiasm of users right after signing up is super high. So that's why they focus particularly on the first seven minutes, optimizing that experience for the first 70 minutes, and getting them to that first strike or the first aha.
Ramli John:
So what you want to do is really capitalize on that initial enthusiasm. You need to get them to that aha moment as quickly as possible, if it's even possible. Even with things where you have to install something. Think about app cues. Eric Keating last week, he talked about how you do have to install that JavaScript to get Abacus going. But there are ways to get people excited, and getting people to that somewhat of a aha moment. Where you can set up stuff in Abacus, and see it in action already without having to install this code. There are ways to get people to some kind of level of aha moment, even if there is limitations, themselves requiring IT to be there or things like that. What are ways to get people excited, and capitalize on that enthusiasm?
Ramli John:
Now, I know I'm going to be talking a lot about different product bumpers. I'm actually going to share with you eight common types of product bumpers. And I want to get some engagement, because the thing would product bumpers is that true data will come from your users. But we do have our own opinions here as product growth success people, so I'm going to engage with this. Tell me, do you like it or you don't? What are things that you like about it, and what are things you don't? But before you do, one of the things I asked Eric last week was, what do you do? There's eight of them, should I just go for it? And I want to give you some principles to really think about as you're implementing these product bumpers, so you don't just go willy nilly and just start applying it all at the same time.
Ramli John:
So, I've thought of five basic principles that you need to think about for effective product bumpers. First one, and I've hopefully been getting to you. If there is one thing you could take away from this program, it is that you need to tailor your onboarding experience for each segment, and I would say each customer job. And I'm going to get there, I'm going to give some examples about this. The more that you tailor that... When people have different ideas of what that first strike is? You need to tailor that experience, so you're driving them to that as soon as possible.
Ramli John:
Second is, we need to teach users what they need to know to get a job done. And in production, there's this concept that Toyota came up [inaudible 00:04:34] called Just in Time, or JIT. Just in time production. So that's exactly what we need to do, we need to have a just in time onboarding learning experience. What is the minimum things that users need to learn to get to that first strike?
Ramli John:
Third is, you need to provide clear next steps without overwhelming users. One of the tendencies that you need to fight is, why don't we just put everything inside there? Tool tips, product tours, in-app messages, welcome message, all of them all at the same time. What would happen is when people are overwhelmed? We've seen this with the four progress making forces, is anxiety is high. You don't want to scare people away, you don't want to come on too strong, so to say. So you need to provide clear next steps. You're telling, you're setting expectations, and I'll provide examples of this as well.
Ramli John:
And fourth, you need to reduce mental effort to get the job done. This is about removing any friction that would add and prevent, or add a roadblock to them. Any time that the brain has to think too much? That is the signal to their brain, run away, run away. What are ways to make sure that the mental effort required isn't too much that they run away?
Ramli John:
And the very last thing, what we're going to see is, we to think about always with your copy and throughout the signup and onboarding experience, what are ways that you can amplify that frustration of the current solution, and make sure that you're selling the attractiveness of your new solution? One final thing before we go into the comment things is, I would love for you to create a product bumper swipe file. Sign up for a bunch of products this week. If you haven't already done so, if you're already signed up for this? I want you to sign up again with a different email address. It can be a fake email address that you have, but save those onboarding emails that you're going to get, because we're going to be talking about onboarding emails next week.
Ramli John:
And I'm going to ask you, what are your favorite onboarding emails? And this is a great way. Sign up for Wave, for Canva, Slack, Notion, Dropbox, Drift, Zoom, and even look at how Super Mario... What are the product bumpers that they're using to really get users to that first strike, the first aha moment? And create a swipe file, and what I would love for you to do throughout this weekend, I'm going to add it in a Slack group, is to share it. I would love to see each of us share what are some of our favorite product numbers that we've seen as we go through this.
Ramli John:
Create a swipe file. So a swipe file is a screenshot of things that you think you can apply it for the future. I have a bookmark folder in my browser. I also have an actual folder where I saved videos, and screenshots that I would say, "Hey, this is what some of the things I want to apply in the future-"
