Which one do you think is the key factor while designing a product?
- A product with cool features
- A product that can fulfill customer needs
- A product that your customers can use on a daily basis
Although all of them are true in a sense, we both know that option C is the most crucial and important for the long term.
A and B will help us acquire customers but they will not be able to help us retain those customers. To achieve our goal we need to design our product or service in a way so that customers find it useful for everyday use. After the design process is done we need to ensure that our customers adopt it; this is where an effective Product Adoption Strategy will come in handy.
Before moving forward let me give you a quick overview of product adoption.
Product adoption is the process of making your customers become aware of your product or service and encouraging them to start using it. It is one of the key aspects of customer success.
Product adoption impacts most of the growth metrics in your company. A product that is not accepted or adopted by your customers can result in more churn and decreased customer lifetime value. That is why companies worldwide track this process to provide more value to their customers. Hence, if you want customers to stick around, you need to make sure your customers realize that the investment they have made is worth every penny. And by that, I mean providing the value that they desired for.
Product adoption can be done in many ways but all of them should have one thing in common, which is to keep your customers happy and engaged.
For now, this process is common in SaaS companies as they have to sell the same product/service to their customers which can lead to an increase in churn if they do not update their product frequently.
If you’re from a SaaS company, your job is not only to increase the customer base. In order to boost growth, you need to know how often a customer uses your site, the number of visits a day, the places where customers are stuck, and the conversion rate. All these factors will help you determine ways to improve your product.
There is no specified team that will help you with product adoption. All your teams have to contribute to executing this efficiently as product adoption occurs at every phase of the customer journey.
Hence, based on how your product/ service is map out your customer journey. A typical customer journey looks like this:
The Awareness and Education phase is dealt with by the marketing and the sales teams while the last two are handled by the customer success team. Since product adoption occurs in all these stages, the teams are well aware of how their actions will have an impact on the success of the company. As a result, all of them will be in sync.
Ways To Improve Product Adoption Strategy
Now, remember that Product Adoption starts from the time when you start designing your product. As a marketer, your job is to start content marketing to create a need among your target audience. Once they know about how your product solves their problem, they will be surely be motivated to purchase it.
Let us now begin strategizing the product adoption plan
Product Adoption Strategies have a different lookout at every company but these are some features that every customer appreciates.
Keep it SIMPLE
Whether you’re selling a tangible product or service make sure that its design and usage techniques are not complicated. The simpler the process, the more customers will be eager to use it.
Remember that users have only a little time to spare and so you get only a few moments to grab their attention. Improving the user experience will help you reduce churn and retain more customers as well.
SaaS companies usually face this issue. Some website applications are not very easy to navigate. This results in customers getting stuck and as a result more churn rate.
Using web analytics and tests will help you understand where the issues are so that you can make changes accordingly. You can also ask your customers about their experience to know where you can improve.
Identify the personas of customers and segment them according to their goals
Providing value to your customers requires you to understand what their goals are and how they can achieve them through your product. It is evident not all the users in a market will benefit in the same way through your product or service. That is why you have to segment them into personas and then market your brand according to the goals of each of these personas.
For example, if your target customer is customer success managers then you can advertise that particular product or feature in your company or website that will help them achieve their goals.
Understand the usage methods of Successful Customers
Letting your customers know how to use your product or service is also a good way to onboard more customers. First of all, study the usage methods of your successful customers from different personas and then create a profile of the ‘ideal use pattern’ of your product.
In the case of new features try to run some tests and then prepare a guide to use them so that your customers do not get too confused. Mention the benefits of these new additions as well so that they know why they should use them.
Use comparison
Content writing and blog posting are good ways to let people know about your product or service. You can make use of these to make comparisons with products similar to yours. This can help your customers to differentiate your product from others.
Although letting other businesses down is definitely not an ideal solution, however; pointing out your strengths and weaknesses compared with your competitors is considered to healthy business practice.
You can make these blog posts by keeping in mind the specific issues that users mostly face and then design the comparison to show how you are providing a better solution to fix those problems. These blogs are hacks to onboarding customers ad they act like a driving force.
Improving the product
Earlier we mentioned that improving user experience definitely plays a key role in onboarding customers. Improvising the product is also very crucial.
There will be times when your product will become outdated and as a result, customers will shift to new brands. In order to stop this, you need to constantly track how well your product is performing and conduct research on what your customers want.
Based on these you can make improvements like fixing the UI design or adding new features to your product.
Boost app store page
The visibility your product can get, the more customers you will get to attract. This is where boosting your product page will help you.
Most consumers find out about a brand or app just by browsing app stores. That is why optimizing the app store page to show your software or product before others is important to creating awareness among customers.
Use Live Action Tactics
Consumers are mostly attracted to purchase a product when they find good reviews or see others purchasing it quite frequently. When you show how others are buying your product, it will definitely make them curious about your product and why people are likely to buy it. Thus they will be encouraged to invest in it too and as a result, you will be gaining new customers.
Quick review on PRODUCT ADOPTION
Make sure to provide value that can be able to attract more customers and also retain the existing ones. Product Adoption will be easier and more effective when your product is of high quality and provides the value that you have promised to your customers.
In order to maintain consistency and give quality service, constant monitoring of your product performance is important. This is how you will know what your new customers want and how you can satisfy the existing customers as well.
