Your start-up success depends on the number of users which you have managed to attract. Every part of your product life-cycle matters for users’ acquisition. And users’ engagement strategy will show if your choice was right or wrong. In this article, I’m going to give you a hand to figure out which approach among all is most effective one and why. Let’s start:
Basics of user acquisition and engagement
To start with, let’s make sure that we clearly understand what the Customer Life-cycle means. The life-cycle of a customer is a path which consists of 6 stages.
- Visitor, a person who came to your site, or launched your application.
- Prospect, a person who expresses interest in your product or services.
- Active user, a person who hypothetically is ready to pay.
- Unique customer, a person who uses your services and pays for them for the first time.
- Active customer. It is a regular user who periodically orders goods or services.
- Loyal customer. The person who leaves comments, recommend your product to the others and continues using your services.
Most people who will visit your website or native App would be just one-time visitors. The process of user acquiring is called User Acquisition. The process of making a user loyal is called User Engagement. These steps should be the main in your campaign.
Here are few effective steps you can do to acquire and engage users:
Step 1 Preparation stage.
It is difficult to predict users behaviour in advance, however, preparation stage makes it easier to create a product which can interest your customers. And to make it right don’t forget to include these things into your list:
Target audience research. This is your priority to understand what group of people will use your product. And this group can not be just chosen because you want so. They are real people who will find it useful to have your app. So, think who really needs your product, what real problems will it solve and how will it differ from the competitors.
First impression matters. It means that UI matters. From the first glance your visitors would know if they ever want to use the app or visit a site ever again. Of course, for a startup with minimal budget but unique and useful idea the appearance doesn’t play such a big role. However, if you even with a small budget, try not to ignore the following Ui trends of 2017.
- Landing page. It is a great tool to attract, monitor, inform and study your audience. Just make sure that it looks just as cool as your application does. Do not use column grid. It is a horse and buggy era, irregular grid is what people like these days. Tell your story. Landing page is not only about your product it is also about you and your story, so use a chance. Optimize it. SEO is not an empty phrase here, spin it, make it work for you.
- Mobile browsing. It has to be responsive. Billions of people now prefer smartphones to computers. So, making browsing comfortable too is a huge plus. Think how your content is going to be presented. Think about navigation tools as well.
- UI trends. As we’ve already mentioned, the outlook means almost all during the first session. Find out what is popular now, what approaches are being developed and use them. Among the latest we suggest you looking closer at Semi Flat design, 3D design, animation, videos and GIFs.
Technological Trends. This is your road up. The technological trends and innovations is a road to your idea. Because everything else already exists! If you have a lack of creativity, new technologies is exactly what you need. For instance, you can use Artificial intelligence, chatbots, advance data protection system, Blockchains and many more.
Step 2 How to start
It is not that easy, by the way. That’s why you have to help your users to start. For these purposes, the page a user sees first should fit these criteria:
- Have greetings and explanation what your product is and how it works.
- Motivate users to move on
- Include help button
Know when enough is enough. Do not overload users with all functionality your website or an app has. Let them discover it step by step. The process of acquaintance should be very intuitive and pleasant not as a challenge.
Communicate. The dialog between you and your customers is very important. Ask users to leave comments and feedback and analyze this information. It is your guide to create something better and more useful.
Step 3 Analytics
Analytics shows the whole picture. It reflects your achievements and failures, shows what decisions were right and which were wrong. It is the most important tool to measure your success. If you are new in this business, here are some tips you have to bare in mind to make everything right:
What to analyse? The answer to this question is your goal. You need to track all the data connected with the idea of your product. During the life-cycle of your site or app your goals and metrics you monitor will differ. First of all, when you just launch your own start-up you need to check the metrics connected with acquisition and engagement of users.
How to analyse? You don’t need to invent the wheel. There are so many analytical tools that you’ll easily find what you need. Among the best we can offer you to try Google Analytics, Clicky, Kissmetrics, Woopra, etc.
But seeing data is not enough. You need to improve your product to be successful. Optimization is the next step. Use the analytical data to advance your product and give users just what they need.
When you are trying to acquire and engage users you are free to use your own tactic. If you have a great idea which can attract people, go for it! Among all pieces of advice we’ve given you today one should be above all, know your users and know their needs. You can have great functionality on your site or in an app, you can have the best design ever but if it doesn’t solve any users’ problems, nobody would need it.
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