What does successful product-led onboarding look like?

And how is it related to activation.

I've talked in my previous posts about product-led activation, how to define it and what comprises a good definition.

In this post, I’ll elaborate on common tactics to drive product-led activation. We know activation comprises aha moments, setup moments, and habit moments.

A prevalent tactic to achieve ‘aha’ and ‘setup’ moments for the user is creating a superior onboarding flow for a new user. Onboarding flows are the first-ever interaction a potential customer has with your product. Therefore, it is a great opportunity to accomplish those aha and setup moments for the user. Simply put, the onboarding flow needs to deliver on the promise of the marketing and bring a user closer to the value they came looking for - asap.

To deliver on these promises, the onboarding flow needs to optimize:

1. Signup flow

a. JTBD: The Jobs to be done (JTBD) framework emphasizes that a user buys a product to hire your product to accomplish a certain job. The signup flow is the first interaction a user has with your product. It should, therefore, provide enough context to users on what the product is intended to do, how it serves their business, and how it might help them accomplish a job. To build this context, it’s valuable to include org/company setup moments, asking a user why they chose your product and what role they play in their org.

Once the user has answered these questions, it is essential to personalize the onboarding to help the user meet their use case. Now, this can be done in product or through lifecycle marketing campaigns. The goal is to create an almost linear journey to help THIS user to their aha moment: publishing a post, sharing a video, or starting their first project.

b. Behavioral psychology: A common concern is: don’t these steps add extra friction and defeat the purpose? Yes, you’re adding more friction but a tactical approach to mitigate the friction is to use smart defaults. Smart defaults reduce the cognitive load on new users, making it easy to go through the signup flow.

Moreover, behavioral experiments have proven that asking engaging questions in the wizard about your ICP’s business and persona drives higher conversion. That’s because it provides a window to the user into what the product could help them accomplish. It also prepares them for the few onboarding steps they’d have to go through to meet their aha moment.

2. First-Time User experience (FTUX):

FTUX is an extension of the signup flow. Once you’ve understood the user’s intent in the signup flow, the FTUX should direct the user to their aha moment in the first few interactions with the product.

Some common ways to achieve this:

a. Getting started checklists: This can take the form of overlay or sidebar checklists that outline the steps a user should take. The objective of the getting started checklists is to avoid feeling lost and what a user should do next once they’ve landed in the app.

b. In-app product tours and videos: Some steps of the getting started checklist can be challenging for a new user. This is where tooltips and product-video tours can guide a user on accomplishing a certain checklist step.

c. Embedded checklists: In my experience, these are the best kind of checklists. These checklists feel like a part of the product, are embedded on one of the most viewed pages of the product, outline an end-to-end list of tasks that a user needs to accomplish to derive value - at their own pace - and is out of the user’s way if they don’t want to engage with it immediately.

PS: As your product matures and solves the needs of multiple user personas, the onboarding steps need to account for the activation of the secondary user persona. Read a related post here.

What would you add as an onboarding tactic that has helped you drive activation?

#growth #plg #activation #startups