The main problem for startups is customer engagement. The app can be colorful and engaging, but it doesn’t keep visitors. So that a person does not leave after the first visit to the website or delete the app after a month, you need to interest him. Onboarding strategies will help you do this.
What is onboarding, and why is it needed?
The success of an app is determined by the number of new customers attracted and the number of retained customers. Statistics show that about 86% of users delete it a month after downloading. 55% of people who have used the app for a week will return to it in the future, 90% of users who use the app for a month will continue to be faithful to it. Well-designed onboarding by professional designers helps to attract new visitors and retain old customers.
Designers and website creators’ dream is to make the client immediately fall in love with the app, not uninstall it, use it regularly, and recommend it to friends and family. To achieve this, it is necessary that the visitor likes the product already at the first stages of acquaintance. The app will be successful if it meets specific criteria.
What is successful onboarding?
Onboarding can be calculated in a purely mathematical way. First, you should decide for yourself what is included in the concept of “successful customer acquisition”. To do this, mobile app design companies use two criteria – the target frequency (how often the user is satisfied with the app) and the critical action (the indicator implies how many times over a certain period the client does something that benefits him).
Based on these indicators, statistics are collected for a certain period, for example, per month. Graphs are built that consider all users who have used the app or registered on the website. The abscissa shows time, and the ordinate shows each of the required indicators. With successful onboarding, after the first jump, when users repeatedly perform vital actions, there is a lull, and the graph turns into a flat line. If this does not happen, there are jumps and pits, which means that the customer’s interest in the product is unstable, and the project needs improvement.
It is advisable to conduct a survey and find out from people who downloaded the app and never returned to it, why this happened. This will help to understand the “weaknesses” of the product and interface and develop more effective onboarding. You can also poll visitors who stayed with the app. This will help determine the main benefits of the project. To make people more willing to share their thoughts, they should be stimulated. Those who left can be offered discount cards or money, those who stayed – some free helpful functionality.
How to attract visitors
There are several onboarding rules that you can use to achieve success. These include the following strategies:
- Demonstration of benefits. If a potential client is clearly shown what gift he will receive using the app, then there is an excellent chance that he will be interested in the offer, register, and start using the product. Several illustrative pictures describing the project’s advantages are much better than long texts and videos that no one watches.
- A clear understanding of the target audience for the app. It is tempting to create a universal project covering all population segments, but such a product has its pitfalls. Nobody at all may be interested in the service. Therefore, when creating an app, you need to be aware of who it is intended for and speak with this audience in a language that they understand.
- The first success should be easy. If a person cannot achieve his goal after the first steps, he will quickly get bored with the app, and he will remove it with a high degree of probability. On the contrary, if immediately after an easy registration, it was possible to go through several game levels, find the necessary information, the interest in the resource, and the pleasure from it sharply increase. The person will use the app and will return to it later.
- It logically follows from the previous paragraph that the registration form should be straightforward and easy. The person does not like filling out a lengthy questionnaire. It is better if the essential functions of the app are available to him without registration.
- Instructions. Often users uninstall an app simply because they don’t know how to work with it. If you build interaction with a client on instructions on what to do after successful and unsuccessful steps, you can achieve quick success. Interactive guides, pop-up windows with tips, status bars – the main thing is that the instructions help you quickly solve the problem and do not tire with secondary and unnecessary information.
Summing up
Friendly help, support, problem-solving, speaking the same language with the client – this is what will help make the app popular. Pay close attention to the onboarding process, and it will be rewarded.
