When analysing growth, a majority of companies often think the problem of slow growth lies with getting more people towards their products or services. But in many cases there is a different cause for slowing growth. Through traffic analysis, it is easy to see that often SMEs have a good average monthly traffic – which means potential clients going towards their proposition. The problem therefore is often not about attracting new people, but how to give them the best possible experience in order to later on retain them.
This is called Onboarding and is the biggest challenge for many companies, big and small. It’s a challenge because improving onboarding can be a process which can take way longer than other part of the growth funnel.
Improving onboarding and finding ways to improve this significantly can be done by understanding the relation between the amount of times your user needs to go through the information on your website or other digital domains before taking action like requesting more information, getting in touch or (even better) buying.
To start improving user onboarding, here are 3 tips every marketer should take into consideration:
1) Amount of information
The main confusion in the development of a successful onboarding experience is to figure out how much information to give the prospect while converting him into a user. Delivering too little information creates doubts but delivering too much/too often content can repel them.
To determine the best frequency, one needs to create content that leads the potential user to the core product and/or offer as fast as possible. This means creating content that solves doubts and directly nudges into a user’s experience.
A good example of a company that mastered this is Canva. The way they created their homepage, by creating a blurred gallery of the experience the user is about to unlock, helps creating more conversions from the very first moment the lead lands on the page.
Growth Tip 1: Use Hemingway to optimize your text content and Piktochart for amazing infographics
2) Friction
There is only one rule written in stone: All friction that distracts the user from the core product must be removed. This means reducing pollution instead of adding new features.
New users behave in a simpler way than existing users, they want clear answers and understand how the product works.
Slack is a master in no-friction communication. Their landing pages are clear and straight to the point (which can explain their valuation at $5 billion).
Growth tip 2: Use the Readability Test Tool and make merciless edits in your copy
3) Educate your customers
Don’t be afraid to clearly engage in an effort to educate your potential users. Product information is appreciated by those going through the decision-making process.
Instead of creating content that appeals too broadly to the target audience or that has only an indirect connection to the product, focus on helping people using your product.
During the education process, do not follow recipes or hypes such as animations, introduction videos or multiple screens. Explain contextually and in one screen, as simple and clear as possible.
Growth Tip: Check this blog and be in awe of the power of educating your customers!
Onboarding new users is a complex effort but highly valuable – and has direct impact on growth. With onboarding techniques, you can be certain that growing traffic will mean growing revenues proportionally.
Björn Brekel
Lead growth hacker @ RevelX
Bringing startup thinking to the boardroom
Road cycling, minimalism and blockchain enthusiast
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