Inherently Habitual

Leverage the power of habit to engage and retain: lessons from Nir Eyal’s “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products”

Jude Gingo
Aug 24, 2017 · 4 min read

The world has become a much more addictive place than it was five or ten years ago, a trend accelerated by the proliferation of technology and the expectation of immediate gratification in an ever more connected world.

Additionally, humans are psychologically creatures of habit, highly resistant to changes in the status quo. If an objectively, yet marginally, better product comes along, most people will have no desire to switch. As Nir Eyal put it, “Old habits die hard.”

Thus, for many businesses, it is imperative to become rooted in a consumer’s habits to establish a foothold and achieve financial success. Habit-forming companies are privy to higher customer lifetime values, higher growth rates, greater pricing flexibility, and more sustainable competitive advantages. Incumbent, habit-forming products are nearly impossible to usurp without a 10x better product.

“Companies increasingly find that their economic value is a function of the strength of the habits they create.”

In his book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, Nir Eyal introduces the Hook Model, a four-step process that, if properly deployed, allows companies to leverage the power of habit and induce consumers to change their pattern of consumption.

1) Trigger

The first step in the Hook Model is the trigger, which prompts a consumer to take action.

Triggers can be both external and internal. External triggers are cued by a consumer’s environment, like an email or app notification. Internal triggers are cued subconsciously by a consumer’s memory of past external triggers (think of it like muscle memory, or a habit).

In order to build a habit-forming product, companies must cycle consumers through the Hook Model and systematically expose them to external triggers, ultimately facilitating subconscious, internal triggering that leads to habit-formation.

2) Action

The second step in the Hook Model is the action, the behavior cued via a trigger in anticipation of some reward. Put another way, after realizing that you have an itch (the trigger), you scratch the irritated area (the action) in order to relieve the itch (the reward).

A given behavior’s likelihood of taking place can be represented by the Fogg Behavior Model, B=MAT, which states that any behavior is a function of motivation (does the user want to act); ability (is it easy for the user to act); and a trigger (was the user prompted to act).

Although each factor must be present at a sufficient level to induce action, ease of ability to act is paramount. As Nir Eyal put it, “Any technology or product that significantly reduces the steps to complete a task will enjoy high adoption rates by the people it assists.”

3) Variable Reward

The third step in the Hook Model is the variable reward, what the user receives for acting in the first place. This reward ideally solves some problem or satisfies some desire of the consumer’s.

Rewards can be categorized as rewards of the tribe (social rewards), rewards of the hunt (materialistic rewards), or rewards of the self (intrinsically motivated rewards). Companies must identify their target consumer and determine which reward category can be best leveraged to optimize satisfaction and retention.

The most important quality of these rewards is their variability. If consumers come to expect the reward, they will have less motivation to cycle through the Hook Model; the reward itself is secondary to the anticipation of said reward.

Thus, companies that deliver products with finite variability (like a video game or blockbuster movie) must repeatedly provide new hits to reengage consumers, as opposed to companies that have products with infinite variability (like social media companies with constantly updated feeds).

4) Investment

The final step in the Hook Model is the investment, or any effort deployed by a user after receiving a reward in anticipation of future rewards. This present effort makes a user’s future usage of the product more fulfilling.

This step is so critical because of what has been dubbed the IKEA Effect: the more effort a user puts in, the higher the perceived value. Thus, a product’s stored value, as well as any external triggers loaded during this investment stage of the Hook Model, induces the user to reengage with the product in the near future.

Conclusion

By harnessing the power of habit and human nature in an increasingly addictive environment, the Hook Model allows companies to turn their products into habits.

If you have an idea for a habit-inducing product, you can test its efficacy by asking yourself:

  1. What pain point are you looking to solve? (Is there an internal trigger that could eventually encourage users to reengage the product or service?)
  2. How will users initially come to use your product? (Is the external trigger effective?)
  3. How can you make action as simple as possible for the user? (Is the action’s likelihood of taking place, as measured by B=MAT, as large as possible?)
  4. Will the user be satisfied by the reward repeatedly? (Have you chosen an apt variable reward?)
  5. How does the user load the next trigger? (Does the user invest now to ensure future usage of the product or service?)

To effectively retain and engage consumers, one must understand the inherent power of human habit. The Hook Model combines external and internal triggers to drive action and facilitate increased investment, ultimately transforming a simple product into a habitually desired reward.

Jude Gingo

For more book recommendations, please consider:

To hear more from the author himself, visit his blog NirAndFar.com or watch the following video on his book.

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Jude Gingo

Written by

BA @McKinsey, finance and computer science @WashU, avid reader, exercise enthusiast.

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