Getting people to use Fitness Products ? (1/3)
How to improve user engagement in products where action required is fundamentally against using human nature viz. make you exercise, donate money, give others electric shock ;).
Nir Eyal in his book Hooked defines 2 kinds of products :
Painkillers solve an obvious problem, relieving a specific pain and often have a quantifiable market
Vitamins,by contrast don’t solve actual pain points. Instead they appeal to users’ emotional rather than functional needs.
If pain is frequent and repeatable you will have a recurring customer base and hence a higher LTV(Life time value) . Painkillers have a very specific usecase and aim to solve it efficiently, viz Uber for transport, Google Maps for directions, Google Search for information, Ipod for music on go(now you own mobile phones). Vitamins though are a bit subjective. A gaming app you use while transiting on public transport to kill boredom might appeal to you as painkiller for boredom, but for somebody else who lives near to office it might be a Vitamin. Hence Nir argues sometimes products start from Vitamin zone until they move to the sacred Habit zone.
Setting further Context …..Why any Fitness app is doomed to fail?
In Maslows’s hierarchy of needs, we start of at the bottom most wrung worrying about a couch/bed,food,a roof ,our playlist and now a days wifi. As time and career progresses we go up the pyramid, warm up to the concept of health as good to have thought.Soon “Mid Life crisis” hits with full force. Growth professionally takes the slower course, body’s metabolism decides to sleep it over, family ignores you and suddenly you look inwards for the purpose of life. Some look towards physical fitness seems to be a good option for a sense of self achievement. Some even make it a purpose of their life. Traditional social media helps you to take it further with the ease of gaining social acceptance and praise through hoards of likes and Tags.
Developing nation like India have another problem.A few decades ago people were fighting to get a job, a decent meal and health & fitness was measured by access to food.Spending time to exercise instead of earning or resting for next activity seemed so counter intuitive. Food now is affordable but our culture is still optimized towards consumption and measures health and fitness through our dieting habits rather than physical activities. Flab is considered as mark of affluence rather than a problem to be tackled.
Health and Fitness products hence are classic case of Vitamins not figuring on our things to be worried about until our family doctor warns of grave morbid repercussions or we have some free time to kill. Even in the whole hoard of Health and fitness products Physical activity is always the last resort. Till then couch is our painkiller rather than those running shoes.
If you are a product guy at a preventive health and fitness product emphasizing on physical labor , my heart goes out to you. However if you have cracked this job then world is your oyster. :)
So how does fitbit get to become $4Bn enterprise by asking us to do exercises ? How does fitness world engage users ?
Read on below…
