User Activation is all about Benefit Moments
The best startups metric system is AARRR of course.
It turned out that I had a misconception about what user Activation is! Before we’ve talked to Nemo Chu I thought that Activation = Registration.
Technically they could be equal. You’ve got some ghost users exploring your product, then they click SignUp/SignIn button.
That’s why our activation rate have been sucked for a long time.
Improving activation is about looking for Benefit Moments.
The Benefit Moment comes when your users stumbled upon your value. This is the moment when the user realizes what exact value he can get from your product at this very moment.
Moreover, you must be sure that the user finally gets it. To grab attention you have to work on a form and a copy to describe this benefit moments.
Fight for User Activation
Activation is as if you play popular ‘free’ iPhone game. At the moment when you are motivated and engaged enough you understand that you can’t do the next step until you purchase something.
Look at the AARRR model. Activation is just the second step. If you won’t Activate enough users you’ll have even less users on Retention, Referral and Revenue.
Yes, I hate this type of ‘free’ games. But for our product activation is really free. At ConcertWith.me user just have to share their music tastes and email. If the user will be Activated, we’ll continue providing a value with useful concert recommendations based on his tastes.
Yes, it’s ok to build activation-wall for user.
My plan for improving Activation
- Find as much Benefit Moments as possible on user journey.
- Test a lot of copy and call-to-actions for explaining Benefit Moments.
- Try different forms of explanation.
