How To Crack User Onboarding With In-App Messaging
So you have finally started getting conversions on your website. Not only are people liking what they see — they are signing up to use your product as well. So what now? Users often sign up with enthusiasm but do not have the patience to stay and get acquainted with your site. This is where user onboarding comes in. How do you nurture these users beyond thanking them for signing up?
You need to speed up the learning curve around your product by creating curiosity in your users and making the learning fun — with a clear focus on how it will benefit them. We took a look at the mediums and methods of onboarding users — and how they have evolved over the years. From the traditional status of email onboarding to the revolutionary power of user onboarding with in-app messaging on websites and mobile apps. The result? A handy guide filled with user onboarding strategies using in-app messages that will help you keep your users engaged from the minute they sign up.
An Onboarding Email From Back InThe Day
Back in 2008, I received this email when I signed up with last.fm to listen to music online for free. The email wasn’t too fancy. Basic text on what I could do on their site along with html links to those pages started me off on my journey exploring last.fm. What I appreciated was not just their how-to-use-our-site guide, but also the fact that they linked me to their settings — and a page where I could unsubscribe directly. This is essential when you begin to email someone who just gave you their address: Always let them know that they can opt out.
The Onboarding Email Today
User onboarding emails have come a long way since the last.fm model. While some sites still maintain the basic text + HTML link format, many now opt for a different design to send their congratulatory/thanking email. One of Prevue’s onboarding emails is sent once you sign up but before you use the product. The goal of the email is to get you to use the product. The email contains:
- A Simple Greeting
- An offer to help you start onboarding.
- Two calls to action directing you to upload images onto the website
- Three useful links on specific subjects (your prevue account, uploading, creating projects)
- A colourful theme with importance given to design.
- A footer section with the second call to action
The outcome? I’m interested to start uploading pictures and designing presentations. Even if I don’t start right away, I’m more inclined to upload a few pictures as suggested and come back to the site once I am ready to do more.
Using GIFs to demonstrate features
Using GIFs in an onboarding email is one of the simplest way to show your users how your product works — or what it can do for them. Once they see this, they feel more comfortable going to your website because they already have an idea about how they are going to use your product. Think of it as a little video/visual inspiration to bring to life your app or site. Addthis gets this right with their mock-ups that show appearing and disappearing social bars — just the way they would appear on your website.
Want to take this functionality to the next level? Clearbit shows you exactly how to do it in their onboarding email. Not only does the email have a number of links to their various integrations that you can make use of, but also a link to vote for new integrations, a link to chat with the Clearbit team and last but not the least, this gem of a gif that shows you how you can discover new companies and prospect new contacts with their tool.
Email Is Passe, In-App Is In
Okay. Now that we’ve spoken enough about emails, let’s face the unpleasant truth: When it comes to creating a great user onboarding experience, emails are becoming increasingly passe. If you want to get the user to use your product/service as soon as they sign up, without ever leaving your site, then you need to engage them within your website or app.
Mobile Communication today increasingly revolves around messaging apps. So why shouldn’t your customers get to experience the same ease and comfort with which they use Facebook Messenger when they communicate with your business? This is what in-app communication allows you to do. User onboarding with in-app messaging drives higher user engagement as users spend more time on your site. This works in a couple of ways.
One Way Messages for User Onboarding with In-App Messaging
Where you deliver immediate, contextual and trigger-based messages to users as they begin to explore your product. User onboarding with in-app messages can be simple text, designed cards with images and videos. As push notifications, they require a customer’s permission (opt-in.) Localytics explains this in their article on in-app messaging and opt-ins for push notifications. Duolingo’s web app eases you into using the product before you even sign up or create a profile. Their in-app messaging works brilliantly because:
- It is a great example of creating value for a user before they sign up
- Has a clear call-to-action on screen
- Encourages user involvement and rewards the completion of every step with positive reinforcement
- Has a mascot that explains a feature as you use the features.
Two Way Messages for User Onboarding with In-App Messaging
Where you deliver immediate contextual messages to users and enable them to respond — via an in-app messaging tool — adding a new dimension of user involvement on your website or app. The customer onboarding experience with in-app messaging becomes a breeze when you can hear their concerns, understand what they need from your product or service and respond on time.
We dug up some examples of features that are unique to in-app messaging that you could use to create a unique, personalized onboarding experience.
Segmenting
By adding your users into funnels and segments, you not only get to see who they are and what they are doing on your site or app, but also decide what to communicate with them while they are still in your app or website.
You can segment users into a category like ‘New Signups’ as soon as they sign up. You can then narrow this segment down further by filtering according to certain user characteristics like
- Gender
- Geography
- Age Group
- Language
- Device used
- Incomplete Profile
- Number of visits as a visitor before signing up
While it may not seem relevant initially, once you have these segments, you will get better at crafting messages and understanding user onboarding best practices so you reach your users at a personal level and most importantly: while they are still on your website or app.
- Welcome message.
- Urge users who haven’t finished their profiles to complete them.
- Link your new sign ups to a message that encourages them to get started exploring.
- Show users the primary interface of your product and let them explore it.
Activity-based Personalised User Onboarding
Once a user signs up, before you welcome them to your tool — it would be interesting to track how they explore your product and what they try to familiarize themselves with first. Let’s say you have a SaaS website (or mobile app) and a person just signed up and clicked on a feature to explore it. You can measure how long they spend exploring this option and trigger a message like the one below to ask if they need more information or help.
“Hey, it looks like you are interested in our Shared Inbox feature. Would you like to know more about how it works? Check out this short video tutorial, and let me know if have any questions!”
This message reassures your customer that you value their presence on your website, and are also dedicated to providing value for the time they spend on it.
Offline Notifications
Let’s say your user is halfway through an onboarding process when he or she leaves your website. Your primary goal is to get them back to your website, and also to understand why they left. But how do you this when you can’t reach them on your site anymore? The answer: Use offline notifications. Browser or mobile push help you find out if there was something you could have done better, and encourage a user to come back to your site. Just make sure you aren’t being too intrusive!
Triggered Messages to Onboard Users
Triggered messages are powerful tools that help you send relevant in-app messages at scale and yet give your customers a great experience. All you need to do is to create a set of behaviours and send triggered communications whenever users perform these behaviours. All this without sending a single email! Examples are:
- A message that appears when the user click or hovers over a feature to explain what it does.
- Encouraging messages to users when they explore the 5 basic functions of your product.
- Messages requesting users to add information to finish their user profile.
- Triggered feedback form whenever a user reaches a dead end (ex: a page that says “Sorry your search did not return any results”)
UXPin, an online design tool that helps you create responsive designs for various mediums (phone/laptop/tablet) onboards users this way. When I first started using it to create a simple demo for our product, I wasn’t sure what I could do with the app. Turns out I was in luck. Using a tutorial on their In-App messenger, I learnt how to
- Create a simple design,
- Add elements
- Animate elements while referencing the text, video and gif tutorials.
- How to click on the ‘thumbs up’ icon in the messenger to communicate that I had understood and was ready for the next steps.
Sure, ‘Kelly’ may be a bot — but the point is, I learnt a lot about the product from the messages triggered by UXPin and I didn’t even have to leave the website once or verify my email address to do so. Straight down to business. Cool!
Other Awesome Ways In-App Can Help You Onboard Users:
Get Feedback while Onboarding
One of the essential in-app messages to send during customer onboarding is the friendly-feedback message. Try to understand if
- The user is experiencing any trouble using your product.
- See if they have any questions.
- Get their general thoughts and opinions.
- Give them a warm welcome.
This message can be shown when they are using the app or sent as an email — if your user is keen on receiving emails. The beauty of an in-app messenger is that you don’t need to ask any fixed questions and limit your customers. They are free to type anything they want to communicate with you.
Message from the Founder
Isn’t it nice when the founder takes a minute to say hello to you as you sign up for an app? Unfortunately founders can’t be hunched over their phones dashing out messages every time there is a new sign up. But that doesn’t mean you can’t offer a warm welcome. You can use in-app messaging to welcome your users to the app. This tells them that:
- You are available to them if they should reach out
- You want to know how you can help them get the best out of the product.
- You are highly invested in improving your product.
User Onboarding with In-App Messaging on an Updated App (New Features)
Have new features in your app and want to make sure users are going to use them? Time for a mini in-app onboarding session. Tools like Urban Airship and Mixpanel can help you create these notifications. Clue did a great job of this with their latest update, popping up a simple, scrollable “new in clue” card through which you could explore and understand the new features the app offered.
Customer Onboarding: What Not To Do:
- Don’t get too pushy
Push notifications are great. All you need is a customer’s phone number and you can reach them even when they aren’t in your app. For a business, it’s a great way to share updates to your app or talk about features your users can use to direct them into your app. Unfortunately, one thing businesses often forget is that push messages are pushy.
- Don’t assume your user is dying to explore your app
People sign up for stuff every day with little or no intention of using a product. Everyone wants to be a part of something when they sign up — but no one has the time or inclination to follow through unless they see immediate rewards. User onboarding with in-app messaging can only work if you show your users how much value they can get out of your product.
Look at where people are clicking as soon as they sign up. See at which step of your onboarding you have the most churn. Look at a heatmap to understand what attracts users and what doesn’t. A/B test to see which copy works better with your customers. Remember: Numbers are your friends. Don’t ignore them.
Did you have luck with any of our user onboarding hacks? Have new ones you want to share? Comment below and let us know!
Tara Rachel Thomas, Content Marketing @ Nudgespot
Originally published at www.nudgespot.com on November 25, 2015.
