Your site and marketing are probably all about why your product is different and better than the competition.
But the product itself includes not just those shiny differentiators, but also a lot of the same basic plumbing that competitors have. Maybe users have to add other users. Or they’ve gotta connect integrations. Or they’ve gotta input data. Or, or, or…. At some point along the way, sometimes after lots of rote setup work, the different and better part actually manifests.
So sometimes, the prospect user experience goes like this:
“Oooh, this sounds interesting.”
“How does it work? I’m gonna try it.”
“Geez, hmm… OK - this looks like work.”
“You know what? I’ll come back to this later.”
But will they come back? It depends. Did you prove the different and better claim that attracted them in the beginning?
Here are some ways you might do it:
Guide the user down the most efficient path. Don’t make them find it. Don’t distract them with bells and whistles.
Avoid an obtrusive onboarding flow that feels like a blocker. Users will skip it and then be less effective in your product later.
Make sure your setup is as lightweight as possible. Enable users to come back and finish setup steps later.
Include easy-to-clear starter data or defaults so users don’t have to do all the input work to get going.
Use a series of Getting Started tip emails to bring the user back in for quick interactions.
Reduce decision paralysis by making it easy to throw away their experimental trial setup. Let them know up front that everything can be changed or discarded.
What techniques have you used to prove your software was different and better quickly?
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