How User Onboarding Can Drive Better Activation and Conversions

Running Experiments to Optimize Onboarding Are Key to Better Activation and Conversions

User onboarding means informing the user so that they adopt your product better.

But is that the only goal? Absolutely not. Onboarding is not just about ‘educating’ the user on how to use the product. If that were the case, why not just call it user-ed?

Onboarding is a chance to show your users that their goals can be accomplished better by using your product. In short, it about communicating value to users.

Why onboarding is essential?

Onboarding is an essential part of every product’s interaction with the user, irrespective of whether the workflow is complicated or incredibly simple. The reason for this is not to spoon feed the user about how things are to be done, neither is it to baby sit their interaction with a new environment.

Every user that comes to a product does so because they have a need or a pain point. Products are the solutions for them.

So, users approach products with certain goals in mind. And the product lays down the path to reach that goal, becoming a key part of the user’s workflow. Every onboarding experience, done right, demonstrates to the user that their goals are achieved by using the product, which is the ‘Aha’ moment. To do so, it is important to take into account what motivates the user to use the product, and then demonstrating to them how they can accomplish that.

Once users see how valuable the product is in accomplishing their goals, they are more likely to explore it further and convert into paying customers. This is why user onboarding helps not just in activating new users into power users but also in convincing them to convert to paying customers.

Onboarding to drive activation and conversions

Show value

One of the most important parts of onboarding is to reduce friction for the user to discover value. Getting users to the ‘Aha’ moment as quickly as possible is a great way to get them hooked; lesser the distraction in their workflow, quicker will be the realization of the value of the product.

Duolingo has a great example of this.

Landing page for Duolingo. source: www.duolingo.com

The landing page for Duolingo is clear and to the point. Users have come to learn a language and that is exactly what it offers, with a very clear button to get started. This takes them to a catalog of all the languages available, along with the information of how many users are currently enrolled in one particular language.