Contextual

Category: product-led growth

  • Product Manager Fit: What PM Qualities Will Make Your App Fly

    Product Manager Fit: What PM Qualities Will Make Your App Fly

    Happy 2022! Lets hope we get a chance to hug people again this year ????. For our first 2022 post – let’s celebrate YOU – Product Managers and Product teams.

    It’s no secret that as modern people, apps are a vital part of our lives. It seems everything (except hugging) is possible through different apps – we take them completely for granted except when the flow or UX is “not right”. 

    As apps are such an important part of our lives, we should stop more often and think through the process of their creation. Each app has a story, a beginning, and the first spark of an idea from which it gets developed. 

    And who is the brain behind the story? The product manager.  

    We are all familiar with the term “Product<->Market Fit”, but is there such a thing as a “Product<->Product Manager Fit”? For an app to fly, you need a good pilot to be in control and a pilot (Product Manager) who has the skills that match the needs of the product – a B2B Product Manager will be very different to B2C Product Managers, and often you will find Technical Product Managers in deep products.

    In what follows, you will read more about what characteristics define a good PM so that your App meets the desired product market fit rate. So, if you’re a product manager yourself, or even part of a product-led company, buckle your seatbelts, we are ready for departure!

    Being Data-Driven is a Must

    Making decisions that are both market- and customer-centered is not a new concept. But, for an analytical project manager, it is essential to stand out from the crowd and make an app fly. How to do that?

    By paying attention to metrics and customer feedback, you can see where your product needs improvement. For instance, as a product manager, you should make it a priority to review the onboarding process as often as possible to achieve a satisfactory product market fit degree. You may be at the wheel of the app, but the users are at the core of your product. Without them, the app would fail and sink, so listen to their voices!

    Look at your data, then start improving your onboarding process. Analyzing and interpreting this information will help your product in the long run.

    However, be cautious. This is not a one-time task you can cross off your “To Do” list and never think of it again. It’s a process that needs to be repeated, and a good PM will recognize the need to check in with its users. Remember, consistency and perseverance are crucial qualities in a product-led company. 

    Be Brave Enough to Innovate

    If you have been analyzing your user feedback, you have perfected your product market fit, the user experience is overall a positive one, product adoption is going well, pat yourself on the back. You are doing a good job. 

    But trust yourself if you feel the need to elevate your product, even if the data is non-conclusive. Take a leap of faith when you recognize the need for a new feature or an upgrade. Courage differentiates a leader. 

    However, seeing the need for something new within your app doesn’t mean you should be careless with your user journey mapping. Feature discovery should be handled in a discreet manner so that it doesn’t disrupt the user’s workflow. 

    With this in mind, it can be challenging to elevate your product in a way that doesn’t frustrate your clients and doesn’t compromise the user journey. Screen real estate is precious, especially on mobile, and an app interface shouldn’t be messy. So what can you do?

    Consider adding popups to make announcements easy to see, but not bothersome. This way, feature discovery can be integrated organically into your app, without being too obnoxious for the client. But the first step should always come from a product manager!

    Being brave and innovative is key in the SaaS industry. With these qualities, a product manager can stand out in a crowd. In a product-led company, it’s crucial to make sure people remember you and your product. 

    Be Open for Feedback Even After Onboarding

    A good leader is always humble when it comes to feedback. A good product manager should be the same way. 

    Product adoption does not mean your customer will be with your product forever. Giving them continuous opportunities to review their own user journey will make them feel appreciated and heard. 

    So, when talking about user journey mapping with your team, make sure to include capture feedback in the flow of your app. Single touch methods of collecting feedback are popular due to their simplicity. As the user’s attention span tends to be short, this method is the easiest to implement and least disruptive for their workflow. 

    Being receptive to feedback defines a suitable product manager in the SaaS industry. Openness is especially important in this position, as a PM and the decisions they make will ultimately decide the product’s success and determine the product market fit. 

    Product Management is not Project Management

    In small teams, it’s common for the Product Manager to have many roles. Amongst these is the ability to prioritize into sprints and map to company OKRs. This might be in the form of a scrum master role. The message we get from Atlassian, Zip, Airwallex and others is that negotiation, diplomacy, being organized are all key skills. But none of these trump the need to understand the product and be passionate about how it serves customers.

    It’s easy to be busy with inward facing project management tasks but its dangerous when not knowing your product inside out. 

    Make Your Product Fly

    Product managers can feel a lot of pressure. Big responsibilities lay on their shoulders, and their decisions will make or break a product. 

    There are some key characteristics that every PM should have, such as being data-driven, being open to feedback, and being innovative with their apps. These will help with establishing a good rapport with a user, as the relationships with clients are an important part of a product-led company. 

    Besides that, it will also help a product stand out in a crowd. A good product manager is also a good leader that navigates the company in the direction of success. 

    Learn How To Become A Good Product Manager

    If you want to learn how to translate these qualities into your workflow as a product manager and practically implement them into your app, book a demo today with Contextual! We’ll help you with your onboarding process, feature discovery, capture feedback, and many more.

  • Reducing Trialler Abandonment: 5 Tips for Product-Led Companies

    Reducing Trialler Abandonment: 5 Tips for Product-Led Companies

    How many apps do you keep on using after the trial period?

    Worry not, you are not the only one who does so. Trialler abandonment is an unfortunate event. Yet it is a natural phenomenon that today’s app-driven world brings with itself. 

    While product-led companies are trying their best with social media campaigns, ads, and other marketing tools, statistics show that between 2010 and 2019, the average app abandonment rate after just one use (session) was 23%. 

    This might sound alarming for companies who rely on their user’s onboarding experience and product adoption. However, despite the statistics, not all is lost.

    If you are a product manager or part of a product-led company and your goal is to reduce the trialler abandonment your app WILL face, keep on reading. We put together a list of tips and tricks just for you!

    1. Invest in Your UX 

    It goes without saying that the interaction a potential user has with your product should be your biggest focus. Look at it as the channel of communication between your company and your future clients. 

    Whether you like math or not, we have a formula for you:

    Positive UX processes = increased loyalty on the customer’s end. 

    Simple, isn’t it? Well, for this to happen,  design of the user’s journey combined with visual economy and appeal are top priorities for product-led teams. By focussing on JTBD and paying attention to details such as functionality, personalized, contextual tips, announcements and notifications you ensure your product stays with a user beyond the initial onboarding. 

    App abandonment often happens because the company fails to invest in their clients first and the product after. Your product’s usability will greatly impact the client’s decision on whether it’s worth going through with the adoption.

    So, improving the app’s interface might help you not just with the initial trials, but will also help your company with a long-term retention rate. What marvelous results! o

    2. Learn How To Balance on The Fine Line of Notifications

    Mobile apps are an important part of the modern person’s life, whether we take its personal or professional aspects. Notifications are a vital tool of these products, as they help the user journey and also with the product adoption. 

    As such, notifications should take an indispensable place in your list of priorities when it comes to product development. So, next time your team discusses user journey mapping and optimization, take time to look at the impact of your app’s notifications throughout the user journey. 

    While notifications have a significant place in every app, there is a fine line between helping with user engagement and frustrating the client with too many push notifications. 

    Trialler abandonment is often caused by notifications that are either too obnoxious or even unnecessary. Making sure that you take time to create meaningful, personalized notifications can increase the chances of product adoption. 

    Connect with the user from the onboarding process. Something as simple as inserting their name in your welcome message can guarantee you a positive first impression.

    Yet, consider the timing of your notifications. Try not to interrupt your user in their workflow, as bad timing can lead to product abandonment. Especially with new clients.  

    You do not want to annoy people, but you don’t want them to forget about you. So, find the balance!

    3. Make Your Ads/Popups Less Intrusive

    How to do that, you might wonder?

    Similar to balancing notifications, pay attention to interuppting the user flow with the ads or other pop-over content (announcements, nudges, prompts) in the app during its usage. Read our posts about JTBD – so many Apps make the mistake of popping up something selflish (like a request for Appstore rating or SaaS NPS question) when the user is trying to get a “job done”.

    Most users are aware that ads are important in a B2C Apps, however, if they appear to be too frequent, occupying a large part of the screen or even interrupting the work of your user, it can easily be a source of frustration, which can lead to an increased app abandonment rate. 

    Users have low patience with new apps: the fewer distractions they have, the better. Especially in the first few uses of a new software product, clients can be more picky than usual, so it is crucial to be mindful of details such as positioning of the ads and their frequency, in order to ensure an increased app retention rate. 

    4. Security Should Be A Priority 

    Cybersecurity and digital attacks are topics that seem to be on the table constantly, especially with the rapid rate at which technology advances today. 

    If you’re part of a SaaS product development company, security should be prioritized within your product. Digital attacks can and should be avoided in order to increase client trust and your app’s retention rate. 

    The product should not only be secure, but product-led companies should especially focus on how this feature is perceived by clients who want to protect their personal data from getting hacked. 

    To ensure that your clients trust your product, you can create a sense of security by making sure your app runs well and doesn’t have many bugs, or that it’s user-friendly and easy to follow for your target audience.  

    5. Take Advantage of User Feedback 

    Accepting that not everyone will find your product useful is crucial in order to make sure you and your team can focus on narrowing down your clientele. 

    When you find your niche of customers, it becomes easier to listen to their feedback in order to improve your app for new and potential customers. 

    Take advantage of the onboarding feedback given by users who already completed this process and see what you can optimize for future clients in order to reduce app abandonment in the early stages of user onboarding.  

    Try to measure the effectiveness of different features your product has, pay attention to possible threats, and fix bugs as soon as they appear. 

    You not only ensure that your new clients perceive your product as a serious one (and thus are more likely to go through with the product adoption process), but you also build credibility within your existing clients. 

    If people feel heard, they are more likely to stick around for a longer time. After all, customer service is one of the strongest bridges between a product-led company and its users. 

    Overcoming Trialler Abandonment

    App abandonment in the trialler phases is a common occurrence during user onboarding and in the product adoption process. 

    However, you should not be disheartened, as there are some tricks to reduce these numbers and promote higher retention rates for mobile apps. 

    Some of them, such as investing in the UX, or ensuring product security, are foolproof methods of encouraging product adoption among new clients. 

    Others, such as managing ads and notifications, should also be considered as they help in facilitating the workflow of your users and providing a more pleasant experience when the product is being used. 

    Lastly, by listening to the already existing customers’ opinions, both your product and your company will be seen as reliable. 

    So, what is the next step?

    You are an expert in the theoretical part, congratulations!

    But you know what they say: practice makes it perfect. Would you like to implement these tips smoothly and swiftly into your app development workflow? If you want to learn more about obtaining better retention rates and how to grow your product, get started with Contextual today!

  • Onboarding Feedback: Product-Led Success with Your Mobile Users

    Onboarding Feedback: Product-Led Success with Your Mobile Users

    Product-led companies are praised for pouring their heart and soul into the product that ends up in their customers’ hands. 

    While the product-led approach is known to boost growth and efficiency within a business, to get there, it’s crucial to focus on the first impression your product gives to a potential user. The onboarding experience can best be perfected through the feedback of your clients, which in turn helps with reaching more users and encourages product adoption.

    As SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies are expected to deliver their products both in web and mobile formats for a better product adoption, onboarding feedback is especially helpful with mobile users. 

    Asking for client feedback on their onboarding journey while using the mobile version of a product has great benefits both for the client, as well as for your product and your company. So, why exactly is onboarding feedback important? Let’s deep dive into it!

    Onboarding feedback reduces time spent on perfecting the process

    Although it might sound counterintuitive at first, collecting client feedback on their onboarding experience actually helps your company save time on coming up with ideas for new features, better performance and many more. Especially with mobile version users, time is of essence not just for product development, but also for the client, as their attention span tends to be much shorter than that of a web user. 

    Generally speaking, the first 30 seconds after a potential user downloads your app are the most crucial ones, as your product needs to catch their attention in order to avoid trialler abandonment.

    By asking for feedback after they complete their onboarding, they help your company figure out where the product needs to be improved. 

    With a product-led growth mindset, you must make room for the clients too. Reserve them a chair in your meetings and refer to them as being part of your team. Understanding that their feedback is crucial for the improvement of your product will help you save time and stress when implementing changes.

    It helps with building a rapport with the user

    Product-led growth can be achieved if you have a strong rapport with your clients. With user engagement and communication comes product satisfaction, which leads to company growth over time. 

    Focusing on your clients and listening to the feedback they have to offer upon onboarding with your product is an investment that will always make its return into your product and company.

    As we mentioned above, clients have limited attention for your product, especially when it comes to the mobile version, where it takes a couple seconds to lose a potential user. Mobile versions allow for companies to have highly targeted interactions with their clients. By involving the user in the creation and improvement of your product, they are more likely to go through with the product adoption, as they feel that their opinions are valued by your company.

    Getting to know the client’s needs through their feedback

    As your mobile product’s time from the start of the onboarding process is limited, knowing your users’ needs is critical. With a broad clientele of new and returning users, you have to make sure you implement their feedback for a successful product adoption.

    Learn from previous feedback: returning users expect possible bugs or errors to be fixed, their needs concern reliability, while new users need to be engaged fast enough to continue using your product and complete the onboarding process. Paying attention and anticipating their problems will result in a happier client, a smoother user journey, and a better app engagement.

    Continuous onboarding equals continuous feedback

    Consider the concept of continuous onboarding to keep user satisfaction at its maximum. For example, when introducing a new feature to your app, ask the returning users to give you feedback on it. 

    The initial “Aha!” moment they had when completing the onboarding for the first time is a rewarding feeling. By helping the client achieve it again through feature discovery (and then asking for their opinion on it), you are keeping the user in a continuous onboarding state, and they will offer feedback with more enthusiasm each time. 

    If the users see that their opinion is valuable in the development process of your product, they will feel included and are more likely to take their time giving feedback on their experience.

    Mobile is the future – except it’s happening now

    Understanding that the mobile version of your product is a key feature of product-led companies will help you prioritize what’s truly important for your team and efforts. By relying on onboarding feedback from mobile users, you’re doing a huge favor for your future self and the future of your company. Involving the clients and asking for their feedback should be a top priority, as their opinion helps with optimizing your product.

    Besides the positive impact of their feedback on your product, interacting with your users through their onboarding feedback also builds a bridge between them and your company. Having returning users who rely on you, and who you can rely on is a true advantage in a sea of product-lead companies.

    To conclude, the relevance of onboarding feedback is undeniable, especially when it comes to mobile versions of SaaS products. By involving the client in perfecting your product, you gradually build a rapport with them, which has as its main benefit the mutual reliance between company and user. Moreover, you get to know the client through their feedback, which helps you predict their needs moving forward. 

    Lastly, if the users feel heard when it comes to feedback implementation, they are more likely to continue using your product, which will lead to continuous growth, which is already the goal for product-lead companies.

    Do you want to learn more about how to better capture feedback and how to make use of it in your future business procedures? Book a demo and get started with Contextual!

  • A product led indie developer journey

    A product led indie developer journey

    This second part of interview with fintech product Navexa’s founder gives insight into what it takes to be an indie developer.

    Bootstrapping a product and startup in one of the most courageous things to do in tech and something employees never really understand.

    Navarre gives me insight into his journey developing Navexa as an independent and how he has funded things so far.


  • The best gamified onboarding in a fintech product

    The best gamified onboarding in a fintech product

    The onboarding for fintech product Navexa is gamified and sublime. In this interview I discuss with the founder the decisions that led to making a first-time experience that has helped radically increase activation and reduce trialler abandonment.

     

    Navarre Trousselot is the founder of portfolio tracking product Navexa and he takes us through the main features of the checklist/progress-bar above.

    Key takeways:

    1. Initial modal to set the stage and introduce broad concepts.
    2. Sample data to avoid the dreaded “empty state”
    3. By clicking the first modal, the user sees the sample data as “their portfolio”.
    4. This completes Step 1 (View Portfolio) and instantly credits the user with a 1-day extension to their trial.
    5.  Each additional steps extends the trial – with a total of 7 days making the trial a 14 day trial for someone who is genuinely engaged.
    6. When a step is completed you can instantly see down the bottom that the trial has been extended “10 free trial days left”.

    The benefits here are huge – instead of being overwhelmed by all the data and features, the user can self-pace a journey that gives a reward along the way.

    https://vimeo.com/488808379

    Some other things we discussed:

    1. The checklist (when folded) has an animated wave wash across it every 10 seconds. Its not too shouty but the user definitely knows there is something to look at there.
    2. Navexa’s Feedback collection is probably one of the lowest friction I’ve seen. Its notoriously difficult to get a user’s perspective and this method allows easy collection of both one-liner suggestions and long form rants. Navarre mentions how people have given full specs for a feature they want through that mechanism and he gets it submitted to both his email and ticketing system.

    The Indie Journey

    In the next clip of the recording, Navarre gives me insight into his journey developing Navexa as an independent and how he has funded things so far. Sign up for blog updates so you don’t miss out! 

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