5 Pillars of Effective Product Adoption Strategy

Releasing a product is a milestone, but it is only the first step. Users should also know how to use the product, making it a part of their familiar routine.

The product adoption curve becomes your friend at this step, allowing you to grasp how users go from wary first-timers to long-term users. That’s why the curve is so important for businesses. Once you realize the different steps for your product to be updated, your marketing strategies will be more purposeful.

The product adoption curve evolves in five stages: Awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and activation. After crossing these stages, users embrace the product. You will follow these steps if invited to a restaurant, for example. The invitation is an awareness, and true adoption is when the waitress knows your name.

Users can give up at any step in the curve, but you don’t want that, do you? The aim is to have many users adopt your product, just like Apple has many loyal fans. Keep reading to find out how. Our article on expert steps in the product management process will also help you.

Understanding the Product Adoption Curve

Before we look into the pillars of a product adoption strategy, we should understand each stage in the curve. Once again, the stages are awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and activation.

Awareness

This is the introductory stage, where users first know the product. They probably saw it from an app store, stumbled upon an advertisement, or got a recommendation from a loved one. Awareness is the by-product of good marketing and a proper customer retention strategy. Users are likely clueless at this level, having not tried out your product before.

Interest

At the interest stage, users begin to seek information, wanting to know more about the product. Does it meet their needs? What do others say about it? Is it within their budget? Users may begin to visit your website to check out reviews, tutorials, and any other information they can get. Here, they want to know more.

Evaluation

During the evaluation stage, users use the information gained to subject your product to a test. They may compare your product with competitors, noting any differences in quality and price. They also assess relevance. Is your product worth the expense? This stage is critical, the difference between the user wanting to use the product and using the product.

Trial

If your product passes evaluation, the user then decides to run some personal tests. They will get the product, try out the free version, or explore any free trials. The trial stage is to determine if your product “walks the walk”. Failure at this stage could be detrimental to your brand as a whole. You must ensure your product delivers on its promises.

Activation

The final stage is before a complete adoption. Users return to the product regularly, learning more and incorporating the product into the routine. Once users reach this stage, they have adopted the product, become loyal, and may recommend your product to others.

Key Components of a Successful Product Adoption Strategy

For your sake and that of your users, you must aim for excellence, including in your product getting adopted. The components that follow define a successful adoption strategy:

1. Understand Your Users

You have many users from different backgrounds. Don’t make the mistake of treating them as identical. Your first task in understanding your users is to segment them. Share them based on certain characteristics, such as their goals, age category, or their stage at the product adoption curve. Spotify is a master at this, creating personalized playlists for each user.

Understanding your users makes a huge difference in your plans. Avoid any assumptions, but seek to discover your users’ actual wants and needs. The key to achieving this is feedback. Get feedback from people, using various means like surveys, reviews, social media, and conversations. With feedback, you do not need to play the guessing game.

Read our guide to customer feedback management for more knowledge.

2. Master Product Onboarding

A successful product adoption relies on an excellent product onboarding process. If the onboarding is successful, awareness and interest will increase. The opposite also applies.

Without a good onboarding process, a business will struggle with product adoption. For a good role model, consider Slack. The business is famous for introducing its products to users with clarity and patience.

Clarity and patience are the traits you require to create that excellent first impression. Acquaint your users with the product with a clear guide, even entertaining.

Tutorial videos or progress indicators are some great tools. The idea is to stir excitement and enhance understanding, not bore and confuse first-time users. Master this crucial phase and product adoption will be easier. Discover more through our product launch communication plans.

3. Product-Led Growth

As the name suggests, product-led growth is a strategy whereby the product itself is what attracts and retains people. Here, the company drops traditional marketing strategies like campaigns and salespersons. In this strategy, users directly engage with the product and gain interest from there.

Many companies offer free trials of their product, allowing users to explore the features themselves and enjoy the benefits. As the free trial ends, many users will want to subscribe. You can learn more about maximizing benefits with our feature prioritization matrix.

4. Educate Your customers

Customer education is two-fold: Provide information and apply the information such that users can understand. The dual approach makes it easier for customers to adopt your product.

Adobe is a good example of customer education. Their Photoshop tool is complicated, so they offer tutorials and other resources for users to navigate the product. Other helpful tools for education are FAQs and case studies.

Education helps new users explore, provide solutions to possible problems, simplify the product, and keep users coming back to the product. Check our article on sharing product updates to learn more.

5. Build a community

Do not underestimate the value of a community to both create awareness of your product and enable users to adopt it. In a community, you gain potential unpaid marketers and guide others. This means that more loyal customers can encourage hesitant ones to use the product. Users can also share experiences and advice, which helps in creating a good impression of your brand.

With communities, your product gains social proof, meaning that if more customers give positive reviews of your product, others will see proof to invest in your product.

Communities also provide a safe space for customers to drop feedback, increasing trust. Reddit and Discord are good platforms where these communities are built. To build a strong community, know how to manage product announcements.

Wrap Up

Product adoption works best when you prioritize your users and their needs as you develop your strategies. Your product should achieve the user goals in the simplest possible way for them to transition from mere interest to full adoption.

Loyal customers enable the growth of your business, which makes the product adoption curve important.