Why activation is the key to successful digital products

Product activation ebook

If you’ve ever launched a digital product, you’ll recognise that there is a lot of pressure on it to perform well. Maybe you acquired a lot of users, but couldn’t convert them. Perhaps customers upgraded to a paid account, but churned after a short time.

A successful digital product needs to attract lots of users, convert them to paid customers, increase customer loyalty and reduce churn. That’s a lot for one product!

Luckily, there is a key that unlocks successful digital products: it’s called activation.

We’ve broken down years of our experience to explain why activation is so important. Because success isn’t just about customer numbers. It’s about generating customer loyalty.

Our blog explains more below. We’ve also created an accompanying free, downloadable eBook that combines theory with actionable information.

The relationship between activation and digital products

The moment when users see the value your product has to offer is the moment they activate. It’s a one-time event and it’s super important.

Think of it like this. Activation is when users go from:

This is OK…
…to…
This is great!

That’s not all. When users see how valuable your product is and activate, there are many benefits. Once activated, users are more likely to:

  1. Continue to use the product
  2. Retain at the end of their billing cycle
  3. Upgrade their product to a better offering

Activation reduces customer churn, which is perhaps one of the biggest challenges with a digital product. And while customer retention and loyalty are great for the bottom line, activation also reveals key business metrics. For example:

  • Activation reveals the strengths and weaknesses of acquisition
  • Low activation rates could indicate a problem with leads attracted at the acquisition stage. If lots of users are acquired and few activate, the budget could be wasted.
  • Activation predicts key metrics
  • Activation helps service providers to gauge how many users will upgrade and how many will retain.
    • The eBook looks closer at the rates of converted and retained users BaseKit products attract.
  • Activation provides insight into effectiveness of onboarding
    • In fact, the onboarding process is another important part of creating and launching a successful digital product. So important in fact, that the onboarding process contributes to whether activation rates are high or low.
  • The higher the activation rate, the smoother and more effective the onboarding process. Low activation rates suggest there is a difficult onboarding process that doesn’t work for users.

Effective onboarding is essential to healthy activation rates

If you’ve ever used a new app, or signed up to a website or digital service, you have experienced an onboarding process. And if you’ve ever felt frustrated and stopped using an app because of the process, you can understand how important onboarding is to activation!

Get onboarding right… customers activate, continue to use the product, upgrade to paid accounts and remain loyal for a long time.

Get it wrong… customers disengage, go away and fail to activate.

Onboarding and activation go hand-in-hand. One of the most effective ways to create a strong onboarding process is with engagement strategies. The right message, at the right time, is a powerful way to support users at the start of their journey with you and encourage them to activate.

At Basekit, our belief in the dual power of onboarding and activation is so strong that we’ve created a whole programme dedicated to it. Our eBook explains the Customer Activation Programme in more detail; in the book, we explore the methods and strategies that help make onboarding effective. The outcome? A positive impact on activation rates and a digital product that flies.

The big picture and the details are key to successful activation

The most important thing to remember when it comes to launching a successful digital product is to take a considered approach.

As with all successful endeavours, activation begins with a plan. There is no point in using different engagement methods if you haven’t first decided on an overarching strategy. Your product and your audience will influence your strategy, so consider both before you take action.

Remember also, that activation and onboarding do not exist in isolation. You have to view the big picture as well as the details to create a plan that’s right for your business.

Our knowledge comes from working with partners to launch – and maintain – a successful digital product. We’ve outlined our experience in the eBook; we hope by sharing it with you, it has a positive impact.

Your customers need your digital products – will you help them activate?

A successful digital product is not simply a product that gains a lot of users and generates lots of revenue. Of course, those things are important to any service provider.

A successful digital product is one that works for your customers. One that makes their business successful. One that solves a real-world problem and which is available to the people that need it.

That’s our mission here at BaseKit – to help small businesses thrive online. Your customers are looking for products that will help them. They want to activate! Your job, with achieving better activation rates, is to help more people find what they need. If that sounds like something you’d like to achieve, download the eBook and find out how.

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