🗺️ Understanding your user journey

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Intro

Are you trying to build a full lifecycle journey for your product? Start by understanding the user journey in your product.

Only after you understand each step your users go through from sign up to purchase, you can build the lifecycle journey that meets them right where they are.

This involves mapping out the entire user experience, from initial awareness to long-term retention and advocacy.

By identifying key touchpoints and understanding user behavior at each stage, you can tailor your messaging and interactions to guide users effectively through their journey.

This would not only enhance user satisfaction but also drive activation, retention, and monetization for your product.

6 Stages of The User Journey

The user journey consists of 6 stages:

• Sign-Up: The user signs up for your product.

• Setup: This could be technical (sending data to Amplitude) or non-technical (creating a profile with Netflix).

• Aha Moment: This is that lightbulb moment when the user realizes the value of your product and their life will never be the same.

• Habit: The user keeps returning to your product regularly (daily, weekly, monthly) to solve their problem. This is also your North Star retention metric.

• Monetization: The user pays for a premium version of your product.

• Loyalty: The user refers colleagues or friends to your product or buys more adjacent products (cross-sell).

👀 Amplitude example:

• Sign-Up: Created free account with Amplitude.

• Technical Setup: Sent data to Amplitude.

• Aha Moment: Created their first chart.

• Habit: Came back to Amplitude to do ‘x‘ 4 times out of 7 weekly.

• Monetization: Upgraded to the Plus plan.

• Loyalty: Referred 2 other companies and 1 year later upgraded to a Growth plan.

The first 4 (sign up, set up, aha moment, habit) fall under Activation.

Activation

Activation is the bridge between user sign-up and habit loop built around the core value proposition of your product.

It's important to talk about what's not an activation but often gets confused with one.

Here are 4 misconceptions about activation:

1. Activation ≠ Sign Up

   • Sign-up is only one of four stages of activation.

   • Since the user hasn't gotten value from the product or built a habit loop around it, the account wouldn't be considered activated.

2. Activation ≠ Engagement

   • Engaging a user on an ongoing basis is different from activating them.

3. User activation ≠ Account activation

   • The fact that you activated a user doesn’t mean you activated an account.

   • In the PLG escalator (learned this concept from Elena Verna in PLG Reforge course), you need to activate a user -> engage a team -> then sell to an enterprise. User activation is only step 1, but you’ll still need to get more teammates into the account to sell your top-tier plans.

4. B2B Activation is not always self-serve.

   • Some buyers have more complex use cases and need a more delicate approach (for example, Enterprise accounts).

   • Even if you have self-serve activation for complex use cases, you might want a more white-glove approach for accounts with high ACVs. You can create a few sign-up campaigns that route them to sales. Simply put, you need to identify those high-touch accounts, separate them, and treat them like gold.

The 6 Steps to Build Your Lifecycle Journey

Here is the simplest way to build a lifecycle journey across email and in-product pop-ups:

1. Analyze Data: Look at both qualitative data (activation, engagement charts, dashboards) and quantitative data (spend hours reviewing user sessions).

2. Identify Patterns: Spot trends and patterns in user behavior post-signup.

3. Define Stages: Develop clear definitions for each stage of the user journey.

4. Diagram the Journey: Use FigJam to create a simple visual representation of the user journey. Include where they are in the funnel (activation, retention, or monetization), logic, and specific touchpoints.

5. Create Content: Develop the actual content across emails and in-product experiences.

6. Launch and Iterate: Launch the first iteration, monitor the results, and continuously iterate based on feedback and performance data.

Wrap

Building a comprehensive lifecycle journey is crucial for enhancing user satisfaction, and driving engagement, retention, and monetization. By understanding and mapping out the user journey in detail, you can create targeted and effective touchpoints that guide users seamlessly from sign-up to loyalty.

To achieve this, start by analyzing your data to identify patterns, define each stage of the journey, and create a visual representation. Develop and launch your journey, then refine it continuously based on feedback and results.

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