1. Create specific content for your top user groups:
Your site or app likely has a general value proposition but don’t alienate specific user groups; actively show them that your product or site is for them specifically as well. Nail down your top user groups and create content on your site directly specifically at them. For example, at Beamer, we narrowed down out user groups and wrote guides on how to use Beamer for each of their industries. It can be difficult for users to see how your product fits into their specific work. If you create content that speaks to them directly and shows them how, they are more likely to work your product into their processes.
2. Don’t assume users know what to do next, add clear CTAs:
It’s easy to assume everyone should know how to use your product just as well as you and all of your amazing features and their potential is clear as day. That’s usually not the case. Make it easy for users to use everything you’ve created and reduce the learning curve by adding actionable CTAs to guide users through a process. Mailchimp does a great job at this not just during the onboarding process but every single time a user uses Mailchimp:
3. Provide lots of clear yet different options:
There is a little trick you can take advantage of: our brains just like variety. It’s what makes the Instagram discover page so addictive. There are tons of visually appealing options for us to click and explore. You can do the same with your interface. Put different features, actions, and CTAs in different colors so it appears users have choices. Buttons, boxes, sections with varying colors trick us into wanting to explore them.
4. Teach users how to do something:
Users are more likely to be engaged for longer and want to return when they learn something valuable. Teach your users how to use your product to better their life or excel in some way. You can add mini tutorials to your product or create content and guides on how to use your product to do specific things. A lot of sites add tutorial updates on certain features to teach users how to apply different features. We’ll use Mailchimp again as a great example. They include little tutorials of new features on how to use them:
5. Make it social:
Adding a social or communal element to products boosts user engagement because it creates that “fear of missing out” or inspires collaboration to where your product is the medium for interaction between users. A good way to make sure this happens is to have users immediately invite colleagues or add a social element like a public feed or board where there is some sort of communal interaction. Without adding an element like this, you’re missing out on the 49% of users who want to share things they find helpful with their peers.
6. Use push notifications to bring users back and keep them engaged:
New user engagement can slip significantly as time goes on. You don’t want to continually spend your marketing budget bringing new users to your product only to have 90% disappear within the first 90 days. Web push notifications is a super easy, no work way to get users coming back to your product and staying engaged even if they’re not there. The opt-in rates for push notifications are fairly higher than email at around 20-25%. They get much higher engagement and there are fewer steps to get a user back on your site.
7. Add an interactive news feed to your interface:
Users respond to things that are constantly changing: think social networks and even an email inbox. There is a reason we are compelled to be checking back five times an hour. We don’t want to miss out on what’s new. Create the same element within your product with a Beamer news feed. Beamer is an interactive news feed that sits within your user interface. Users can open it from any page by clicking a “What’s New” tab in your navigation or an icon. A discreet sidebar of updates appears that they can check and interact with like a Facebook feed. Your team can make announcements for anything: new features, news, updates, new products, etc. You can add photos, videos, GIFs, and actionable CTAs to get users clicking through. Users can also leave reactions and comments like on Facebook to help boost engagement. Products and sites using Beamer have seen 10x more engagement.
User engagement is one of the most important metrics for both products and websites to guarantee long-term success. It doesn’t always have to be so difficult to manage; test out these tips above and try Beamer for a way to boost engagement by 10x on your site or app today.
