To increase user activation, the rate at which users are exposed to the core functionality that makes the product must-have needs to be increased.
The first step is to identify each point in the customer’s journey to the core product, the "aha moment”, or at least to some point where the user is considered to be “activated". It’s important never to assume what that journey is, but rather analyse hard data so to determine potential barriers and direct the right experimentations at them. The data can be gathered with tools such as Google Analytics or by adding a tracking functionality within the code.
The journey might look like : initial visit -> go to the sign up page -> sign up -> send a message on the forum.
Such a report displays the conversion rate for each point or, in other words, the percentage of users who don’t give up on a given step. The report must also track the visitors according to the route/channel they’ve used to reach the product.
It’s recommended to survey users who are on the journey to activation. For examples, users who just signed up could be asked if they have any ideas to improve the process, and users who seem undecided (stay on the same page for more than x seconds, go back to the previous page, …) can be asked what is wrong for them.
The surveys need to be as short and as discrete (but stil visible) as possible.
The NUX (first encounter of the product by a user) must be considered a product of its own, something that needs to be heavily optimised.
The landing page of the NUX must do 3 things :
Also, it’s important to A/B test on the language on the page. It must be as simple and clear as possible.