Encouraging Feature Adoption: Strategies and Best Practices
Feature adoption is a crucial aspect of any SaaS product's success. It ensures that users get the most value out of the product and can directly impact customer retention. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore various strategies and best practices to encourage feature adoption, drawing on insights from industry experts in product marketing and user experience.
Understanding the Users and Their Needs
Before diving into tactics to increase feature adoption, it's essential to understand the users and their needs. Priya Kotak, Product Marketing at Figma, emphasizes the importance of understanding both users that have adopted a feature and those that have not. By analyzing product usage data and talking to users, you can identify the factors that contribute to successful adoption and the barriers that prevent others from adopting the feature.
Priya Kotak suggests focusing on whether users know about the feature and, if they do, why they haven't tried it yet. Understanding the root cause of lagging adoption allows you to tackle the right problem and be targeted in your approach to encourage adoption.
Effective In-Product Messaging and User Onboarding
Introducing new features within the product UI is an effective way to drive awareness and adoption. Jenna Crane, Head of Product Marketing at Klaviyo, recommends a three-step approach:
- Make users aware there's something new
- Provide a product usage fast-lane for users who already 'get it' and want to try
- Provide additional detail to users who need more hand-holding
Make sure your in-product messaging is concise, non-intrusive, and relevant to the user's workflow. Avoid using marketing or sales-speak, and don't overuse promotions or call-outs, as users can become desensitized to them.
Utilizing Email, Social Media, and Blogging
Besides in-product messaging, you can use email, social media, and blogging to communicate new features to users. Manav Khurana, Observability Product GM at New Relic, suggests adopting an "Agile Product Marketing" approach. Announce each small enhancement as part of a broader theme, and use multiple channels to reinforce the message. This way, you get to tell your story multiple times, gain credibility for your theme, and improve your SEO visibility for each enhancement.
Creating Engaging Content and Documentation
High-quality content and documentation can help users better understand the benefits and functionality of new features. Ivan Dwyer, Product Marketing at Okta, recommends following a narrative structure when creating content:
- Anchor to "the what" – Be prescriptive about the product's function
- Hook with "the why" – Speak to pain points in an encouraging way
- Win over with "the how" – Show users how your product works visually
Moreover, providing comprehensive documentation can help users feel more confident in adopting new features and contribute to long-term success.
Quantifying the Impact and Prioritizing Features
To advocate for adding a new feature to the roadmap, Anna Wiggins, Sr. Director Product Marketing at Bluevine, suggests quantifying the feature's impact. Understand how many customers are asking for the feature and how much revenue you might be losing by not offering it. Estimating if a customer adopting the feature would increase their Lifetime Value (LTV) can also help make a case for prioritizing the feature.
Conclusion
Encouraging feature adoption is a multifaceted process that requires understanding users' needs, creating targeted messaging, utilizing various channels, and prioritizing features based on their impact. By following the strategies and best practices shared by industry experts like Priya Kotak (Figma), Jenna Crane (Klaviyo), Manav Khurana (New Relic), Ivan Dwyer (Okta), and Anna Wiggins (Bluevine), you can effectively drive feature adoption and ensure the success of your SaaS product.