What's the best way to ensure a user's SECOND visit to your app?

Question

So much energy goes into getting people to find and download your app...

... but there's so little discussion about how you encourage - or even measure - a user's SECOND visit but it's just as important as the first.

Do you have any advice on how to manage this critical interaction?

For instance, with an app these days, if you ask for Push Notification permissions or even email notifications too early it can really put people off... but without it, it's all too easy for people to forget your app (wasting all of the acquisition cost and effort).

What's the best way you've to make a user remember your app, 24h after they've installed it?

Peter Hagen · Accepted Answer

I'm wondering about the same thing. I just bought the book "Hooked" by Nir Eyal, maybe that answers some questions :D

Justin Hopkins · Answer

It depends on the type of app you are making, but from my anecdotal research and observations - it's a good idea to try to find some aspect of your app in which the user can create a goal to work towards, and to allow the user to track their progress on said goal.

It doesn't necessarily have to be full on gamified, but you definitely want to try to give the user some tangible and visual feedback to work with.

James Clear's blog talks about the "Seinfeld Strategy", where just a simple visual goal to show your progress can be surprisingly effective at making you form a habit. https://jamesclear.com/stop-procrastinating-seinfeld-strategy

Alexander Thomsen · Answer

I think the most reliable way to build engagement and retention (2nd, 3rd visit etc.) is for you to really understand 1) What core features creates the aha moment 2) What is the time to value (reduce onboarding friction) 3) 100% focus on getting users to the aha moment ASAP! As already mentioned wrap that around with techniques like push and email notifs. Hope it helps!

Vikki Collins · Answer

Personally I generally find push notifications annoying and off-putting. However, I do like the personal touch by receiving an email after a week confirming what I had been looking at and highlighting any relevant updates surrounding the subject/product that may interest me. Sometimes just idle curiosity will entice me to click and view the updates.

Alexander Thomsen · Answer

@jimbomorrison Yes I know the feeling :D. Where I am at Sparrow Ventures (Venture builder) we realized that users have high level of UI/UX expectations + they give you so little of their time before making a decision. Making it so critical that you make the first visit truly delightful. Goodbye to rough MVPs

Jim Morrison · Answer

@phgn0 Awesome, thanks Peter.  @shesmaddie just recommended that too.

Do you know, does it cover specifically this weird little interaction... that second visit... after you're aware but probably before you've engaged enough to turn on notifications, followed on social, provided and email or things like that.

We're totally cookie-free so we can't do any creepy Google "remarketing" to get people back... and not sure what other models are effective...

Peter Hagen · Answer

@jimbomorrison @shesmaddie Hey I read the book over the weekend and started a post wit some learnings at https://www.producthunt.com/discussions/improving-user-retention-applying-hooked-framework. Let's discuss there!

Laura · Answer

Push notifications drive me crazy. I turn them pretty much all off, unless they're for breaking news, or something work-related like Slack. I use Plum and they had a little bot thing that sent me chatty little messages once a week trying to convince me to sign up. It did work, though!

Jim Morrison · Answer

@yeshaswini agreed.  Getting someone's email is quite tricky though - and I guess I'm asking about those people who don't quite get that far...

Yeshaswini · Answer

As a user I'd say - emails work very well for me. If there are some unexplored capabilities of the app and they highlight that in an email I'd take that and pay a visit. Works v well for apps that work in the productivity space - audio books, money management, and the likes

Maddie Lee · Answer

@phgn0 @jimbomorrison not 100% sure if I understand your question, also I'm still reading it but it stays pretty high level and is mostly about the principle of the "Hook" model, which can be found in pretty much an experience that becomes a habit (not just apps): Trigger > Action > Variable Reward > Investment.

I think you might be able to find what you're looking for (or at least high level guidance) and the book is very forward about using this knowledge in ethical ways.

Laura · Answer

@alexbthomsen @jimbomorrison I like the 'diet dial' on OneSub. I think that would be an 'ahah' moment to me. Not necessarily simply reading the news, but...understanding what the news I am looking at is made up of?

Jim Morrison · Answer

@alexbthomsen Yes, Alexander, it does ... it helps to focus the mind... and you're right - I'm not sure we're really clear on what that Aha moment is... (we've been too focused on building the product - which has been a complex challenge - that we've missed something quite fundamental! 🤦‍♂️)

Jim Morrison · Answer

@justin_hopkins Thanks Justin, that looks like a super-helpful article and I think you're spot on.  As Laura reminded me in the comments above - we recently added a little three-ring dial that helps readers quickly visualise their reading habits.

(We're a better news app...  and the rings help you see that you're getting a breadth of opinion, breadth of topics and reading enough - but not too much)..

Ironically, the rings don't really function till you're signed in (cos we're super-cookie-free and I just thought it would be creepy)... but there's no reason they couldn't start working on your first visit.  Saving your progress is kinda the incentive to sign up anyway...

.. so thanks again, that's a massive help! Much clearer on what we can do now.. 🙌

What's the best way to ensure a user's SECOND visit to your app?

Replies