Thinking about how to unleash the full potential of your about-to-launch web app? Discard using the conventional product tour and embrace the utilization of a tailor-made interactive walkthrough. Instead of showing your customers a simple how-to-use-my-product demo, create an interactive guide to help them fully grasp your product’s functionality. You are guaranteed to attract new users and make the existing ones stay.
Remember that showing users your product’s unique features is not always the best onboarding strategy. Showing while doing it is. Enticing your new users to actually experience using the app during the onboarding process is the most efficient way to engage them. This is what we call product adoption. It should be your primary goal in your user onboarding process – to increase the possibility that users are driven to adopt your product and eventually increase user retention rate.
Interactive Walkthrough vs. Product Tour
Walkthroughs and product tours are almost similar tools. In fact, both are user onboarding prototypes, and anyone can easily think that a walkthrough is a type of product tour. What is the difference between the two strategies?
While a product tour simply provides users with the layout of how to navigate a product app, including its features and how to use them, an app walkthrough engages users to use the product first-hand by completing a step-by-step task. A product walkthrough is a set-up experience where users are required to register by providing email details, setting up a password, and so on to be able to use the app.
Benefits of Using an Interactive Product Walkthrough
In an increasingly advanced digital marketplace, there’s a lot of competition when it comes to interactive walkthroughs for user onboarding. An interactive product walkthrough’s goal is not simply to give information about your product but also to help your user experience it by letting customers complete the demo steps themselves. It encourages new users to learn by experience – have your users use the product in order for them to get the gist of how it works. Also, it is an effective tool that you can use to introduce and promote your product’s new features.
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Here are some benefits of developing an interactive product walkthrough.
Improve customer engagement
Interactive learning has been discovered as an efficient learning tool not only in physical education communities but also on digital platforms. With the hands-on guide, users can test the product features for themselves and understand the how-to-use-the-product directly. They can also realize the product’s value for themselves. A first-hand product experience such as a walkthrough offers more impact on users’ learning than simply handing them a manual handbook. More engaged customers translate to higher retention and user lifetime value. It’s a great option to lead customers to their aha moment.
Increase the quality of leads
It is highly likely that prospective clients will eventually be converted to quality leads if you consider building an interactive walkthrough for your product and letting them explore it rather than just sending out emails and flyers containing your product features.
It is analogous to opting to try a sample product in the mall or test-driving a car and experiencing its features before purchasing it apart from whatever the salesperson is promising you. When the user directly experiences a product’s functionality and measures its performance, it becomes a lot easier for them to decide whether to buy it or not.
Retain loyal customers
Releasing updates, bug fixes, and promoting new product features can be challenging especially if you already have your customer base. Do not just drop them an email notification about your product feature upgrade. Add an interactive walkthrough to your website. An interactive in-app guide to your product’s new feature will give you the chance to create higher customer satisfaction and a greater chance of their continued patronage.
Simplify user onboarding
An efficiently crafted virtual tour permits a cost-effective user onboarding process. It boosts product adoption by giving prominence to key functions as well as the most underutilized product features.
How are Product Walkthroughs used in Canva?
Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool that can be used to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more. When you first created your Canva account, you will be guided through a step-by-step in-app walkthrough that teaches you how to start using the Canva editor.
Here are some ways that you can create an interactive product walkthrough just like Canva:
In-app tour that provides new users with a step-by-step guidance tool that contains key information about your product and how to use it
Informative introduction of exciting features and product updates
Tour for existing users who have not advanced from your product’s basic to complex features
Smart tip: Also known as a tooltip is also a good source of product adoption because it provides undisruptive hints while keeping users engaged.
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Creating an Interactive Walkthrough in 3 Simple Steps
Below are some of the steps on how to create an interactive walkthrough.
Decide on your value metric
A value metric helps indicate how your customers view your product or service as valuable. Product owners should prioritize brainstorming to find out their product’s value metric. The goal is to assure that customers fully understand your product and know how to use it. Once customers understand your product’s value, they are more likely to continue using it than reject it.
For example, Canva believes that when they teach onboarding users how to design anything, the possibility is that these new users will be converted to regular ones. Therefore, Canva’s onboarding approach is centered on teaching users to design anything by letting them choose free templates and customizations from a thousand more design choices until users can learn to design on their own. The templates are also categorized so users can easily find what suits their needs.
Identify your barriers
An app owner should be able to determine the hurdles that might come between the user and the identified value point. This can be done by thorough research, functionality testing, and identifying users' pain points. Once identified, it’s key for you to make the next step.
Design and ensure accessibility
In addition to the apparent rule to make your product walkthrough convenient to access, it should be clear, short, engaging, meaningful, and skippable. Also, it is best that in your walkthrough, access to a chatbot or a live chat feature should be visible as additional user support.
On the right side, Canva offers support to onboarding users by enabling the automated Help Center with keywords for ease of access.
Conclusion
To summarize, establishing a good user onboarding process attracts new customers to use your product and increases the likelihood that they will continue to patronize your product app. This paves the way for product upgrade opportunities and greater digital visibility. Sure, there is a myriad of tools to aid you in making a good onboarding process, but an interactive walkthrough is probably one of the most effective.
If you’re searching for an interactive walkthrough tool, go for a no-code digital solution like the G2-recognized digital adoption platform – Usetiful, where you can easily create totally interactive product walkthroughs. It will save your company time, money, and energy. Usetiful bagged 2nd place as G2’s ranking of the easiest-to-use platforms. This makes Usetifiul the ideal platform choice for startups and small businesses.