#55 Make Your Product Sticky
Hello & Happy Weekend!
It's Friday night and I'm currently flying to California writing to you from seat 10C while daydreaming of my future business class life. Why not?
I love the mantra "why not me?" – next time you find yourself thinking you'll never have, deserve, or achieve something stop yourself and ask "why not me?"
That's the game I'm playing tonight.
This week I had the opportunity to teach Anita Siek's mastermind group about what makes a digital product sticky.
Anita (CEO Wordfetti) provided me with this prompt and so after giving it some thought I distilled a sticky digital product into 3 key things.
Let's get into it –
A "sticky" product is a product your customers come back to again and again. It's like the chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe... but like hopefully in a good way?
In all seriousness, what makes a product sticky isn't the manipulative features like constant random notifications that your cousin made a post for the first time in a while ... it's something else entirely.
Think of a few of your favorite products that you log into often.
I'll wait.
What do you love about them? What makes you want to log back in again and again?
If you've been here a while you already know I'm going to mention Peloton. Here's what I love about it:
I love that they recommend workouts to me that I would enjoy because they know my favorite instructors, class type and music.
I love that I can workout with my sister even though she's across the country.
I love that I can track my progress and feel good about myself.
I love sharing classes and talking about it with my pelo-friends.
There are 3 key things that make a product sticky
but it's not about a "tactic" or a "strategy"...
It's about a feeling.
"This was made for me"
01 Personalize their experience.
Netflix has the highest retention rate of streaming services and that's because they have such an intelligent machine learning model that they know exactly what content to present you with to keep it fresh and worth your monthly fee. Anyone else watch Players? I'd give it a B+
So how does this apply to digital products like courses, programs and memberships?
Here are some places you can think about adding personalization:
Onboarding calls
Quizzes
Personalized plan
Member matching
Filtered content
Content recommendations
read one of my OG essays on personalization
"I feel confident and clear"
02 Provide A Roadmap
Setting expectations and creating a clear path for your students or members to follow is important for their ability to track progress and be successful.
Try and imagine yourself in their situation... when you're learning something new or taking on a new goal it feels totally overwhelming.
Where do I start? I'm stuck. I don't know what to focus on. I'm struggling with consistency. How often do I practice?
Here are some places you can think about providing a roadmap:
Email sequences
Onboarding
Within your content
Checklists
Gamification
Daily reminders
"I belong here"
03 Build Community
You saw this one coming right?
We all crave human connection and belonging. Products that harness that power have the power to achieve unstoppable growth.
Building community fuels your product growth and retention through:
Deeper Relationships - Community builds deeper relationships with your customers. Because you know them so well you make smarter product decisions.
Loyal Customers - Your customers are more loyal to your brand because they feel that they are part of it.
Word of Mouth Marketing - Because they feel belonging, they are more likely to talk about your product and invite their friends.
Focus on how you make your customers feel
The most important thing to create a product that is sticky is to focus on the student/member experience, and do what you can to capture the FEELINGS above.
If they feel good, belonging, confidence, and clarity... they'll come back again and again and again.
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