How to HOOK Your Audience? Habit Build-in Products
Are you a product manager? A product developer? Is your professional occupation in any way related to a product or service?
Then you have definitely been confronted with companies like Facebook, Instagram or Youtube as the ultimate services that profoundly change our behaviour and habits. How? They are habit-creating products.
Some weeks ago, while attending the STIMA International Marketing Congress, Nir Eyal hooked me with his keynote.
If you do not already follow him on social media then my advice is to do so! If you prefer more extensive access to his work, buy his book: Hooked.
How do you build products that need to have a habit build-in?
And with this, I do not only mean products that we use daily. How can we create habits, make an experience seamless or pull people towards our product?
The answer Nir Eyal gave was very simple: build-in HOOKS.
A hook is an experience designed to connect the users problem to your companies’ solution. If you built enough hooks into your product, you will be able to create and change habits.
This is how you hook
Step 1: Trigger your target group into using your product or service
The ultimate habit is created when linking external triggers (e-mails, smartphone notifications,…) to an internal trigger (being bored, lonely, depressed,…).
Step 2: Let your target group take the action
The ultimate habit is formed when the action taken is:
- the easiest behaviour possible (scroll, search, play,..)
- the motivation is high
Step3: Make them want to come back
The ultimate habit is formed when you give rewards that are not predictable, but create a desire. There are 3 ways to do this:
- Let them hunt for material rewards.
- Let them tribe for social rewards.
- Let them search for self-achievement.
Step 4: Make sure every action improves the product for the next round
The ultimate habit is created when you let the user put data into the product (time, data ,effort, money,…) so that the product gets better every time someone uses it.
Every step through the hook helps shape user preferences and attitudes.
