Category: Marketing Strategy

  • Rethinking the Customer Onboarding Framework: How a Checklist Increased Conversion by 70%

    Rethinking the Customer Onboarding Framework: How a Checklist Increased Conversion by 70%

    designed by rawpixel.com – Magnific.com

    Key Takeaways

    • A successful customer onboarding framework should teach users how to succeed with a product, not simply how to use it.
    • Time to value can be misleading if the action being measured doesn’t actually move customers closer to their desired outcome.
    • A SaaS onboarding checklist can make vague instructions actionable by showing users exactly what “complete” or “ready” looks like.
    • Removing friction isn’t always the answer. Adding the right friction can better prepare customers for success.
    • In this case, adding a profile score and checklist increased paid conversion by 70%, while increasing time to first application by only one day.

    On paper, the initial redesign of our onboarding journey worked. The messages were beautiful, easy to scan, and contained vital information on how to use our profile. More importantly, the time it took for trial subscribers to submit their first application for a role had been reduced by a full week. That was a significant improvement in TTV.

    But when I looked at customer behavior, I saw a problem. A significant number of trial members were applying for roles with incomplete profiles. Some didn’t even have a profile image.

    The journey followed the same path as many onboarding journeys: each day highlighting a specific feature of the platform. Adding a profile picture came early because the headshot was one of the most important elements of an actor’s profile. Members applying without one were putting themselves at a serious disadvantage. If trial members were applying for a role without an image, something was wrong.

    A good customer onboarding framework doesn’t just teach customers how to use your product. It teaches them how to succeed with your product. 🍉

    Applying for a job looked like value because the customer had taken the primary action the SaaS platform was designed to facilitate. But if casting directors were unlikely to seriously consider an incomplete profile, had the customer actually reached value?

    And, in that aspect, we were failing trial members.

    I had some idea of what casting directors needed/wanted to see in profiles. I had talked to the customer success team multiple times about different aspects of it. But I wanted to nail it down and get really specific. If you were helping your friend or daughter enroll, what specific steps would you give them to help them thrive on the platform?

    I devised a 100-point weighted scoring system based on the items casting directors actually wanted to see on a profile and on what I could track in Braze. 

    I brought this to customer success and had them weigh in on the point system. They had some suggestions but were, for the most part, happy with the system.

    The result was essentially a SaaS onboarding checklist that prioritized the actions most likely to help members succeed: must-haves, visibility boosters, and bonus elements. Each item included a brief explanation of why it was important to their profile. Instead of simply telling someone to “add special skills,” we explained that adding them could help their profile appear in a casting director’s search for someone with a particular skill.

    Then, an email with the checklist and an overall profile score was carefully inserted at the beginning of the journey. This was kept as brief as possible because our team was still striving for scannability. Half of the new enrollees saw their profile score and checklist. The other half just moved on to the second email in the journey.

    The result: those who saw the new email in their journey were 70% more likely to purchase a paid membership than those who didn’t.

    The results were statistically significant. And we only added one day to the time it took those trial members to apply for their first role.

    The redesign made people start using the product more quickly. The subsequent optimization slowed them down slightly, but made them much more likely to buy.

    We added a little friction to the journey, but trial members were better prepared to actually succeed when they started applying. And, as it turned out, they were also much more likely to buy.

    Sometimes the best optimization comes from adding a little friction rather than removing it. 🍉

    This is one example of how I use customer behavior, testing and lifecycle strategy to improve business outcomes. See more of my lifecycle marketing results.

  • What 48 Shoppers Told Me About Their Grocery Shopping Habits

    Key Takeaways

    • Grocery shoppers don’t all start from the same place. Three distinct habits emerged: Menu Makers start with meals, Routine Shoppers tend to buy the same things each trip, and Value Optimizers start with sales and savings.
    • Value mattered more than convenience. Shoppers overwhelmingly favored price transparency and personalized savings over features designed primarily to make shopping easier.
    • Shoppers want relevant savings, not simply more coupons. Alerts for products they already buy, easier price comparisons and personalized deals were among the things most likely to influence shopping behavior.
    • Grocery apps aren’t necessarily solving the budgeting problem. 63% of grocery-app users and 64% of loyalty-offer users cited budgeting as a frustration.
    • Different shopping mindsets need different tools. Treating grocery shoppers as one audience risks creating experiences that don’t work particularly well for any of them.

    I needed validation.

    At the end of March, I lost my job, so my husband became the only one working, which was stressful for both of us. With more free time, I tried to help by taking on more household errands, like grocery shopping. And, like many a sitcom father before me, I was struggling.

    Since he works nights, my husband has done most of the grocery shopping for years, taking advantage of the quieter hours during the day. Over time, he built a mental model of prices across our local stores. I was missing all of that historical knowledge.

    So, I handled it the way only I would: I built a Python scraper to collect sale prices for the products we buy most frequently, then created an AI prompt to parse the data and help me figure out how to stock up at the lowest prices with the fewest stops.

    While my days were mostly filled with resume submissions, interviews, and half-assed attempts at thought leadership in my industry, I was Mr. Momming my way through the grocery aisles.

    This wasn’t my first frustration with grocery shopping. I’d already been thinking about the disconnect between how grocery stores sell ingredients and how customers actually decide what’s for dinner.

    This time, instead of just wondering whether my own shopping habits were unusual, I decided to ask. Was I the only one frustrated by the status quo?

    That question became the basis for this survey and report.

    Download the Snapshot

  • Grocery Stores Are Still Selling Ingredients When Customers Are Trying to Buy Dinner

    Grocery Stores Are Still Selling Ingredients When Customers Are Trying to Buy Dinner

    Image by macrovector on Magnific

    Key Takeaways

    • Grocery shoppers aren’t always shopping for ingredients. Often, they’re trying to solve a more immediate problem: what’s for dinner?
    • Effective promotions can create value by reducing mental load, not just by offering a lower price.
    • Bundling complementary products around a meal can turn a product promotion into a solution and give customers a reason to act now.
    • Good marketing doesn’t always require sophisticated personalization. Sometimes understanding the customer’s problem is enough to change behavior.
    • The best value proposition may not be the product you’re selling, but the decision you’re helping the customer make.

    I feel like there’s a joke in there. Of course, grocery stores are selling ingredients; otherwise, they would be restaurants.

    But one of the best grocery emails I ever received understood what I really wanted and changed my behavior. And it was so good, I remember it years later.

    There is an independently owned gourmet food store within walking distance of my home. It’s one of those places with a great selection of meats, decent produce, and a well-stocked and skillfully curated selection of local craft beers and ciders. 

    It’s the type of place you pre-order your Thanksgiving turkey from. The type of place that would never install a self-checkout. And all employees wear aprons with the store name embroidered on the front.

    The offer: purchase a pot roast and get a free bag of carrots, a free bag of potatoes, and a free bag of onions. I grabbed my reusable canvas grocery bag and walked to the store that day. 

    The campaign wasn’t personalized. There was no data mining involved. But it solved a problem my family faced every day: what to make for dinner. 

    The promo wasn’t about a pot roast. It was about reducing my mental load.

    It removed one decision from my plate after a long day of making other equally important decisions. And I’m not the only one who feels this way.

    Nearly 40% of shoppers would like their store to be more helpful with meal planning. Maybe it’s because more of us are waiting longer to plan our meals. Maybe it’s because steep inflation and fuel costs have made us rethink how we’ve been doing things. Maybe we’re just burned out.

    To some extent, grocery stores have realized this for a while. That’s how a simple roasted chicken became a $52.1 billion deli category. 

    The promotion got me into the store, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the reality that this was still a gourmet grocery store. The experience solved one dinner. It didn’t change the value equation for every shopping trip. But, if I were in charge of their marketing, I would lean hard into what I knew we did best: quality meats and a lovingly curated selection of local brews and ciders. 

    But more than anything else, I’d help customers decide.

    But maybe I’m an outlier. Maybe everyone is still building shopping lists from weekly sales flyers, and I’m the only one who’s frustrated.

    I honestly don’t know.

    Update: I decided to find out. I surveyed 48 shoppers about their grocery shopping habits, including how they plan, budget, choose stores and use grocery apps. See what 48 shoppers told me about how they grocery shop →

  • The Day My Boss Divided an Email into Four Equal Parts

    The Day My Boss Divided an Email into Four Equal Parts

    Image by macrovector on Magnific

    Key Takeaways

    • When every element in an email is given equal visual weight, customers have no clear signal about what deserves their attention.
    • Email design should create a clear visual hierarchy that helps readers quickly understand what matters most.
    • More choices don’t necessarily create a better customer experience. Sometimes customers need direction more than they need options.
    • Test results don’t always speak for themselves. Communicating what the data means and what action it supports is part of the job.
    • The same principle applies to customers and stakeholders: persuasion isn’t about providing more information. It’s about helping people see what matters first.

    He was so excited about his idea.

    The email would go to, well, everybody. It would be divided into four equal sections, each featuring one of our product categories. We would list the manufacturers in each category and link them to our website.

    Before I throw him completely under the bus, you need to know something about my former boss.

    He was an incredible salesman. Energetic, charismatic, and no one knew our products better than he did. He could talk to a customer for five minutes and know exactly which product mattered, which objection needed answering, and which detail would close the sale.

    You also need to understand that the production industry was in the middle of a messy transition from tape to digital. Some customers were investing in solid-state workflows. Others were searching for professional-grade tape as shortages disrupted supply chains. Everyone was trying to figure out what came next.

    So from his perspective, the idea made sense. Show everyone everything. Let them choose what matters.

    But I knew the email would fail.

    I had recently run a layout test. One version gave every product equal weight. Another was built around a single featured item with three smaller related products.

    The single featured item won. By a lot.

    I didn’t know how to calculate statistical significance yet. But I knew I was onto something, and the email he wanted to send was going in the wrong direction.

    When everything is important, nothing is important. 🍓

    Most people approach their inbox the way I approach a Whitman’s chocolate sampler box. They open it, poke around for a few seconds, and hope to find a caramel.

    That’s how email works. A quick glance of three or four seconds before they move on to the next message.

    If someone gives you three seconds of attention, a hero image can grab them. A clear recommendation can grab them.

    Four equally sized images usually won’t.

    My boss thought customers wanted choices. I knew they wanted direction.

    The campaign was a disaster.

    If memory serves, it didn’t generate a single sale. I wish I could tell you there was some hidden victory, like it generated a bunch of traffic. Nope. Or that it sparked useful conversations with customers. Not that either.

    It was exactly what I expected: four equally important pieces of information that nobody knew what to do with.

    At the time, I was frustrated because I had already run the test and seen the results. Larger featured products outperformed evenly weighted layouts. (It wouldn’t be the last time I had to test a design assumption instead of simply arguing against it.)

    What I didn’t appreciate yet was that I was making my own version of the same mistake.

    I understood that customers needed direction. But I didn’t realize that my boss did too.

    I treated the conversation like the data should speak for itself. I wanted him to look at the results, connect the dots, and arrive at the same conclusion I had.

    But bosses are audiences too.

    And smart audiences still need help knowing which information matters. My boss was one of the best salespeople I’ve ever worked with. But sales conversations and emails are not the same thing.

    A salesperson can answer questions. A salesperson can adjust in real time and steer the conversation toward what matters most.

    An email gets a few seconds. And hopefully, someone finds the caramel.

    I’ll make other campaigns that fail. I’ll adjust, correct course, and move on. But I remember this one because it taught me that persuasion isn’t about adding information. It’s about helping people see what matters first.

    Sometimes that means helping a customer find the caramel. 

    And sometimes, it means helping your boss do the same.

  • Lifecycle Marketing KPIs: How To Prove Impact

    Lifecycle Marketing KPIs: How To Prove Impact

    Image designed by Freepik.

    Are you demonstrating impact with your Marketing KPIs, or are your metrics just proving that something happened?

    Opens, clicks, and even conversions tell you activity exists, but they don’t tell you if your work is doing anything for the business as a whole. If you want to prove impact, if you want to prove your worth as a marketer, everything you do has to ladder up to two things: retention and lifetime value.

    That’s it. That’s the scoreboard your boss and their boss are looking at. And because of this, you need to know how you’re scoring on this metric and be able to talk about it. (And don’t forget to draw the connections for your leadership team.)

    But that doesn’t mean you ignore stage-level metrics. You will need them, but don’t confuse them with outcomes.

    Key Takeaways

    • Track lifecycle marketing KPIs by stage to understand customer behavior
    • Use control groups to distinguish performance from causation.
    • Connect lifecycle performance to retention and customer lifetime value (LTV) to demonstrate business impact.
    • Draw the connection between stage-level metrics and business outcomes for leadership.

    First, fix your lifecycle stages (seriously)

    If your lifecycle stages don’t match how your business actually works, your metrics won’t either. 🍐

    Rename them. Break them. Combine them. You’re an adult, and no one is grading you on textbook definitions. You’re trying to understand behavior, not pass a certification exam.

    What I actually measure (by stage)

    Acquisition / Abandoned Signup

    The only KPI that matters here is: Did they start?

    • Trial starts
    • Account creation
    • Step-by-step drop-off rates

    Investigate; don’t just guess. Pull the funnel apart to understand where and why users hesitate.

    • Too many questions?
    • Asking for info they don’t have yet?
    • Credit card friction?

    Different drop-off points = different problems. Treat them differently.

    Onboarding / Activation

    Activation is where lifecycle proves its value.

    • Time to value
    • Activation rate
    • Trial to paid conversion

    If users don’t experience value quickly, nothing downstream matters. Do everything you can to get your customers to meaningful action faster.

    Engagement

    Now, you’re building habits. Engagement is where lifecycle stops supporting LTV and starts directly influencing it. The dotted lines you were connecting in onboarding are a lot shorter now.

    • Session frequency
    • Feature adoption
    • Expansion revenue
    • Renewals

    Retention / Churn Prevention

    If you’re only reacting after someone cancels, you’ve already lost.

    • Retention rate
    • Cohort behavior
    • Churn signals

    Winback / Reactivation

    A reactivation isn’t a win unless it sticks.

    • Reactivation rate
    • Returning purchases
    • Downstream retention

    Anyone can drive a one-time comeback. The real question is: Did you bring back a valuable user?

    Don’t forget to prove you’re the one who moved the needle.

    If you really want to answer: “Did lifecycle marketing actually drive this?” You need a control.  (Yeah, I said it again.) Without it, you’re reporting performance and not proving causation.

  • I Saved 28 Hours on Instacart—and Never Heard About It

    I Saved 28 Hours on Instacart—and Never Heard About It

    Image designed by Freepik.

    Key Takeaways

    • Personalization is more powerful when it reflects the value an individual customer actually receives, not just what they bought or browsed.
    • Customer data can reveal compelling value propositions that may be very different from the ones a brand typically promotes.
    • For some customers, time saved may be more meaningful than money saved, especially when convenience is a primary reason for using a service.
    • Lifecycle marketing can reinforce a product’s value by showing customers what they’ve personally gained from using it.
    • Sometimes the best retention message is already hiding in the customer data you have.

    What is your free time worth?

    This is something my husband and I spend a surprising amount of time debating. We have very different views on it and on services like Instacart.

    I love a lot about the app: that I can find a recipe and automatically add ingredients to my cart, that I can build my cart over time, and that it helps me avoid impulse junk food purchases.

    But the biggest value?

    Time.

    The time I would have spent shopping can be spent doing literally anything else.

    I stumbled on a post in r/instacart: Instacart actually tracks how much time you save. After some digging, I found mine.

    28 hours saved.

     Here’s what’s interesting: almost every message I’ve received from Instacart emphasizes potential money savings, not what I’ve actually saved.

    That value is easy to find in the app. It’s surfaced, calculated, and visible. But it’s not carried through into lifecycle messaging. And the same is true for time saved (except that it’s even harder to find in the app).

    This feels like a missed opportunity, but there may be a reason for it.

    It’s likely Instacart has tested different value propositions, and cost savings may outperform time savings at a broad level. That would explain why so much of their messaging emphasizes dollars over time.

    But what works on average doesn’t always work for every customer. But what works on average doesn’t always work for every customer. My own research into grocery shopping habits found distinctly different shopping mindsets, reinforcing how differently customers can define value.

    In my case, the dollar savings weren’t especially compelling because I was a light user. But 28 hours saved even over a longer period is meaningful. That’s a weekend. That’s multiple evenings back. 

    Even that value is below average time savings, it’s meaningful because that’s the reason I signed up in the first place. And, it’s what made Instacart a unique service. 

    And I never saw it until I went looking.

    Even my renewal email leaned on generic averages and projected savings, instead of showing my actual behavior. No mention of what I personally saved in dollars or time.

    When my usage started to drop off, why wasn’t I reminded:

    • “You’ve already saved 28 hours—what are you doing with that time?”
    • “Want to get even more of your time back?”

    Instead, I got generic messaging about delivery fees.

    Low Hanging Fruit 🍓

    Instacart already has the data—they’re just not activating it in their lifecycle messaging.

    A simple shift to personalized, time-based messaging could:

    • Reinforce the real value of the product
    • Re-engage low-frequency users like me
    • Complement (not replace) cost-based messaging for broader audiences

    Because for some customers, this isn’t about saving money. It’s about buying back time.