Wyrwane z kontekstu – “Reward the passionates”

W często cytowanym przeze mnie serwisie “52 Weeks of UX”, w artykule Reward the passionates bardzo ciekawy przykład, w jaki sposób można wykorzystać zaangażowanie i satysfakcję istniejących użytkowników, w celu osiągniecia realnych korzyści.

Jest to szczególnie godne uwagi w Polsce, gdzie w większości strategie pozyskiwania użytkowników w przedsięwzięciach e-commerce (zwłaszcza na fali POIG 8.1) sprowadzają się do zakupu ruchu przez Google AdWords.

(…) Dropbox did what lots of other startups do…they paid for traffic. They used Google adwords to drive traffic to their site…purchasing advertisement placement on the keywords associated with their product.

Dropbox quickly discovered, however, that the cost of this strategy was very expensive. They needed to run $300 worth of ads to get one single person through to become a paying customer. And given that Dropbox could expect the lifetime value of each customer to be around $100, they were actually losing $200 each time that happened.

So instead Dropbox tried a completely different approach: they offered a double-sided incentive in which existing users could refer the service to their friends and colleagues. The new users, when they signed up for the service,  would get additional storage space for free. What makes this a double-sided incentive was that the person who referred the newcomer would also get additional space for free, permanently. In this way Dropbox was attempting to drive new business not by figuring out the right keywords that work, but by rewarding the most passionate people who already use their product. And, as a result, Dropbox doesn’t need to advertise anymore.

(…) So the lesson of Dropbox is this: your existing, passionate customers (the people who have gone through the usage lifecycle) are the most powerful asset you have. They know why your product is great and they can communicate that to their social network better than you can. They can sell it better because they’re experiencing it every day and they’re not biased in the way you are. In short: they tend to be much more influential than you.