4 Strategic Tactics That A High-retention Product Needs

Q: "How can I design my product for high retention from the start?"

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When it comes to retention, Product Managers are mostly taught to use tactics that attack disengagement symptoms.

Often, "conversational" & "product bumpers" are suggested to force users to find value quickly and keep the product on top of mind.

Examples of such "bumpers": reminder emails, in-app messages, SMS notifications, weekly digests, newsletters etc.

Now, all these tactics have their place.

However, the retention story of your product needs to be more strategic than that.

I've seen 4 areas that popular products get right from the beginning.

Of course, it goes without saying that they first ensure they solve a real problem for the customer in an emphatic way before adopting the following:

Exclusive Creation

Does your platform enable users to create something valuable? If yes, can that "something" be modified exclusively on your product because it isn't easily transferrable? That might be your secret sauce.

Ex: Products like Miro/Canva/Figma allow you to develop whiteboards, social media graphics & prototypes.

However, while these can be exported to shareable formats like PDF, they can only be modified within their product platform, locking in users.

Abundant Integrations

A product that solves a problem AND keeps the customer's tech stack consistent earns itself a higher rung on the retention ladder.

It's also like a dodgy piece in a Jenga game - no one wants to pull it out as it might cause the structure to fall apart.

The configuration investment alone raises the barriers to exit.

Example: Hubspot does a great job to hook in with Wordpress, Slack, Zoom, Quickbooks & other software.

Other CRMs do too, but once the circuit has been laid out, it deflates the motivation to exit.

Improving with Data

If your product gets better (more personalized or effective) when more data is added, customers will find themselves in an "escalating commitment" to keep benefiting from that value.

Example: Gong offers deeper insights & coaching recommendations for your sales team as it captures more recordings.

And Grammarly becomes better the more it analyzes your writing.

Network effects

Some products gain more value when teams use them together.

That kicks in network effects as the platform becomes more "sticky" because of the growing community that's using it, reducing the need to migrate.

Example: The more team members exchange messages on Slack, the harder it will be for them collectively to transit to another collaboration app.