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What is Product Adoption and Why Is It Important?

Author: Simone Kohl

· 4 mins read

Product design is about creating products that people use. Product adoption is how you can generate customers and create your position in the market. It is basically the path from the unknown product to use.

What is Product Adoption? 

  • Product acceptance begins at the moment when the user uses the functions of the product. It is the moment when the user learns about the product and uses it. The point of this stage of the Journey is to turn visitors into users. 
  • Product acceptance can be expressed by the behavior of the user who clicks on the product for the first time. This behavior you need to identify. The goal is to analyze which actions lead the user to do what they want to achieve with the product. 
  • To take action to optimize, you need to consider several factors. 

How to Measure Product Acceptance:

  1. What behavior does the user exhibit in terms of engagement and retention. 
  2. How interested are new users in the product 
  3. Through which acquisition channels are new users coming in 
  4. Do new users interact with the product
  5. How often and how much do users interact with the product during their lifecycle 

Without understanding product adoption, it can be difficult to improve product adoption rates. That’s why it pays to invest in understanding user behavior and properly measuring and breaking down user behavior. It also helps to put yourself in the shoes of the project team and test meaningful optimization on the product. 

Metrics for Product Adoption

With analytics tools like Mixpanel or Amplitude, you can measure and monitor product adoption. You can measure where you stand with product adoption with these three metrics. 

  1. Adoption Rate 
    • This is the percentage of new users to the total number of users. You can calculate it by taking new users x 100 and dividing by the number of total users.
      • Example: If you have 33 new users and 300 total users, the adoption rate is 33/300 x 100 = 11%. 
  2. Time-to-Target Action 
    • This is the time it takes for a user to use the product or for an existing customer to use a new feature for the first time. 
  3. Users Who Performed the Target Action for the First Time
    • This metric consists of the customers who performed a function in a given time. 

Process and Stages of Product Adoption

There are 5 phases in the process of adopting a new product:

  1. Product Awareness in Product Adoption
    • In the first phase, the user becomes aware of the product. The visitor must be interested in the product. However, he lacks information in this phase. By becoming familiar or acquainted with the product, the will to learn more about it also grows. 
  2. Interest
    • Then the interest grows in the second phase and the potential customer searches for information about the product. It depends on the product itself, whether it is a new innovative product. The user then searches for information about the product and considers buying it, weighing various factors. He finds out about the advantages and disadvantages, the price or the location, for example. 
  3. Evaluation
    • In the third phase, product evaluation, the user can consider whether he wants to try the product and whether the attempt makes sense. The user considers whether the product meets his or her requirements. If the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for the potential customer, he will decide whether he wants to try the product. 
  4. Trial Phase
    • The trial phase is the fourth phase that the user goes through. He wants to try the product so he can assess its value. Here the user will use the product and test it on a smaller scale such as a small quantity of samples. If he is satisfied with it, then he will decide to use the product on a larger scale and a regular basis. 
  5. Acceptance
    • The last phase is that of acceptance. The user decides to use the product to its full extent and also regularly. For the user, the product is perceived as new and useful at this moment. Therefore, in this phase, he decides to use this product because he is convinced that it will help him solve his problem. 
    • How successful this phase is can be seen directly in sales. You can also use visibility as a benchmark. 

Product Adoption Curve 

Some people adopt new products faster than others. A person usually falls into one of five adoption groups, depending on how early or late they adopt the innovation. You need to reach each group differently, using different communication channels and messages. 

  1. Innovators 
    • These individuals are usually the first to buy a new product. These users are more willing to take risks and try new things. They give good feedback and advice on product development. For this group, the product does not have to be perfect yet, they like to give improvements that you can use to optimize their product.
  2. Early Adopters 
    • This group is more focused on daily and long-term users. This group offers good insights on marketing strategy success and positioning. They want a quick and customized approach from the product and a product that solves their problems. 
  3. Early Majority 
    • The early majority offers them rapid market growth and growth potential. This group is a sign that their product will be accepted in the market. Customers are best reached with the help of case studies or testimonials. If you can reach this group, it can be a great advancement for the product. 
  4. Late Majority 
    • This is usually a conservative group of people who are less likely to make changes and less likely to notice the product. No new information is delivered here, the focus here should be on overcoming the reasons that deterred users from making a previous purchase. 
  5. Latecomers 
    • Users at this stage are not sure about the benefits of the product for themselves. At this point, the market may be saturated or the competition may be too strong. This is the time to think about new innovations or consider new offerings.

Why is Product Adoption So Important? 

Product adoption is therefore important to encourage the customer to discover new features of a product or to become a customer in the first place. This also helps to retain the customer to remain a customer in the long term.

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