Picture this scenario — your dev team has been working hard for months building a highly-requested, long-awaited feature you know your user base will love. The time has come to ship the release. Do you have a plan to notify your customers of the product changes? 

Announcing product changes effectively and clearly will help build trust and loyalty between you and your users — plus, customers want to stay informed and discern how the changes will affect their user experience. Whether it's a whole new version or just a minor update, product updates are what keeps customers engaged and coming back. 

However, building in-app product announcements in-house can be costly, time-consuming, and challenging to maintain — and your dev team probably has a backlog that deserves more attention. With Lou, you can launch new feature announcements for free in just minutes, with no dev time required. Let's dive into how to nail product announcements to keep users engaged.

In-product announcements are more effective than email

Many SaaS companies have started leveraging in-product announcements to excite and engage their users. According to research, 84% of customers believe the experiences provided by a company are as important to them as its services or products.

Those who use in-product messaging see a massive four-fold increase in app retention and around a 30% increase in app launches. 

With in-product messaging, you can bring attention to the announcement at the right time — when users are engaging with your product. The user is already logged in, so they're more likely to be ready to try out a new feature.  

Email announcements, on the other hand, run a higher risk of getting lost in your user’s cluttered inboxes. While emails may be a solid component of your announcement strategy, we recommend using in-product announcements in addition to email to truly get your point across. 

Design an engaging new feature announcement

There's an art to designing new feature announcements. You should communicate in a way that will excite your users. You should also be sure to include only the most pertinent information, as to not overwhelm them. In-product announcements should contain compelling messaging, be visually appealing, and have a clear call-to-action. 

The necessary factors in building a great product announcement include:

  • Call-to-Action: allow users to test the new feature immediately

  • Engaging visuals: Help the user picture the value they'll receive from trying out the new feature 

  • Compelling content: Keep it short and straightforward — if further information is needed, include a link to an article or blog post where users can learn more

Personalize your messaging strategy 

Personalization is critical when it comes to making in-product announcements. Personalized messages are 29% more likely to be read than generic ones. Tailor product announcements to reach the user at the right time with targeted messaging will spark a user's interest. 

Creating a personalized messaging strategy for your product announcement is easy to do with Lou's segmentation feature. The process looks like this:

  • With one click, use Lou's out-of-the-box segmentation that targets announcements to all users, returning users, new users, or power users.

  • Set up custom segments to personalize announcements to any segment of users you'd like: admin users, users from a specific company, users in a particular location, etc.

Your organization works hard to design new features and continuously improve your product. Implement these strategies to make sure your hard work doesn't go unnoticed and keep your users notified of exciting new updates at the right time. 

Published on March 31st, 2021