Use Case
In-app announcements are a great way to drive active users to engage with your product in other mediums, such as webinars, conferences, blog posts, etc. If communicated at the right place & time, it provides clear information about the event and articulates the value that your users can get out of it.
This guide will focus on creating a side notification modal to inform users about a specific event. We'll cover:
Creating the announcement modal
Placing the guide into a Resource Center
Targeting the correct users
Testing the experience
What metrics will this impact?
The final look of your modal will look similar to the example we created below:
Creating the announcement modal
Let's begin by creating the actual content.
1-) Launch the Chrome Extension to create a new Guide
Navigate to the page in your platform where you'd like to show the announcement modal, and open the Chrome Extension.
Then, click + Guide, enter Guide's info, add a new step and select the "Side Notification" template under the Modal section.
Note: Side Notifications are an excellent choice for general announcements since users can continue interacting with the page. However, for major announcements, we suggest using Modals.
Write a direct headline containing essential information for skim-readers and a body that provides clear information on when and where the event/item will occur. Don't forget to communicate the value that they can get by joining the event/interacting with the item.
2-) Adding & editing the CTA
Remove the pre-populated button that proceeds to the next step by default.
Add a CTA in the slideout that redirects users to a particular URL, as shown below:
3-) Customize
UserGuiding gives you the ability to customize the announcement experience fully.
If applicable, you can add media (gif, image, or video) to highlight the new feature.
You can select the location of the side notification on your end-users screens.
You can also fully customize the look & feel of the Guides with Customized Themes.
If you have a Theme you're ready to use, make sure this modal is using it.
Pro tip: Since this modal will be a one-step Guide, you may want to remove the progress bar & number.
4-) Triggering your feature announcement conditionally
You can control for which user segment and under which conditions your announcement triggers. You can also select the page(s) where it would appear.
You can also set an appearance frequency for your announcement. In this example, the announcement modal will trigger only once when a user from the selected segment arrives at any of the targeted pages. We'll also make it available in the Resource Center in case users want to have a second look.
Placing the guide into a Resource Center
Providing an Announcements section inside a Resource Center will allow users to access information related to other parts of your product ecosystem throughout their subscription period.
To achieve this, you use an existing Resource Center or create a new one so that you can add your announcement as a module and update it as a new event/item pops up.
Targeting the correct users
In this example, we'll target users who have been customers of UserGuiding for more than three weeks. We chose not to show it to younger accounts because we did not want to distract them with too much information as they create content actively & learn their way around the application.
If you think the announcement is relevant only to a specific group of users, you can segment it by user attributes. You can achieve this by sending property to UserGuiding.
Once you decide on the segment, don't forget to set it to the guide you've created.
Pro tip: Once you set a segment to the announcement modal, not only will it be automatically triggered for those users - it'll also become unavailable within the Resource Center for people that fall outside that user segment.
What metrics will this impact?
Increased interaction with other areas of your product, such as webinar attendance, blog page visits, etc.