In-App Training: Benefits, Types, and How to Build It
Your users are signed up, logged in, and have experienced the initial onboarding flows, reaching the ‘aha moment’ and activation. Great job! But to drive user retention, you need to continue demonstrating value and turning them into power users.
In-app training is key to achieving this. While initial onboarding covers core features, secondary and advanced features are often overlooked. These features, though not essential at first, can become critical for user retention later. To keep users engaged, you must guide them to explore these advanced functionalities.
This article will explore how to use in-app training to transition activated users into power users and advocates.
Summary of in-app training in SaaS
- In-app training is the process of providing interactive guidance and educational content directly on top of your product’s user interface.
- It stands to reason that the more educated and informed your users are, the longer they’ll stick around. In short, in-app training will drive digital adoption and reduce your churn.
- There are now a few code-free ways you can implement to deliver in-app training to your activated users, which include:
- The first, and most common, is a walkthrough. The walkthrough starts with a trigger, and the goal is for your user to adopt a certain feature of your product.
- User checklists are another effective in-app training format. They provide a step-by-step guide that users can follow at their own pace.
- Another powerful option for in-app training is self-serve in-app tutorials. These tutorials function similarly to the educational materials you’d find in your knowledge base, but with a key advantage: users can access them directly within your product.
- Finally, you have modals. These are pop-up screens that appear for specific features.
- Now that you know why in-app training is so effective, it’s time to look at adding it to your product. It’s good to think of this in separate stages:
- Strategy
- Implementation
- Measuring (& Optimization)
- Some great in-app training examples to look at include Attention Insights, Grammarly, Figma, and Asana.
- Want to build effective in-app training? Book a demo to get started!
What is in-app training?
In-app training is the process of providing interactive guidance and educational content directly on top of your product’s user interface. It helps users understand and make the most of your software’s features right when they need it.
It typically encompasses in-app guidance like interactive walkthroughs, onboarding checklists, etc.
Why is in-app training important?
It stands to reason that the more educated and informed your users are, the longer they’ll stick around. In short, in-app training will drive digital adoption and reduce your churn.
Here’s how…
The diagram above shows a typical user journey from purchase to advocacy.
Once users make a purchase, your initial onboarding kicks in with product walkthroughs, checklists, and modals to help them reach the Aha! Moment and become activated.
But activation is just stage two of five. They haven’t reached the retention stage yet and could still churn. This is where in-app training comes in. It teaches activated users about other features, making them engage more deeply and see greater value. This shifts your product from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘must-have,’ moving them toward advocacy.
The further they advance in their user journey, the less likely they are to churn. In the “Expansion” and “Advocacy” stages, they not only stick around but also upgrade their plans and promote your product.
While initial onboarding pushes users toward activation, in-app training propels them to expansion and advocacy, making it crucial for long-term success.
Common in-app training formats
When it comes to new user onboarding – you will hardly find a SaaS product without any form of onboarding: be it interactive walkthroughs (29% of SaaS businesses have it), product tours (35%), onboarding emails or video tutorials (check out our ‘State of SaaS onboarding 2023’ research on 100 SaaS companies to find out more!). However, when it comes to in-app training (or secondary feature onboarding) – a lot of companies seem at a loss how to do it.
Most don’t do it at all – overwhelming your service team with increased support tickets and risking increased churn.
Luckily, there are now a few code-free ways you can implement to deliver in-app training to your activated user:
Interactive walkthroughs
The first, and most common, is a walkthrough. The walkthrough starts with a trigger, and the goal is for your user to adopt a certain feature of your product:
- start from a checklist for users who meet specific conditions (e.g. they are actively using certain primary features of your app and have been your users for a while)
- when the user clicks on an item from the checklist, trigger a driven action with helpful tooltips guiding the user to adopting the secondary feature
- when the user has engaged with the feature and reached the goal of the experience, tick the item off the checklist and celebrate the user’s new win (this acts as positive psychological reinforcement).
User checklists
User checklists are another effective in-app training format. They provide a step-by-step guide that users can follow at their own pace. Here’s how they work:
- Checklists appear within the app, offering a list of tasks for users to complete.
- Each task corresponds to a specific feature or function, ensuring users engage with important aspects of your product.
- As users complete tasks, the checklist updates, providing a sense of progress and achievement.
Self-serve in-app tutorials
Another powerful option for in-app training is self-serve in-app tutorials.
These tutorials function similarly to the educational materials you’d find in your knowledge base, but with a key advantage: users can access them directly within your product.
Companies often integrate self-serve materials into an in-app resource center. This centralized hub can house various self-help tools like:
- announcement of new features
- product documentation
- FAQs and troubleshooting guides
In-app modals
Finally, you have modals. These are pop-up screens that appear for specific features.
Nowadays, they’ll contain videos or screenshots that show users how to use the feature or accomplish a certain task.
What makes in-app training so effective?
There are plenty of ways you can educate users, from email sequences to self-serve help docs, and one-on-one teaching to webinars. But what makes in-app training so effective?
Here are three main reasons:
- It’s interactive – Let’s consider Miro’s user onboarding flow for example: users had to engage with the product to progress through the in-app training. This hands-on approach is far more effective than simply telling them what to do. Learning by doing helps users retain information better.
- It’s contextual – Contextual onboarding means giving the right message to the right user at the right time. In-app messages allow users to learn at their own pace without overwhelming them. They focus on what they need when they need it, making the process personalized and efficient.
- It’s accessible – Unlike emails or webinars that can be ignored, or self-serve docs that require effort to find, in-app training is right there, just a click away. This makes it easy and convenient for users to access training as they use your product.
These factors make in-app training a highly effective way to educate new users and boost product adoption.
How to create in-app guidance for your product
Now that you know why in-app training is so effective, it’s time to look at adding it to your product.
It’s good to think of this in separate stages:
- Strategy
- Implementation
- Measuring (& Optimization)
I’ll explain each in turn…
1: In-app training strategy
Adding in-app training to your product without a clear, defined strategy is a waste of time. It won’t work effectively, and you’ll spend weeks or even months trying to get it right.
When I say “strategy”, I’m not talking about a large document that details every single aspect of what you’re going to do. That’s overkill.
But you do need to have an idea of what you’re trying to achieve with every bit of training you add.
In other words, you need to decide on who it’s for, what it’s going to teach them, and how it’ll work.
NOTE: You need to do this for each training course because each will have slightly different strategies.
In terms of who, it’s no good just saying that any user should complete the in-app training. A user who has only just activated doesn’t need to use a tertiary feature yet, so the training may not be meant for them.
Your best bet is to make it so the in-app training is aimed at users who have spent X number of hours in the product, or who have activated certain specific features. This way, you know they’re ready for the in-app training.
As for what it’s going to teach them, the obvious answer is “how to use feature Y”. But a better approach is to think in terms of use cases. Rather than teach them how to use a feature, your in-app training should teach them how to achieve something.
Finally, the method of delivery. For complex features, your training will need to be in-depth with plenty of tooltips and supporting information. For simpler features, you might just be able to show a modal that introduces it.
2: In-app training implementation
Once you have your strategy, you need to add the training to your product.
There are several tools that you can use to do this, or you can even code it yourself. However, this is Userpilot’s blog, so I’m going to focus on how Userpilot can help you add in-app training.
Besides, it’s one of the easiest ways of doing it!
First, you need to create your experience. You can use a range of different elements to do this.
I recommend that you start with an introductory modal. This should explain what the in-app training will help users to do. It’s good to include a benefit here too.
Then, the training itself should consist of tooltips and driven actions. Tooltips are used to give extra context and information. Driven actions are used to make the in-app training interactive.
With driven actions, you can force users to engage with the product. You can add clicks, hovers, and even text inputs.
Once you’ve created your experience, you need to trigger it. Again, this is easy to do with Userpilot.
If you have specific users in mind, then you can set it so the in-app training will only appear for those users. For example, you might want to target users who have logged in 50 times.
An alternative way of triggering the experience is based on behavior. You could include a button that opens the training or other behaviors such as scrolling to a certain part of the product or reaching a specific page.
If you’re still not sure if training is good to go, you can enable it in a staging environment before officially letting it go live. And again, this is possible with Userpilot.
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3: Measuring your in-app training
But your work isn’t quite finished. You need to make sure your in-app training is as effective as it can be.
That means you need to constantly measure your analytics. Userpilot offers great functionality in this department.
You can see the percentage of users that complete each training experience. If this number is low, then your training isn’t engaging enough. That’s not a good sign and suggests you need to improve it.
You can take this idea even further by using product usage analytics to measure user behavior after they complete the in-app training.
As any good product manager will tell you, your work is never done, and your product is never truly finished. The same can be said for in-app training. You need to constantly measure and optimize it to maximize its effectiveness.
Amazing examples of in-app training
I’m going to finish by sharing some of my favorite examples of in-app training. Hopefully, these will show you how powerful in-app training can be and will give you some inspiration for your product.
Attention Insight’s in-app training
Attention Insight is an AI-powered tool offering attention heatmap analysis of websites, ads, and other designs.
It provides a great example of how you can add different types of guides to your product as part of your in-app training.
As users sign up, they will see an onboarding checklist. It encompasses actions users need to take to experience product value.
There will be pop-ups of interactive walkthroughs as users click on each task. This enables users to pick up the product when they feel like it – no pushy training but rather one step at a time.
Their approach to in-app training has helped them boost the user activation rate by 47% since implementation. Learn how Userpilot helps them find success through effective in-app training with our Attention Insights case study.
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Grammarly’s in-app training
Grammarly – a writing assistance platform excels at guiding users through its features with a seamless and effective in-app training process.
By utilizing empty states and in-app walkthroughs, they transform potential friction points into valuable learning opportunities.
As new users sign up, instead of seeing a generic “No documents found” message, Grammarly presents them with a sample document filled with common writing errors. This instantly demonstrates the tool’s value proposition. There will also be a walkthrough to guide users through the key functions of Grammarly.
Figma’s in-app training
Figma is a powerful, cloud-based design tool that is gaining immense popularity, particularly for user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design.
It provides a great example of in-app walkthroughs that feature progress bars. Progress bars help reinforce the idea of a guided journey, making the process of learning Figma’s interface and core functionalities feel less intimidating and more achievable.
When you enter the application for the first time, you will see a quick walkthrough of their key features. It utilizes a series of numbered steps (also a form of progress bar), visually indicating your progress as you navigate through.
When you click on any feature for the first time, in this example, a new Figma file, there is again a short walkthrough providing smart tips. It also comes with a progress bar to notify you of the progress you make.
Asana’s in-app training
Asana is a task-management app, designed to help teams collaborate and keep track of who’s doing what.
It also includes a fantastic example of how your in-app training could help with expanding users and encouraging them to upgrade.
If you click on Asana’s “Portfolios” feature from the primary navigation, you’re greeted with this full-screen video:
It guides you through the feature, focusing on what it will help you to achieve.
Underneath the video, a clear CTA is inviting you to try it out for free. Clicking that button takes you to the pricing page where you need to upgrade to try the feature.
This is an effective way of prompting more advanced users to upgrade. They’re the ones likely to explore the product and come across this feature. Chances are they’re also more likely to need it.
The video then enables them to see the feature in action, showing them how beneficial it would be.
Conclusion
By providing interactive and contextual guidance, it helps users discover the full value of your product and encourages deeper engagement.
Want to build effective in-app training? Book a demo to get started!
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