Do you want to create habit-forming products? The biggest problem that Affiliate Marketers and product creators face is that they do not get consistent sales and the people who bought the products hardly use them.
So what can you do as a product creator to create products that hook your audience? What do these social media platforms have that hooks people and keeps them scrolling for hours?
To help you out, I will share the principles and elements that your products must have so your audience sticks with them for long!
The Primary Element Of Habit-Forming Products
According to my experience, to sustain and grow in the Affiliate Marketing industry (or any industry), you must create success stories and case studies.
You can create success stories only when your audience uses your products, implements the lessons they learned, and got the results they desired.
So, in a nutshell, if your products help people achieve their desired results, they will hook them.
What Is A Habit & How Does It Help?
Simply put, habits are activities that have become automatic, consistent, and less difficult for you. With the right habits, you’re more efficient, effective, and strategic about the thoughts and actions that lead you towards your goals.
And as Jim Rohn as said, “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
So with the right habits, you automatically enter the action-taking zone and do not need any external motivation.
Your role as an Affiliate Marketer must not be to sell products, your role must be to educate your audience, solve their problems, provide value, and create habits and behaviours that help them grow.
I will reiterate, “Your products should help your audience achieve the results they desire.”
Now, I will share the aspects of habit-forming products.
How Can You Build Habit-Forming Products?
Now that you know the primary element of habit-forming products, I will share the 4 most crucial aspects of them and answer the question: How To Build Habit-Forming Products?
(1) Think How Habit-Forming Companies Think
In your everyday life, you access WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix, etc. According to BroadbandSearch, people spend 2 hours and 27 minutes on social media every day!
So, every day you are scrolling and consuming content or socializing on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for 2 hours and 27 minutes. According to my observation, an individual opens WhatsApp about 300 times every day. The daily opens for Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are 194, 51, and 22, respectively.
These numbers naturally make you think, “What do these apps have that you are hooked to them?”
Social media apps show you the things that you desire. By nature, human beings long for connection and social media apps address that desire. On social media, you usually see content that you regularly consume.
I ran an experiment on Instagram last month where I searched for 5 people and opened their profiles. Neither I followed them nor did I engage with their posts. For an entire month, my feed was filled with profiles and posts related to the profiles I searched for.
So, the product that you create must address or fulfil an innate desire of your audience.
(2) Create An Ecosystem Containing The Habit-Forming Products
Talking from my experience, when you create products that make your audience feel special and appreciated, they stick for long.
For instance, inside my community, I honour students who completed a course, achieved a monthly or quarterly goal, and contributed to society. I invite them to weekly inner circle calls and interview them to know how they achieved their goals or overcame obstacles.
When other students see that someone like them is interviewed for something and honoured on a virtual stage in front of a community of 151+ people, they are encouraged to take action to feel and experience the same honour.
Appreciation is another human desire and I am sure you love going to places where you are appreciated or meeting people who appreciate you.
So, creating a community where every member is appreciated, leads to better retention and people come back for more.
(3) Value Your Audience’s Feedback
When I was working at a digital marketing agency, my opinions were often overlooked and that, more than anything, infuriated me. I despised talking with my seniors or sharing insights as, in my mind, I knew they will not listen to what I had to say.
A place where your opinions do not matter is not worthy of your presence. Similarly, if you create products based on your perception without paying attention to what your audience wants, you will lose customers.
Your audience wants to feel heard and when you take into consideration their feedback and modify your product(s) based on it, they feel important and stick with you as a loyal customer.
More often than not, since your audience is the consumer of your product, their feedback will be unbiased and based on their experience of your product. So, keep your ears open and embrace their feedback, negative or positive.
Since no product is perfect, please do not get offended if your audience’s feedback is negative. Use their negative feedback as a checklist/road map to improve your product, okay?
(4) Your Product(s) Should Be A Painkiller
Whatever you create, it must solve a problem. It should relieve a specific pain of your audience. You can identify the specific problem your audience is facing through market research, online surveys, forums, community calls, etc.
The common problems faced by my audience are as follows:
Since the goal is to create a product that satisfies a problem, when you feel lonely or disconnected, you either go to social media or YouTube to relieve your pain or scratch the itch.
“The ultimate goal of habit-forming products is to solve one problem by addressing people’s pain so that people identify your products as the source of relief.” – Nir Eyal
The X-Factors In Creating Products That Will Build A Community Of Loyal Customers
As an Affiliate Marketer, the way you present information is more important than what you present.
X-Factor #1: Your Energy
During my Master’s, I had professors who taught like a robot. They entered the classroom, opened the presentations, and spoke in a boring voice. They had no energy while teaching and the best I could do was to stay awake!
Similarly, when you present information, you must add your flavour to it. If you like jokes, squeeze in a joke or two within your content. If you like animation, animate the information you present. If you like music, add groovy music to your YouTube videos wherever appropriate.
You should add your flavour because people can sense your energy. If your intention is only to make money, your audience will sense it. Your actions speak louder than your words. So whenever you host a webinar or post a video on YouTube, your aim should be to provide information and to help people.
X-Factor #2: How Do People Feel?
As I shared in the earlier points, make your audience feel loved, appreciated, and cared for. Your content – blog posts, videos, and podcasts – must solve their problems. Your audience should feel that you care.
As my mentor says, “People do not care how much you know until they see how much you care.” Hence, always put your audience’s goals before money, alright?
Your audience will feel cared for only when you create content that solves their problems in a simple way and provides immense value.
X-Factor #3: Support System
Whenever your community asks for help, you should start to create a solution for them.
For example, if one of your community members needs help creating a lead magnet, you should share the steps of how they can create one. You should also share templates of the lead magnets that you have created.
This small gesture helps them and they know that you are there to help them. I know if you have a large community, addressing every member becomes arduous.
What I have done is, I have shared a form with my community members where they can ask questions. From the list of questions, I find the 5-7 commonly asked questions and record videos addressing them.
This helps me in two ways:
- I get content/topic ideas
- My community gets answers to their questions
When you create content that answers your audience’s questions, your content becomes powerful instantly.
X-Factor #4: Simplicity
You must make your products easy to consume for your audience. Although your audience wants in-depth information, they want it in an easy-to-understand language.
For instance, if you are sharing the steps of creating a lead form, you must use extremely simple words.
As per my experience, when I posted videos in simple English on YouTube, the watch duration and retention went up. On the contrary, when I used technical jargon, the viewers drop off within the first minute!
As I said earlier, “People do not care how much you know until they see how much you care.” So, please present information in simple language. Aim to present information in a way that helps your audience understand every word easily, okay?
When Do People Invest In Your Product(s)?
When people feel your product can change their lives, bring about a change, help them achieve a goal or desire, etc., they invest in it. Investment occurs when your audience spends something such as time, effort, and money.
You can create that “I feel good about this product” feeling through success stories of people who used your product(s) and got the results they desired. You can compile success stories through TrustPilot reviews, video testimonials, written testimonials, etc.
As your potential customers go through the testimonials of your students, they build a desire to try your product. The testimonials also assure that your product works and solves the problems your potential customers could be facing.
Conclusion
Do you want to create habit-forming products? The biggest problem that Affiliate Marketers and product creators face is that they do not get consistent sales and the people who bought the products hardly use them.
So what can you do as a product creator to create products that hook your audience? What do these social media platforms have that hooks people and keeps them scrolling for hours?
To help you out, I will share the principles and elements that your products must have so your audience sticks with them for long!
Aspect #1: Think How Habit-Forming Companies Think
Aspect #2: Create An Ecosystem Containing The Habit-Forming Products
Aspect #3: Value Your Audience’s Feedback
Aspect #4: Your Product(s) Should Be A Painkiller
As an Affiliate Marketer, the way you present information is more important than what you present. Hence, the X-Factors in creating products that will build a community of loyal customers are as follows:
X-Factor #1: Your Energy
X-Factor #2: How Do People Feel?
X-Factor #3: Support System
X-Factor #4: Simplicity
