The document provides guidance on building market traction and understanding users to increase engagement. It discusses how biological factors like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin can be leveraged through techniques like gamification, social proof, and building trust. Specific tactics are recommended like engineering the path to permission, priming users, leveraging loss aversion, and focusing on small meaningful details. The document emphasizes testing assumptions and adjusting based on user behavior and cognitive factors like emotions, resources and mood.

1. Increasing Market Traction
Understanding Your User

2. • CEO & Lead Strategist, Hunter & Bard
• Award Winning Marketing & Branding
Agency
• Previously Professor of Marketing for
Startups at Tel Aviv/ Jaffa Academic
College
• Mentor at: 500 Startups,
• Founding Mentor at: Google Campus
TLV, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator
TLV
• MBA, Kellogg School of Management
Shira Abel

4. “A true unfair advantage is
something that cannot be
easily copied or bought.”

5. Agenda
@shiraabel
Traction - Why I'm Focusing on Behavior
Why It Works
Action Triggers
It Works Even When We Know
Form Follows Function
Small Things Matter
Real Life Examples

6. TRACTION
You might have traction now, you probably don’t. Here’s how you
understand your customer so you can build it.

7. STRATEGY COMES FIRST
A Quick Point

8. @shiraabel
Numbers – in General
 Right now you probably don’t have enough traffic on your
site to test much
 Product Market Fit = 40% of your customers would be
devastated if your product disappeared tomorrow
 Watch your churn rate (keep it below 2% if you’re SaaS –
preferably negative churn)
 10% MoM growth is what’s expected in most accelerators
in Silicon Valley (depending on product)

9. WHY IT WORKS
THE BASICS – the chemicals in our body are biologically
programmed to react to certain things in a specific way

10. Endorphins
 Runners high
 Masks physical pain
 The root of endurance
 The reason laughing feels good
 Games
@shiraabel

11. @shiraabel
Dopamine
 The good feeling of progress and
accomplishment
 Crossing things off lists
 Need to be able to see your goal
(e.g. Corporate Vision)
 The reason why we become “hooked” on notifications from our
phone
 Triggered through variable unexpected rewards
 Highly addictive

12. Serotonin
 Leadership, pride, status
 Branding
 Leader boards
 Social proof
 Raises confidence of the winner and the supporters
 “Mefargen” hebrew word
 Trust + security = confidence = innovation
 Corporate Culture

13. Oxytocin
 Love, friendship, mommy-hood
 Hugging, shaking hands – the touch matters
 Giving time & energy to help for free (money doesn’t
count – more on that later)
 Witnessing acts of human generosity releases oxytocin
 Brand – Corporate Social Responsibility

14. Norepinephrine
 Fight or flight response
 Mobilize brain and body for action
 Helps us be alert / at attention
 Increases blood being pumped
@shiraabel

15. Cortisol
 Stress hormone
 Impairs cognitive performance
 Toxic situations destroy our ability to create
 Paranoid (layoffs does this)
 High stress environments
 Inhibits Oxytocin
@shiraabel

16. ACTION TRIGGERS
You can’t force anyone to do something they don’t want to, but if they
do want to – this will help you get them there

17. @shiraabel
T-Shirt Economy
 Reputation based
 Incentives are about doing something for the love of it NOT
financial reward
 Easier to get someone to do something for free than for less money
(e.g. lawyers would rather do pro bono than get paid less per hour
for the same work)
 Changes the way we perceive the work we do
 When we already have our basic needs met, we’re more likely to do
something for our own joy
 This is where the evangelists should be – that’s why not paying
them is a good thing

18. @shiraabel
Financial Economy
 People judge if something is “worth” their time
 Become less enthusiastic if the work is not paid
according to expectations
 Make sure incentives are aligned with goals
 Proven to be a bad way to build incentives to get
people to work harder
 Studies have shown that for cognitive work, a larger reward
results in worse results
 Loss aversion, however, brings better results
 This will affect the affiliates the most

19. First Choice Brand Effect
“…when the favorite brand
was included… the choice
was made instantly… this…
occurs only for the
respondent’s number one
brand…”
*Decoded, by Phil Barden

20. “Simplicity
changes
behavior.”
- B.J. Fogg

21. The Hook

22. Reward Status Achievement
Self
Expression
Competition Altruism
Points
• • • • •
Levels
• • •
Challenges
• • • • • •
Virtual Goods
• • • • •
Leaderboards
• • • •
Gifting &
Charity • • • •

23. • Points
• Badges(Achievement Symbols)
• Fixed Action Rewards
• Leaderboard
• Progress bar
• Quest Lists
• Win Prize
• High-Five
• Crowning
• Level Up Symphony
• Aura Effect
• Sep-by- Step Tutorial
• Boss Fights
• Virtual Goods
• Build from Scratch
• Collection Set
• Avatar
• Earned Lunch
• Learning Curve
• Protection
• Recruitment
• Monitoring
• Appointment Dynamics
• Fixed Intervals
• Dangling
• Prize Pacing
• Options Pacing
• Patient Feedback
• Count Down
• Throttles
• Moats
• Narrative
• Elitism
• Humanity Hero
• Higher Meaning
• Beginners Luck
• Free Lunch
• Destiny Child
• Co Creator
• Milestone Unlock
• Evergreen Mechanics
• Real-Time Control
• Chain Combos
• Instant feedback
• Boosters
• Blank Fills
• Voluntary Autonomy
• Choice Perception
• Friending
• Social Treasure/Gifting
• SeeSaw Bump
• Group Quest
• Touting
• Bragging
• Water Cooler
• Thank you Economy
• Mentorship
• Social Prod
• Glowing Choice
• MiniQuests
• Visual Storytelling
• Easter Eggs
• Random Rewards
• Obvious Wonder
• Rolling Rewards
• Mischief
• Sudden Effect
• Oracle Effect
• Sunk-Cost Tragedy
• Progress Loss
• FOMO
• Evanescence Opportunity
• Status Quo Sloth
• Scarlet Letter
• Visual Grave
• Weep Tune
MEANING
ACCOMPLISHMENT EMPOWERMENT
UNPREDICTABILITY
AVOIDANCE
SCARCITY
Octalysis
SOCIAL INFLUENCEOWNERSHIP
http://yukaichou.com/
Engagement Tools

24. FORM FOLLOWS
FUNCTION
Building the marketing into the product. Think about what you want
people to do, now reverse engineer it.

25. @shiraabel

26. Watch the Funnel
Acquisition – Learns About Product
Conversion – Signs Up
Buys
Retention – Uses Product
WOM (Sharing)
@shiraabel

27. Engineering Social Proof

28. Engineering Social Proof
Ask for
reviews
in
update
notes

29. Engineering the Path to OK
The user must
do a set of
actions, before
permission is
requested.

30. Engineering the Path to OK
User-triggered
requests
showed the
highest
conversion
rates

31. Engineering the Path to OK
Marking optional
fields only
encourages
‘voluntary over-
disclosure’

32. THESE WORK EVEN WHEN
WE KNOW
Even when we know we’re being manipulated, we’re susceptible to
certain things.

33. Priming

34. DOUBLED VIEWS & REVENUE
Before After
Reciprocity

35. Anchoring

36. @shiraabel
Framing
How you say and do things matters

37. Loss Aversion

38. Inclusion – e.g. Easter Egg

39. Achievement

40. Ask for a small sign in the
window, first
Foot in the Door

41. Mere Exposure
Ear worms work

42. @shiraabel
Social Identity
Theory
Us vs. Them

43. https://kiralynblue.files
.wordpress.com/
2014/02/thinking-‐conf-
‐bias.png
@shiraabel
Confirmation Bias

44. Don’t make
me think
@shiraabel
Analysis Paralysis

45. SMALL THINGS MATTER
Get down to the details

46. How You Say Things Matters
Researchers found that placing the following statement at
the end of an ad… caused their trust scores to jump as
much as 33 percent!’
“You can trust us to do the job for you.”

47. Emotions Vs. Logic
 When numbers are even, e.g. $100 –
we rely on our feelings
 When numbers are exact, e.g. $17.86
we rely on our logic
 It affects negotiation as well…

48.  Fear – Insurance
 Guilt – Mother’s Day
 Trust – Financial
institutions
 Value – Matching prices
 Belonging – Part of our
community
 Competition – Doing better
than the Jones’s
 Instant Gratification – I
want it now
 Leadership – Early adopter
& evangelist
 Trendsetting – What are
the leaders doing?
 Time – Save time
Get Emotional
@shiraabel

49. Point being – When is your customer using your product?
What’s their cognitive level?
Cognitive Resources
 Behavior depends on time of day – we’re more likely to have no patience at
the end of the day, when we’re hungry or tired
 Place – if we’re being interrupted every 30 seconds, our cognitive resources
will be spent – decision making goes down
 How much we’ve had to concentrate – again, using up cognitive resources
We can’t decipher truth from fiction when we’re cognitively spent
Our mood can change simply by putting a pencil between our teeth and forcing
ourselves to smile

51. @shiraabel
Do.
Do not.
Try.
Your options according to Yoda

52. Connect!
@shiraabel
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shiraabel
http://www.facebook.com/shiraabel
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ShiraAbel/ posts
http://www.instagram.com/shiraabel
http://www.pinterest.com/shira_abel

53. Thank
you!

54. All of the stock photos are taken fromhttps://stocksnap.io
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRcHdeUG9Y
http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/cortisol.htm THANK
YOU’S: Dan-ya Shwartz Bar-El & Ze'ev Rosenstein
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fields/
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learned-the-hard
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conversions/
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google-tech-talk
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http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/socialization-of-your-personal- brand_28/
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2004/03/its_a_small_wor.html
http://www.quora.com/Udemy/How-did-Udemy-get-11-000- courses-
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sam-1300451596
http://www.amazon.com/BIC-Cristal-1-0mm-Black-MSLP16-Blk/
dp/B004F9QBE6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE
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from/
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people-pay
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analytics/
http://www.slideshare.net/setlinger/altimeter-social-
analytics081011final
Breakthrough Marketing Plans http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-the-roi-
of-social-media
http://ideas.deloitte.ca/blog/2011/09/social-media-going- beyond-roi/
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/20/the-10-key-mistakes- many-bloggers-
and-writers-make/
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/03/01/the-10-best-facebook- campaigns/
http://www.facebook-studio.com/ http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-
the-roi-of-social-media http://marketingfortomorrow.com/tag/marketing-
tone/
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/the-
psychological-difference-between-1200-and-1167/384993/
References & Reads