Contents of this section:

What is Zobaze's Core value proposition?

Zobaze helps SME business owners take full control of their operations by providing real-time visibility into sales, profits, and cash flow. It also replaces manual tasks, such as traditional pen-and-paper methods for managing store operations, saving them time & helping them organize their business more efficiently.

How does the user experience the core value proposition?

Users can make sales using the Zobaze POS app, which generates receipts that can be printed or shared. Their sales and stock data are transformed into comprehensive reports, providing valuable insights.

In this way, users experience the core value proposition of the product, gaining real-time visibility into their business operations, seamless sales processes, and the ability to make informed decisions that save time and money.

Who is an active user for Zobaze?

Someone who engages with a product's core value prop in certain time period.

An active Zobaze user is someone who makes sales per week.

What is the Natural frequency?

Number of times a user interacts with your product over a period of time

The Zobaze POS app is used daily for making sales. Power users engage with the app throughout the day. The fact that our users have spent over 2.5 billion hours in our app - approx. 29,000 years - demonstrates its frequent and valuable use.

What challenge is Zobaze facing currently?

Our current challenge is a low retention rate compared to our total user base. While the users who do retain (power users) engage daily and show exponential growth in their activity, their numbers are quite small. In fact, 76% of the users drop off before Day 1.

Observation: Power users, who recognize the app's value, return daily, while inactivated users tend to drop off before they experience the app's core value.

Solution: The onboarding flow, detailed in the onboarding project, helps in activating the users.

Users who cross this stage themselves understand the value of our product - activated users - are becoming power users. These users engage daily, interact with multiple features, and use them in depth.

While, Casual and core users, on the other hand, engage with very few features regardless of how frequently they're using our product.

So, Zobaze should prioritize on BREADTH engagement framework to encourage users to explore all features & hook them to the product.

• Frequency - Increasing how often users engage with the product.
• Depth - Enhancing how effectively users utilize core features of the product.
• Breadth - Encouraging users to explore and adopt additional features of the product.

Actions that make someone an active user

A comprehensive definition of an active user is: someone who repeatedly performs a key action that directly aligns with our core value proposition.

For a SaaS platform on a freemium model, an active user is someone who performs a core action within a specific time frame.

Core Engagement Metrics

Now that we've defined our core value proposition and identified the key features that align with it, we can determine that an active user is someone who uses these key features within a specific time period (weekly, in our case), it's time to define those Core Metrics.

Example: Let's say we've identified active user as someone who generates "M" MRR, "A" ARR, renews subscription regularly, spends "T" amount of time everyday on the app, generates "R" number of receipts, and views reports "V" times a day. Every campaign & strategy we create should be designed to help all users achieve these metrics.

Note: Each department may interpret these metrics differently based on their JTBD. Ex, Marketing focuses on DAU/MAU, CS on +ve vs. -ve reviews, and Tech on app crash rates, all aligned with user engagement & business goals.

Let's welcome our ICP

Note: All data has been collected through direct user calls - conversations with active users who have been using Zobaze POS for over three years - and validated via surveys with insights from 260+ users.

As far as the Engagement and Retention are concerned, it's crucial to understand the behavior traits of each ICP, not just their basic differences.

Survey references

User segmentation - basis commitment

Let's turn all the stones....

Advanced Segmentation - basis RFM analysis

With the data we have, let's focus on the three core segments:

• Loyal Customers.
• At Risk Customers.
• Hibernating Customers.

Before designing engagement campaigns, it is important to consider the following points;

• User segmentation: Who is our target audience?
• Problem statement: Why have we chosen them for this campaign?
• Reasons: What are the factors that make them a challenge for us?
• Goal of the campaign: What outcome are we expecting from this campaign?
• By: How will we execute this campaign?
• Channel: What channel will we use & why?
• Offer & Message: How will we encourage users to take actions they aren't currently doing?
• Timing: When is the right moment to pitch?

Link to the Whimsical

Campaign Experiments

Note: Users selling on Facebook & Instagram may be relatively less. We're choosing In-app, WhatsApp, and Email.

Experiment 01

Feature introduced: Inventory management.

Audience: Casual users using only for billing.

Problem: Users engaging with only one of the key features.

Reason:

• Only billing is a free feature & inventory is paid.
• Unaware of the feature's potential.

Goal: Convert Casual users to Core by nudging them to use Inventory features.

Channel: WhatsApp.

Offer (discount): 25% on Monthly plan.

Timing: Very next day user makes a sale on our app, before they open it again.

Message:

Rationale:

• 25% is highlighted with a positive message about the previous day's sales, and hope is built for improvement.
• The importance of Inventory management feature is conveyed.
• What's included in the Premium is also communicated to create a sense of FOMO.

Metrics to track:

Experiment 02

Feature introduced: Staff management.

Audience: Core users having more than one business account.

Problem: Users engaging with only a few key features - billing & inventory.

Reason:

• Friction in purchasing Premium for different businesses.
• Unaware of the feature's potential.

Goal: To convert Core users to Power by deepening their engagement Breadth.

Channel: In-app.

Offer (credit): Buy one Get one free.

Timing: Every time user switches to another business account in the app.

Message:

Rationale:

• Content is personalized with user name & pain point.
• Offer is highlighted for the user to read the entire message.
• Aha moment - running business from anywhere - is communicated.
• Feature is introduced in brief for user awareness.
• Details of the offer are at last, post communicating the key contents.

Metrics to track:

Experiment 03

Feature introduced: Advanced Sales Reports.

Audience: Core users who frequently make sales.

Problem: Users engaging with only a few key features - billing & inventory.

Reason: Unaware of the feature's potential.

Goal: To convert Core users to Power by deepening their engagement Breadth.

Channel: Email.

Offer (value): Save 50% of your wastages.

Timing: Just before the user closes their store, the intent to know the sales made for the day is usually high.

Message:

Rationale:

• Business value & how the feature helps is communicated in the primary heading with a clear CTA.
• Sub features are introduced in a brief for users' awareness.
• Saving time & wastages is an AHA moment for our users.

Metrics to track:

Experiment 04

Feature introduced: Staff management.

Audience: Core users having more than one business account.

Problem: Users engaging with only a few key features - billing & inventory.

Reason:

• Friction in purchasing Premium for different businesses.
• Unaware of the feature's potential.

Goal: To convert Core users to Power by deepening their engagement Breadth.

Channel: WhatsApp

Offer (credit): Buy one Get one free.

Timing: 08:00 AM, where our ICP usually checks WhatsApp with chai/coffee in one hand.

Message:

Rationale:

• Content is personalized with user name & pain point.
• Offer is highlighted for the user to read the entire message.
• Aha moment - running business from anywhere - is communicated.
• Details of the offer are at last, post communicating the key contents.

Metrics to track:

Experiment 05

Feature introduced: Advanced Sales Reports.

Audience: Casual users who only make sales.

Problem: Users engaging with only one key feature - billing.

Reason: Unaware of the feature's potential.

Goal: To convert Casual users to Core by deepening their engagement Breadth.

Channel: Push Notification.

Offer (value): Save 50% of your wastages.

Timing: Just before the user closes their store, the intent to know the sales made for the day is usually high.

Message:

Rationale:

• Right data & how the feature helps is communicated.
• Saving wastages is an AHA moment for our users.
• Urgency is created with content style (Hurry up & Stock Alert).

Let's delve into Active user retention

Considering our most purchased plan, monthly plan, we're using data from the last calendar year to analyze retention.

The retention curve flattens starting from Month 03, which suggests that our user base is reaching a stable level of engagement. By this point, most of the churn has already occurred, and the remaining users are engaging consistently.

Industry standards for B2B SaaS

B2B SaaS typically has better retention rates because businesses often rely on these solutions for critical operations, making them less likely to churn.

Reference link

Deep-dive into understanding Zobaze retention

To have a microscopic view of retention, we need to zoom in onto three things;

• Which ICPs drive best retention.
• What acquisition channels bring in users with higher retention, and
• Which sub-features contribute most to retention.

Let's look into data.........again.

ICPs driving best retention

Let's analyze the paying users based on key factors such as business type, country, age group, and the type of subscription they have chosen.

Key insights:

Business type: Categorizing paying users according to their industry.

Country: Understanding geographical distribution of paying users.

Age groups: Identifying the age demographics that are most likely to subscribe.

Subscription Type: Examining the preference for monthly vs. yearly plans.

Note: The insights below are based on original data collected directly from active users through user calls and surveys, for the accuracy of user behavior.

To put it briefly: Retailers in the Philippines, aged 25-35, with a staff count of 1 to 3, are opting for monthly plan. This is followed by retailers from India, Malaysia, Nigeria, and others.

Insight: Basis the Industry (Retail), age (25-35), & Staff count (1-3), we can design all our campaigns.

Acquisition channels driving the most retained users

Let's analyze the channels based on key factors such as installs, engagements, transactions made, and revenue generated.

Note: The insights below are based on original data collected from Google Analytics and Revenue forms.

The organic channel is clearly leading in driving the most installs, engagement, retention, and revenue. If we consider the user journey:

Users search for an application to solve their problem on PlayStore & Google browser. They explore various options, review features and user feedbacks, assess the product's potential, try it out, and then engage. Many of the users convert to paying customers and renew their subscriptions consistently.

Sub features contribute to most retention

A quick recap of what Zobaze does: Zobaze supports SME business owners in organizing their operations like: Inventory management, sales, tracking cash flows, staff management, receipt keeping, and so on.

Features:

1. Inventory Management: Add inventory with pricing, plus get alerts for low and expiring stock.
2. Sales Counter: A built-in counter for making sales, with receipt generation for print or sharing.
3. Report Tracking: Detailed sales reports covering daily profits, expenses, top-selling stocks, staff, and customer activity.
4. Staff Management: Add staff with role-based permissions, and manage attendance and payroll.
5. Online Storefront: Users can sell online via a website created and hosted by Zobaze.

Among these features, key features that convey core value proposition is the Sales counter, which allows users to make sales using Zobaze POS app. So, which sub-features driving engagement that in-turn drive retention?

The sub features with the highest event count (most usage) are Reports & inventory management.

Reasons for Churn

Our core action is using our app for making sales i.e., creating receipts, for which users must add items to their inventory. We've identified users who canceled their subscriptions but have over 10 inventory and generated more than 25 receipts. Below is a breakdown of the reasons for churn, categorized into voluntary and involuntary reasons.

Note: We can only solve for Voluntary reasons, for involuntary reasons are out of our control.

Wondering why voluntary cancellation reasons are more in number than involuntary ones? I was also puzzled by the same question, and the data that helped answer it is provided below.

What's the silver lining? Voluntary churn is something within our control and can be addressed, unlike involuntary churn. With an optimized retention strategy, this issue can be solved.

Negative actions

You fell for someone and started chatting or calling them daily to impress, roaming around their house just to catch a glimpse, following them, and planning to celebrate their birthdays. One day, they accepted, and you stopped all your efforts. Before you even realize it, the other person begins to notice this shift and starts complaining - and this, my friend, is dangerous.. even lethal.

These are Negative actions - behaviors that our users were actively engaged in before, but have started moving back.

For a B2B SaaS business like Zobaze, Negative actions would be;

Let's explore some industry standards. Reference link

Evidence

Before designing any resurrection campaigns, it is important to understand whom we targeting and validate the approach using Opportunity vs. Risk framework. This is crucial because we are dealing with users who have left us and are most likely dissatisfied, making them more susceptible to being offended and acting against us.

Let's note down top 5 reasons for Voluntary churn:

• Lack of value; In paid plan over free.
• Pricing issues; looking for discounts.
• Poor User Experience; App crashes & bugs during the time of Key operations.
• Unaware of USP over competitors; moving to affordable competitors with limited features.
• Unaware of product's potential & features.

Opportunity vs. Risk analysis

Before planning any Resurrection campaign, it's essential to conduct an Opportunity vs. Risk analysis to prevent exacerbating the issue.

Campaign visuals

Note: The success metric, other metrics to track, and detail campaign details are mentioned in the table & the opportunity vs. risk analysis above. Below are only the visual representations of the campaigns.

Campaign 01

Feature introduced: Reports.

Channel: In-app.

Offer (credit): Free access to Premium feature for one month

Message:

Campaign 02

Feature introduced: Inventory.

Channel: WhatsApp.

Offer (credit): 25% off on Premium plan.

Message:

Campaign 03

Feature introduced: Update available

Channel: PlayStore - Promotional Content

Offer (credit): Free Trial extended.

Message:

Campaign 04

Feature introduced: POS Billing.

Channel: Email.

Offer (credit): Buy Two Get Two Free.

Message:

Campaign 05

Feature introduced: Inventory Reports.

Channel: PlayStore - Push Notification.

Offer (credit): Free Trial of the feature.

Message:

Finally the project is done & dusted!!!!!!