Changing Users' Preconceptions at First Sight

From "Who pays for an alarm app?" to "This is worth paying for!"

Since 2020, Alarmy has been developing premium features specifically for users who struggle to wake up and launched a subscription model. Over the first year after launch, as we grew this subscription model, we monitored user feedback and discovered something interesting.

The stark contrast between subscribers and free users

The temperature gap in how paying subscribers versus free users perceived our subscription product was massive.

When analyzing subscriber data, we not only saw high retention but also a tendency toward a Smiling retention curve. We heard things like, "This much money is nothing for starting my morning successfully," or "Considering the money I'd spend on cabs when I'm late, this is cheap." On the flip side, feedback from free users sounded more like, "Why would anyone pay for an alarm app?" or "It feels too expensive."

You might just brush this off as the natural difference between free and paid users, but to me, this felt like a positioning problem rooted in mental accounting.

Mental Accounting: The ledger in everyone's mind

Mental accounting refers to the psychological ledger people keep in their heads; it's the concept that the value of money feels different depending on what it's being spent on. Simply put, spending $100 on your health might not feel like a waste, but spending $10 to download a simple utility app could feel like a rip-off.

In that regard, I thought it was crucial to position Alarmy not as a simple utility app, but as an app that takes full responsibility for your morning—"an app that makes you start your day successfully" or "an app that creates a miracle morning."

Ultimately, to change Alarmy's position in users' mental accounting, we decided to revamp the onboarding experience—the very first thing they encounter after installing the app.

So, how did we change it?

While our previous onboarding merely aimed to introduce what the app was, the new onboarding was designed to maximize the perceived value for the user through the following three steps.

1. Raising the problem

To make users empathize with the problem and actually want to solve it, we raised the issue in the following ways:

• Segmenting users to present tailored problems
  → Grouped users based on their purpose for using Alarmy

• Making them clearly recall the problems they normally face
  → Elicited empathy by bringing up experiences of struggling to wake up due to fatigue

• Suggesting a reason why these problems occur
  → Planted the seed that it's a lack of environment, not a lack of willpower

• Sparking curiosity using authority bias
  → Suggested methods based on behavioral psychology

2. Presenting the solution

Once users fully empathized with the problem and felt the urge to solve it, we had to make them understand how well Alarmy could fix it.

• Showing how other users are solving the problem with Alarmy
  → Provided quantitative data on how others are fixing the issue

• Presenting the concept of mission alarms in a way users can easily grasp
  → Showed clear video formats of how the problem gets solved

• Building curiosity about the changes that happen after solving the problem
  → Linked to an "I'm curious about my own changes too" CTA at the last step

3. Delivering value

Once users empathized with the problem and understood how Alarmy solves it, it was finally time to deliver what value they would gain by solving it.

• Painting a picture of the value they'd gain once the problem is solved
  → Delivered the message that less time will be wasted in bed

• Quantifying the value and showing the benefits other users are receiving
  → Presented the number of users benefiting every month and the actual measurable gains

• Emphasizing the value by reiterating the user's initial problem
  → Started the app with an "I'm definitely going to wake up" CTA

The long-awaited results..?

As a result of our A/B testing, our primary metric—the free trial conversion rate for the subscription—increased by 40% with over 99% statistical significance. Furthermore, the number of support tickets complaining that the subscription model was too expensive plummeted to less than a third.

In conclusion, through this experiment, we were able to shift Alarmy's position in users' mental accounting closer toward being "an app that makes you start your day successfully," rather than a simple utility app.

At DelightRoom, we continuously pursue the essence of our product and build it while navigating various challenges together. We are looking for people who want to share the zero-to-one experience of redefining the alarm app from a mere time-telling tool into a service that takes responsibility from the moment you go to sleep until after you wake up! Please check out our hiring page.