I heard a song called Make it Easy by the Barenaked Ladies and it seemed to strike a chord elsewhere. I realized that any product decision we make should be about making it easy for consumers. This makes even more sense in this day where consumers have very little time to pay attention, troubleshoot, do all over again etc. Everyone is busy these days - doing their day job, updating their social network profiles, doing budgets, catching a missed episode on Hulu, sitting in traffic, investing etc. The more time we demand of them to learn about a product, the less likely they are to choose to buy it and even less likely to talk about it to their friends. Making it easy manifests itself in 3 ways as described below.
Make it Easy to see value:
It must be brain dead simple to see value in your product. It must be immediately obvious what the product can do to our lives. How the product will enhance our well being. If it can help the greater good of mankind even better! Basically, the product should speak for itself with little need for a marketing effort. An example would be an IM service that sends money to charity whenever you chat. It is immediately obvious why this is a good idea! Or a guitar whose frets light up for in built practice songs. You go to a store and you see the lights blinking in time with a song, you know its a must have for your budding musician.
Make it Easy to get value:
It must be really simple to use the product and get value out of it. A product that frees up a few minutes/hours of a person's time is very likely to be close to their heart. Intuit's TurboTax does an awesome job of just simplifying the average person's tax return generation to an essentially brain dead series of instructions! I used the extra hours I saved to make a grilled cheese sandwich ... well burning a couple ... setting off the fire alarm ... cleaning up afterward etc.
Make it Easy to create value:
These days, consumers aren't just consumers. They are producers as well. Can your product let them create something of value that is useful for other consumers? For example Ning lets you create your own social network. Imagine the power of that! You don't just consume a social network, but you can create a niche social network and enjoy a vibrant social community that Ning provides. Another example - Going back to the fret lighting up guitar. If the guitar provides an easy way to save the songs you play into a fret lighting up format, you can upload it and provide a simple lesson online to anyone that wants to learn! When consumers feel like they contribute through your product, they feel good!
Comments