What drives your users to pay? Jobs to Be Done has the answers

Let’s be honest. No one wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks, “I want a finance app” or “I want a language learning app.” Although, I’m definitely not the only one waking up in cold sweats after nightmares about a specific green owl and my lost streak… 

Instead, it’s more likely that someone might admit to themselves, “I really need to get my finances under control so we can finally start saving to buy a house.” Or they might think, “I’m so nervous about our holiday to Spain next month; it’s been years since I last spoke Spanish.” 

They struggle with what they want to achieve, the why behind their actions, and not the specific solution. This is also known as your customer’s Job to Be Done (JTBD): JTBD is the underlying goal or problem your customer wants to solve rather than the specific product or solution they choose.

If we dive deeper into those situations presented, the JTBD in the first example might be to buy a house. But we can take this deeper, such as “I want to live somewhere I can personalize to my own space.” This means that the solution isn’t just an app to track spending and automatically save each month or to help you cut spending in other places, but painting the walls of the rental or other ways to make their current place feel like home.

With the second example, it is probably to feel confident communicating in Spain, and again, an app is just one solution. They could also go for Spanish lessons or practice with friends. 

I’m not saying we don’t need apps and should all ditch Duolingo entirely — I’m way too afraid of that owl to dare say such a thing. Instead, I’m highlighting that we’re missing key opportunities in understanding what drives monetization by ignoring Jobs to Be Done. Not anymore!

Is your product a painkiller or a vitamin?

You might think you’re neither of these, you’re a running app that provides specific routes through an AI algorithm! But every single brand is a painkiller or a vitamin, and I’ll help you to realize which of these categories you fall under.

First, when it comes to JTBD, the strength of the emotional drive behind it will drive action in the end and allow you to monetize that desire effectively. For some people, knowing Spanish on a trip is nice, but they don’t mind managing without it. They’ll learn the words for “beer” and “please” and leave it at that. For others, they prioritize speaking the local language when they visit somewhere, and it really contributes to their holiday experience.

This is the difference between vitamin and painkiller products, and it’s crucial to understand in order to drive stronger monetization of your subscription app. 

Vitamin products and services are nice to have. Just like vitamins, we know they are good for us, but it’s hard to measure the impact, and as a result, when it comes to spending or cutting costs, these are the first to go. You like taking magnesium every morning, and you think it’s helping to reduce muscle aches or make you sleep better, but you can’t be sure that’s the cause. So if push came to shove, and you needed to save a few bucks, that magnesium pot is going to go empty real fast. It’s a vitamin, not a painkiller.

Customers who see your product as a vitamin can be identified by the fact that they tend to have the following:

• Low frequency of usage
• Longer time to key actions on first usage
• Shorter session duration
• Lower lifetime value (LTV)

Painkiller products, however, solve an important need; they are unmissable, and we notice that value easily. We are much less price-sensitive to painkiller products because, in our mind, they are worth the price. For an app, a good indicator that you’re a painkiller product is when the frequency tends to be higher, there’s a longer time spent, more engagement, and a higher lifetime value. So painkillers address more urgent needs, while vitamins serve more non-urgent desires. 

Let’s circle back to the example of learning Spanish for a trip. An app for learning Spanish before they depart could be a painkiller or a vitamin, depending on the user. Someone visiting a major city in Spain where most people speak a degree of English, like Madrid or Barcelona, might see a Spanish language app as more of a vitamin; they don’t want to spend too much on it and might use it occasionally. Compared to someone going to a more remote, smaller location, who will see that same app as a painkiller and will be willing to spend more on additional support to help them improve their Spanish faster. Especially if they feel insecure about being unable to communicate and won’t settle for “beer” and “please.” So, the same app can be a vitamin for one audience and a painkiller for another. 

Knowing which Jobs to Be Done position your brand as a painkiller helps you focus on customers who are willing to spend more and stay loyal. As seen in the Spanish language example, it’s important to dig deeper into the underlying motivations to ensure they are strong enough to drive long-term engagement

So, let’s look at how to understand which Jobs to Be Done are key and how to use these to drive monetization.

How to conduct Jobs to Be Done interviews to discover monetization drivers

When we think of user interviews, we often imagine simply chatting about our product. In Jobs to Be Done interviews, you’ll barely be talking about the product, but really trying to understand that target audience. This may sound counterintuitive, but trust me, it’s not. These are the kinds of questions you’d ask a user:

1. What led you to try out [app name]?
2. How long had you been struggling with [problem]?
3. How did you realize this was a problem?
4. Can you describe when you first thought about solving [problem] and what led to that decision?
5. How did you go about finding a new solution for [mentioned JTBD]?
6. Where did you look for solutions? 
7. What other solutions did you try out before that to solve [problem]?
8. What did you like and dislike about [each solution mentioned]?
9. What made you decide to try [app name]?
10. Could you walk me through how you came across it?
11. What was your first impression of it?
12. Are there specific features or aspects of the [app name] that are most important to you? 
13. How do you feel when you’re using [app name]?
14. How often do you use [app name], and in which situations?

The majority of the time should be spent discussing questions 1-8 to really understand the problem they are trying to solve and what drives their behavior. By interviewing customers who have a high lifetime value and both frequent and recent usage, you can understand for which JTBD you are a Painkiller. Combining this with interviewing low lifetime value and customers who use less frequently will allow you to understand potential JTBD where you are just a vitamin.

During the interviews, you want to understand what really drives your customers, as this will impact what overall monetization model best suits your app. So let’s look at the three categories of drivers and some additional questions to uncover which of the three drivers are the strongest for your customers. 

How to evaluate your monetization model

First things first, to identify the overall Jobs to Be Donen, but it’s also crucial to understand the factors that influence them. They want to learn Spanish for their trip or save money for a house, but why? What’s the thing pushing them? These are known as the drivers behind your JTBDs and then are three key drivers: functional, emotional or social.

Now it may be that your app has a combination of two or three of the drivers so it is about which one of these is the strongest for your highest-spending customer base. There are a few additional questions here that you can ask yourself to help understand which of the three drivers are strongest for your users. You usually will ask specific ones based on what your customer is already saying when explaining their problem and journey to discovering your app, e.g. to dive deeper into the emotions they are mentioning. 

Let’s walk through each of the drivers one by one and their associated monetization models:

1. Functional Drivers
These are the practical problem-solving needs your app addresses. There is an issue, and your app will provide the solution. Examples include learning a language, tracking expenses or staying physically fit. 

Apps that solve functional needs are well suited for a subscription model as often the value comes from ongoing usage and solves a clear problem. Often functional-driven apps stick to a free trial model as that is enough to clarify if the app will help solve their problem.  However, they can also be set up with a freemium model where the key functionality gets put behind a paywall, this is especially common when the core functionality is more complex or takes longer to get into the habit of using. Alternatively, one-off payments are also used as a monetization model, especially when it is a short-term practical problem, e.g., a photo editing app.

Additional questions to uncover your user’s functional drivers:

• What were you hoping to achieve when you started using [app name]?
• What challenges or inefficiencies did you face before using [app name]?

2. Emotional Drivers
These are feelings or emotions that motivate users to act. Don’t underestimate them, as anyone who has felt a strong bout of anxiety about checking their bank balance can confirm it is powerful. For example, perhaps they want peace of mind about their finances, to feel confident in conversations, or to gain a sense of accomplishment.

Emotional-driven JTBD often takes more time to build as that attachment and reliance grows over time. This means they are usually better suited for a freemium subscription model so that you can first start with building that habit. In-app purchases are also common where there are smaller moments of emotional satisfaction during usage or once the initial trust is built. For example, a game app solves boredom and creates a sense of fulfillment and enjoyment. Often, you can purchase ‘money’ to spend on a game or extra ‘lives’ to continue playing a game so you can continue to feel that enjoyment from playing.

Additional questions to uncover your user’s emotional drivers:

• How did you feel before you started using [app name]?
• How does solving the [problem mentioned] make you feel?
• Were there any concerns, fears, or anxieties that led you to search for a solution?
• How do you feel when [problem] goes unresolved or when progress feels slow?

3. Social Drivers
These stem from users’ desires to align with societal expectations, improve their status, or connect with others. As you can imagine, it’s an area that intersects heavily with social media. For example, when people share their Strava stats on Instagram or can whip out their new Spanish at the water cooler with colleagues. Maybe it’s buying a house because everyone else seems to be!

As a result, these are the hardest to build a subscription model around as though the social drivers can occur outside of the app (as the examples show), the strongest social driven apps often rely on a larger database to build that sense of community and interaction, e.g., a social media app, dating app. As a result, apps that have social drivers often rely more on advertising models to drive revenue, and in-app purchases or may use a freemium model so that they can grow a larger community. 

Additional questions to uncover your user’s social drivers:

• Have you ever shared your experience with [problem] or [app name] with friends or family? If so, what did you say?
• Do you feel any pressure (social or otherwise) to achieve this goal or solve this problem?
• Are there specific groups or individuals whose opinions about your progress are important to you?

As mentioned a JTBD can have multiple, but based on your interviews you can start to understand which ones are the strongest and whether your overall monetization model suit that JTBD’s drivers. From there you can start to using your understanding of that JTBD to drive further monetization.

Key factors that drive retention and conversion

Sometimes, you already have built your JTBD into your onboarding process. For example, Headspace, a meditation app, asks the following within their onboarding flow:

You can use this data to analyze which of these correlates the strongest with retention, your lifetime value, and even your conversion rate. This means that even if you solve multiple JTBD, you can shape your marketing communication around this and also improve the onboarding first for those high-value customers. You can see this with Headspace, as once I select ‘Sleep,’ the next step shows me how they can support me with that.

Personally, I feel like they could have done more to customize the home screen and onboarding experience to the indicated JTBD, but it might be that ‘Sleep’ isn’t one of the primary focuses of the app. 

The reason I still recommend conducting these user interviews, if you haven’t before, is the specification it offers. Using the results, defining these categories better allows you to tailor your onboarding to those JTBD. This ensures that you can spot what correlates with stronger conversion rates and retention and, most importantly, why this is the case.

The interviews will also give you insights into additional angles you might test to better speak to their JTBD. In the case of Headspace above, do they talk about “better sleep” or “falling asleep faster?” These insights can help you A/B test different JTBD languages first through your marketing channels and then test implementing them into your onboarding.

Optimizing your pricing models

You’ve done your interviews, you know your Jobs to Be Done and how to be a painkiller over a vitamin to users — now what? The next step is the one you’ve been waiting for: when monetization happens.

The previous specification highlights exactly what to put behind premium plans. These are the features and benefits that really help users to achieve that JTBD, so they’re the ones worth paying for. You can also prioritize communicating those features and benefits that you know drive value for them, shaping your pushes to purchase around their JTBD, such as sharing success stories from customers with similar JTBD.

If we return to the example of Headspace, we can see that they’ve gated all their Sleep content, so I need to sign up for a free trial to access them. However I can see all the types of content they have available, almost like they’re teasing me with a carrot on a stick. Additionally, the messaging around the free trial is focused entirely on better sleep, which you might remember was the JTBD that I indicated initially.

By knowing what someone wants out of your app, you know how to make yourself indispensable and worth paying for; it’s as simple as that. It also opens the door to upselling and cross-selling. Basically, how can you get more from an existing user?

Upselling is about offering advanced tools or content to deepen success in a current JTBD. It’s about elevating their experience and, in the process, elevating the price paid. For example, if we look at Headspace above, they could offer additional advanced courses on sleep to support users further.

In contrast, cross-selling introduces complementary JTBD-related features or services. For example, a fitness app could sell nutrition plans for users focused on training for a marathon. It’s not exactly what they were looking for, but it will help them achieve their goal alongside your main offer. It’s assuming that if you want A, you might also want B, as other users with the same JTBD do. 

Don’t let upselling and cross-selling be a matter of guesswork or great ideas, ensure it is a data-driven decision revolving around your users’ JTBD.

Reducing churn with a JTBD approach

Before we dive in, there’s a fact of life that we need to simply accept. That fact is that there will always be customers that churn. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. For some customers, you will always remain a vitamin product rather than a painkiller, and so they’ll delete you, cancel their subscription, or simply move on.

But with that said, there are opportunities to avoid churn, and those opportunities lie in knowing how to be a painkiller for them. If you know the strongest JTBD that drives monetization, you can prioritize speaking to customers that churned with that JTBD. Hopefully, you can pull this out of usage data, but if not, you can start by asking them about the problem they hoped to solve with your app. Then it’s a matter of diving deeper to understand why it didn’t meet expectations. Basically, what did you want from us, and why did we fail to deliver?

Additionally, discovering whether they switched to another solution and why, allows you to learn more about their JTBD and their needs. Why did this option fulfill what you didn’t? What can you learn from them? Yep, this is a real slice of humble pie. Don’t get too hard on yourself; as like I said, some people will simply see you as a vitamin and another brand as a painkiller. 

But understanding that switching behavior can be beneficial, so I recommend checking out this great article by Nicki Anderson-Stanier on the subject. Instead of just seeing it as a preference, Nicki breaks it down into the push, pull, habits, anxieties, and more, as well as great questions to ask users. 

As Nicki puts it, “This information can impact your entire organization, from marketing and sales materials to product improvements or feature innovations that will help your customers choose your product.”

Expanding your customer base with new JTBD personas

When you start using JTBD to improve monetization, you are likely to focus on the best JTBD, the one you currently serve the best and has the highest LTV. This might be a little bit bias, but it’s an excellent starting point. From there, you can start to expand to other similar ones to drive additional revenue further. 

Let’s turn our attention to an example of a running app, as those are really in the spotlight lately. Coopah, a personalized running app, started by focusing on people training for their first running race. It offers support with a personalized plan, nutrition advice, stretching tutorials, and strength training exercises. It’s a great app that I can personally recommend!

But since they started, they seem to have shifted their attention towards users training for a longer race, such as a [ultra] marathon. Why? Well, it’s likely that such advanced runners demonstrate a higher LTV than those training for a 5km or 10km race. Often, their training periods are longer, meaning they’ll subscribe for longer. This not only means more subscription months paid, but more time to give them the wonderful aha moment. Additionally, the additional support and guidance provide more value as the risk of injury is often higher with the higher training load — they’ll have more appreciation for Coopah!

For them, a natural additional JTBD is to expand to triathletes, which they seem to be in the process of doing, as these training plans will also be longer and more intense. It can even be a newer JTBD that is similar to the one(s) you already serve versus focusing on an existing lower LTV customer. 

Two different runners have the same JBTD, which Coopah helps with, yet they have very different needs and priorities. Simply put, these are two different JTBD personas, and it’s likely that you have a bunch of them waiting to be discovered as well. Coopah isn’t shunning new runners, but simply ensuring they’re well-suited to long-term runners who offer a higher LTV.

Driving better monetization through Jobs to Be Done

When you start zooming in on JTBD to drive monetization and value for customers, it allows you to have a more focused approach from acquisition to retention. There are several ways to achieve this:

• Ensuring your core monetization model matches your main JTBD drivers: functional, emotional or social
• Adjust your acquisition communication and approach to focus on the JTBD that drives high LTV customers
• Adjust your monetization messaging to speak to those customers
• Ensure the right features are gated to push customers to purchase and stay
• Reduce churn by prioritizing improvements that support customers in those JTBD
• Identify related and new JTBD to focus on to expand your customer base

For this you need to use both qualitative and quantitative data to understand the patterns in those high lifetime value customers and, most importantly, what JTBD drives them. It should never be a matter of guesswork, and certainly not assumptions. 

The key to monetizing your app, whether that’s through memberships, upselling, or cross-selling, is to find their Jobs to Be Done, and offer the solution they didn’t quite know they needed.