Inspire, empower, and engage your users

Educational content is your secret engine that drives growth, retention, and operational efficiency.

We’ll show you how.

Increase activations

Good content design — the text in your UI — anticipates users’ questions. Subtle adjustments can dramatically increase activation rates and task completions.

An AI platform increases plugin creations after content design updates

Before After

Before and After screenshots of how a user interface was improved to increase task completions
Before and After screenshots of how a user interface was improved to increase task completions

Engage and retain users

The best way for users to learn your product is to use your product. Recipes and task-specific content teach users how to get the most value from your product.

Google uses recipe articles with embedded videos to teach advertisers key techniques for success

Google uses recipe articles, like the one shown here, to teach advertisers key techniques for success

Grow your platform

A thoughtfully organized knowledge base grows your platform while reducing support escalations.

A learning portal helped millions of users migrate to the new Google Analytics

A learning portal helped millions of users migrate to the new Google Analytics

Is your content DAM?

Concise. Clear. Accurate. Consistent. Important qualities, but insufficient for your content to drive adoption and growth. To be most effective, your content must also be Discoverable, Actionable, and Memorable.

Discoverable

Discoverable means users have the information they need, when they need it. A knowledge base optimized for both humans and AI agents. Thoughtful use of tooltips. Carefully considered content design in the UI. All of these improve discoverability — and reduce the number of support escalations.

Actionable

The best way for users to learn your product is to use your product. Your content must inspire users to take action. Recipes and task-specific content give users quick avenues to success, lifting your activation rates and driving retention.

Memorable

Memorable content activates a community of power users who in turn evangelize your platform. Users internalize your mental model and find new ways to use your product, driving engagement and growth.

When to hire us

Treating user education as an afterthought has a very real cost

Going to market without the right educational content results in high churn, low CLV, and low feature adoption in SaaS products. When users don’t see their use case or don’t understand your mental model, they look for another solution.

It’s more expensive to get these users to switch back to your product than if you had launched with the right education in the first place.

  • Early investment allows us to validate key concepts, and jumpstarts your educational and marketing content. As part of a 40 hour engagement, we develop terminology, language, and voice. We can

    • Simplify your MVP content design (UI content) 

    • Share your vision with whitepapers or other technical content

    • Pivot as you adapt your product to find PMF

  • As part of our Product Landing Package, we focus on activities that grow your user base, increase activation rates, and sustain ongoing product engagement. We’ll

    • Build a knowledge base optimized for users and AI

    • Drive activation and engagement with emails, how-to recipes, and videos

    • Simplify your UI content (Content Design)

    • Build mindshare with educational content for social channels

    You can also engage us to

    • Grow your platform with a developer relations program

    • Build a community of power users with courses and certification programs

  • For products reaching scale, our focus typically turns toward efficient operation and serviceability. Contact us to discuss how we can

    • Streamline your documentation processes

    • Optimize your content to reduce escalation rates and lower average time-to-resolution

We are user focused and outcome obsessed

Our services include

  • video production

  • technical writing

  • content design

  • curriculum development

  • developer relations

  • content strategy & content management  

We know when to step in — and when to step back

We work seamlessly alongside your Product, UX, Go-to-market and Marketing teams. If you have technical writers or a content effort already in place, we can provide strategic leadership and in-the-trenches execution.

Success and testimonials

ActivationIQ was founded by Alden DeSoto, who led Google’s content strategy for Google Analytics,  the Google tag platform, and brand measurement. Since founding ActivationIQ, Alden has worked with early stage startups on cloud data tools and AI. Founder’s story

Alden DeSoto speaks at Google event

"Alden DeSoto was a driving force in the early days of both Urchin and Google Analytics. He was crucial in galvanizing the ecosystem in our direction with the Google Analytics Authorized Consultant program and Conversion University. He ran point on user onboarding, training, and education content and was a core builder of the foundation for the success Google Analytics enjoys today."

Brett Crosby
Urchin and Google Analytics Co-Founder

"Alden DeSoto's content and programs educated millions of Google advertisers around the world and helped to meaningfully drive Google's revenue. He's a truly outstanding leader."

Darren Pleasance
Former Managing Director, Google Customer Acquisitions
Former SVP, Cisco

Alden DeSoto brings the unique blend of someone who gets hands-on with products-in-progress, has deep empathy for the user, operates with the urgency of a start-up team and is simply a magician when it comes to communicating with words, voice and video. Working with him in our early stage startup that's building a Generative AI based SaaS product has been an absolute joy. The videos he produced have made our prospecting and onboarding efforts dramatically more effective.”

Jayanth Mysore
Co-Founder, Stealth Mode

"The Google Analytics ecosystem wouldn't be what it is today without Alden DeSoto."

Paul Muret
Urchin Founder & CEO
Former Google VP Product & GM

Get an appraisal

Send us what you have and we’ll be ready for a productive conversation within two days. Or, reach out to us at info@ActivationIQ.com