I thought about how Figma can get new users

I love Figma. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s basically the best interface design tool out there today that’s made for collaboration. I can go on and on about it, but I’ll cut to the chase—I recently sat down to think about how a market leader like Figma reach new users who will stay. Here’s a few user acquisition channels and programs I think can be used.

Referral program:

Currently, Figma has a partner program with design agencies but since they have depended on product and community-led growth (delighting their daily users who then become champions for the product in their organisation), it makes sense to have a referral program designed for these “daily users” What is the brag-worthy thing about Figma?

The large community-made library of templates, kits, widgets and plugins What is Figma’s platform currency?

Figma’s platform currency is fame. These resources made by the community are displayed in the community page, ordered by the number of “likes” and “duplicates” they have (i.e. a person duplicating the template/kit to use it in their file), with the most popular one on top What are some happy flows in Figma?

Along with the happy flow mentioned above (creating a template, kit or plugin and seeing it achieve popularity), there are a couple other ones in the product.  (i) When a user is done designing different screens, they can organise them effectively for handoff — one user I spoke to said, “One day I realised I could organise my files into sections in a large canvas space. It enabled hassle-free handoff. That was absolutely delightful to stumble upon.” (ii) Users don’t need to duplicate reccurring objects or icons, they can simply create components and variants for this purpose — one user pointed this out and said, “I’m constantly delighted by Figma because of how seamless it is to use, but one thing that stands out to me is components and variants that we use in our design system. It’s made life very easy”

Who will Figma ask for a referral?

1.Users whose templates, kits, widgets or plugins have garnered popularity on the community page

2.Users who have given very positive reviews on GetApp, TrustRadius and G2

3.Users who have built design systems/multiple layers of components on Figma

How will a user discover a referral program, share and track their referrals?

A user who fits into one of the above buckets will see a popup when they complete a happy flow (their templates achieving popularity, them leaving a positive review on an external review site, or building a design system from scratch.)

We will specify the reason why they’ve been recognised as a power user, and invite them to join a sub-community of referrers. The exclusivity aspect of it will ignite their curiosity.

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(excuse the horrible designs in this and following mockups) Once they click on “learn more”, they will be taken to a separate landing page that details the referral program (how many referrals = what rewards, who is eligible for the loyalty program, why the user was selected for the program, how to send referrals, and who they can reach out to, in Figma, for help) with a CTA button that reads “I want to make my first referral” at the bottom.

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Once they click on the CTA button, they will be allowed to refer someone via email or link sharing, accompanied with an editable copy:

Hey <prospect user>,

I’ve been designing on Figma for a while now. When I started off, I was just playing around and experimenting and now I’ve made a whole design system there!

I wanted to send this across to you because I think you’d love Figma. I’m a part of their loyalty program, so you can use this link to check them out, sign up for the pro plan at a 30% discount for the whole first year of use, or you can just sign up for the starter plan for free - <referral link>

Cheers,

<current user>

The users will be able to track their referrals and rewards, by clicking on the relevant field in the drop-down menu under their profile icon, simply because this will be the quickest place to access it from.

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Product integrations:

Figma currently supports integrations with a range of products for prototyping and user testing, developer handoff and collaboration, which enable a user’s seamless transition FROM figma.

On attracting users TO figma, I’ve brainstormed over where organic intent is most likely to begin and have come up with — 1) Jira when new feature and feature improvement tickets are created typically by the product manager, 2) Zoom meetings when product feature, UI revamp or general brainstorming discussions are taking place and the need for visualisation (perhaps a quick lo-fi mockup) arises, 3) Fullstory when issues and frustrations are identified in real user flows.

While Jira already supports a Figma integration, the other two don’t. Zoom will be the integration to take on first due to the high pay-off on new users.

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Content loops:

What kind of content can Figma produce that users will share?

Figma can create UI, wireframe and prototype templates that designers will use and share, as it’s genuinely helpful and of interest to them

Will users create content for Figma? If yes, how will Figma distribute it?

Yes, figma’s vast community creates these templates, plugins and widgets that are available to see, duplicate and use in the community page. Apart from the community page, users are also directed to this page in the view they have, while designing on a file, if they click on the relevant options in the drop-down menu

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How can Figma get users to create and share content?

Using the platform currency of fame and subsequent access to the referral/loyalty program, Figma will motivate users to create templates and plugins and share them to the community.

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Along with these, I came up with ideas on how to acquire users through organic channels and paid ads as well. I’m leaving them out here because I’m not satisfied with the amount of research and prioritisation I did for them, so I think I’ll keep revisiting and improve them for a while.