Still, they become comfortable about adopting it only after the innovation is widely accepted. Although they do not move as quickly as innovators, they try a new product early in its life cycle without waiting for many people to accept it. Individuals in this category will adopt an innovation after the average member of the society. Also by categorizing these adopters, it becomes easy for the marketing managers to analyze how there are fundamental changes in the behaviour observed.
Early adopters love being the first to know about new technology. These people are quick to sign up for new social media sites or experiment with a new project management tool just for fun. What separates early adopters from innovators is early adopters’ concerns about their reputation. Adopters from this part of the technology adoption curve like going against the grain and trying new things.
The “chasm” refers to the gap between the early adopter segment and the early majority segment. Instead, have innovators and early adopters use a tool likeRescueTimeto track time spent on communication using email for one week and repeat the experiment with Slack. Then, go to the late majority with productivity numbers from within the organization. They’ll respond better to an argument backed by data, especially if the data comes from people they know and work with.
Adopter Categories: Definition, Meaning and Types of Adopters
Back in 2007, masses of people camped in front of the Apple Store to get their hands at what would become the first version of the iPhone. These people must absolutely have the latest peace of tech and would go the literal extra mile. They are the ones blogging about and reviewing your product, essentially acting as one of your most important marketing channels. Laggards – An example of this category would be those people who have started buying the iPhone 4 now when the Apple Company has already launched the iPhone X. They share some of their traits with the early majority ones, but then they are always more cautious before they commit to buying any products.
- They start to use a product when wither it is its old maturity phases or maybe at the diminishing phase.
- Understanding the differences between different categories of adopters can help product managers plan their product launches and drive adoption once the product is available.
- S-shaped curve is normal-The reasoning rests on the role of information and uncertainty reduction in the diffusion of an innovation.
- This website has discussed consumer innovators numerous times, due to their importance in generating product adoption and kick-starting the introduction phase of the product life cycle.
Either way, laggards are generally not an overly attractive target and usually not worth the effort to try and persuade their thinking. From a marketing perspective, it is just worth considering that there is a proportion of consumers that are prone to avoid new product and any form of innovation. Early adopters then substantially influence the early majority – which essentially moves the new product to the mainstream consumer. Moreover, consumers and organizational buyers pass through various mental and behavioral stages before deciding to adopt an innovation. Consumers move from no awareness to awareness, to interest, to evaluation, to trial, and finally to adoption.
Early adopters (the next 10 – 15 percent) follow innovators and precede the early majority. Their role is to be opinion leaders and have influence over the early majority. They pay attention to what the innovators have discovered and find a practical use for the innovation.
They then communicate to their followers the usefulness of the new product. The process of adoption over time is typically illustrated as a classical normal distribution or “bell curve”. The model indicates that the first group of adopter categories people to use a new product is called “innovators”, followed by “early adopters”. A critical stage in the technology adoption lifecycle is when new technology is being used by early adopters rather than by the early majority.
It’s about thinking what outcome your beachhead desires and then using your product to deliver on these needs. Once we successfully chose our beachhead, it is about establishing not only a peace of technology, but the whole experience and feel. Rogers Everett – Based on Rogers, E. Diffusion of innovations. Late majority – the pole of this category are those who have just started to use debit and credit cards. Innovators – Now since these people love to explore the new product, they will be the first ones to visit the apple store to buy the latest launch be it an apple watch or an iPhone. The people of this group are mostly considered to be conservative.
Adopter Categories
The three important factors affecting the adoption process are people’s readiness to try new products, personal influence, and innovation characteristics. Successful introduction depends greatly on the new product’s characteristics, benefits, and perceived risks. Effective communication is the key to achieving trial by consumers. Therefore, if early adopters of a product or service are small, the total number of people who adopt the product or service will likely be small as well. Individuals who wait a couple of days and spend some time reading reviews before going to see a movie are regarded as early adopters.
Slack makes it super easy to give feedback.Once the user types /feedback, Slack opens the feedback side panel when you type /feedback directly into the message box. As we mentioned, they also share a passion for new products, so they will be very keen to invest their time to thoroughly test your product. Crossing the chasm is a defining moment for products because they can’t be successful if they don’t manage to win over the early majority. If there’s a conversation going on about an idea, a trend, or a new product, they need to be a part of it. And to be able to do that, they are ready to spend their money.
These categories can be used by businesses across many industries to develop marketing strategies for each group. For instance, hospitality businesses might provide cutting-edge services for innovators, early adopters, and the early majority like online check-in or room service ordering. For those who fall into the late majority or laggard categories of adoption, they may still offer in-person or telephone services. Businesses use adopter categories to categorize customers based on their propensity to try out or adopt new goods and services.
Late majority is the fourth group of users to adopt an innovation. Skeptics, the late majority wait until an innovation has been accepted by a majority of consumers and the price has dropped to adopt the new product. Early Majority (34%) – Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time. This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters. The adopter categories divide consumers into groups depending on their readiness to use new products or innovations.
First, users from the two categories of adopters tend to be extremely knowledgeable about your product niche. Let’s look into some practical benefits of targetting the first two categories of adopters – innovators and early adopters. The late majority adopters are more risk-averse than any of the previous groups, so they need even more evidence that the product delivers on its value proposition. The late majority is another big category of adopters as they constitute about 34% of the user population. Of the five categories of adopters, innovators and early adopters are particularly useful for new products. Innovators, early adopters, the early majority, the late majority, and laggards are the five different categories of product adopters.
Late majorities also represent an important percentage of the market – 34%. Late majorities are the last large group of consumers to enter the market. They are deemed conservative and are often technologically shy, very cost-sensitive, skeptical, and cautious in making a purchase.
Early majority
The product can be scaled significantly when it crosses the chasm. The ability to cross the chasm is considered a key factor in the long-term success of a technology product or company. Because every time you implement new technology, you have to win over every type of adopter. Less active in formal groups than early adopters, but more active than those adopting later. Individuals in the early majority tend to be less affluent and less technologically educated than innovators but are willing to take a chance on new products. Adopter distributions follow a bell shaped curve over time and approach normality.
These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in oureditorial policy. Adopter categories divide consumers into segments based on their willingness to try out a new innovation or product. We help educate aspiring digital marketers and entrepreneurs on how to use the power of the web, social media and analytics to grow their brands and causes.
Importance of the Diffusion of Innovation
Characteristics of the people who adopt new products also have a strong impact on the company. Its characteristics influence the rate of adoption of a new product. Some products gain quick acceptance, while others may take a long time. There are some other characteristics of the innovation that also influence the rate of adoption of the innovation. They are the cost, risk and uncertainty, technical standard, social acceptance, and so on. This suggests that an adopter of an innovation passes through five stages.
What are the technological adoption stages?
Blogs such as 9to5Mac as well as influencers like Marques Brownlee oftentimes test products prior to their launch. Furthermore, they do tend to have lower social status and seldom obtain positions of thought leadership. What this little example shows is how different customer segments adapt new technology.
This creates a gap between digital technology capabilities and the human ability to use those capabilities. Cloud computing has recently become popular and has seen wide adoption. According to IDC, worldwide spending on cloud computing reached $312 billion in 2020, a 33.4% increase from the previous year. Cloud computing’s ability to enable remote work, scalability, and reduce costs has played a vital role in its adoption.
They derive much of their social status and social satisfaction from the innovator role. Talking social media, don’t we all know a relative or friend who just did not feel joining this thing called Facebook? Well, that is exactly where the early and late majority as well as laggards find themselves.
This group is considered to be the slowest one when it comes to adopting new ideas or new technologies. They are just not at all enthusiastic about embracing new ideas or products. Adopter categories are a term referred to the classification of the customers on the basis of the products that they buy which has been recently launched in the market. This term is known as the adopter categories because here the adopters are being categorized. Early adopters are the second group to adopt a new product or service. They are early adopters because they are willing to take on the risks of a new product or service, but they are not as comfortable with change as innovators.
