Design of habit forming products

“Hooked” By Nir Eyal mentions  4 steps , the marketing department of every company takes in order to create “habit forming” products. The steps are as follows:

1. Trigger  –  Create Internal followed by external triggers to create a sense of craving for the product.This can be social media driven campaigns as well.
2. Action – This step enables the customer to take action after getting enticed by the trigger
3. Variable rewards – Variable rewards , part of the enticement keeps the customer engaged and enables the flow of the neurotransmitter named “dopamine”.This leads to the excitement and addiction towards the product.
4. Invest – Once the customer is convinced by the “rewards” he/she expresses the desire to “invest” and hence get hooked to the habit forming product.

So any product that needs to ethically engage with the customer needs to follow these 4 steps of habit formation.