What is PLG?
Another marketing trend… joy.
PLG is Product Led Growth. It is exactly what it sounds like. Growth driven by the product. While it sounds straightforward, I get asked by companies if it’s worth their time and how it’s different than what they’re currently doing.
Let’s break it down.
PQL & PQA
Product Qualified Leads and Product Qualified Accounts, if this also sounds simple, that’s because it is. These terms are used to describe when a team identifies which leads and accounts are best paired with a specific product or product feature.
Sales would help to identify end-user needs and then an ABM style campaign would kick off promoting that product or product feature.
Segmentation
Defining your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) will help you to work backward into your segments for PLG campaigns. Most ICPs are Enterprise clients. They have the cash and (usually) runway to take on new products and/or features. But often times your ICP is a specific niche like tech startups or higher ed students who need to obtain products for an immediate need.
Whatever you ICP is, you should look at your best customers/clients, the ones with great MRR or ARR and a good relationship with their Account Manager or Relationship Owner.
Speak with that client’s end-users and ask:
why they went with you
what problems did your product help solve
what would they improve if they could
how do they best describe your product
This is content and keyword gold. Use these feature statements to turn your mid-level clients into higher tier customers with a PLG strategy that discusses these features and product wins. The campaign would focus on a single segment and teach them about a single product or product feature, usually within the product interface itself.
Example: startups looking to use a peer-to-peer reward program that also allows for performance management. Your product feature to promote in this campaign is the ability to track employee performance. Your segment includes current customers who don’t currently use that feature but might like to based on cues that your ICPs showed when they were new, as well as leads with keyword searches and intent behaviors that also fall under the same cues. (Like watching a product feature video on this all the way through.)
Personalization
While personalization is a running theme on this site, it is also a key element to PLG strategy. Understanding a user’s needs enough to know that a specific product or feature would be helpful to them is peak personalization.
Showing a product or feature to everyone, regardless of intent or necessary cues is obnoxious, noisy, and unnecessary.
In PLG, the product leads the way. From the first onboarding step or lead generation form completion, the product itself is guiding them through their journey with your brand. That’s not to say they will never speak to a human or that you don'‘t need a human element, it simply means the product is the star and UX is key.
Think of products you have used that you or your company may have opted to upgrade from free to pro because of features or additional products: Spotify or Apple Music, Zoom, Gmail, Docusign. Likely a much different experience than buying a car or implementing a new CRM that requires lots of hands in the mix.
Is it right for your marketing strategy?
It depends. Sorry, no straight answer here. I am not selling PLG software or a one-size-fits-all approach here. PLG as a strategy isn’t for every brand, all the time.
But you can always run a test. Do the research, set the segment, design the campaign around specific personalization and see how it goes on a small scale.
You’ll need to make sure your product or feature is completely built, tested, UX/CX tested for quality by people outside of your org (this one is VERY important) and an explicit need for your test segment. You do NOT need to come up with a discount. If the segment need and product feature are a match, discounts are unnecessary. Pricing tests should remain a stand alone for pricing strategy, not PLG.
Summary
PLG cannot be the only strategy. Brand marketing and awareness campaigns are now and always will be a necessary driver. ABM and demand generation have their place too. Content marketing it the way of the digital world. And so on and so forth.
But good strategies are robust and exhaustive in testing and research, if nothing else. PLG will likely be a perfect fit for some markets or user segments, and cold call besties will be the-way-it’s-always-been-done-so-we’ll-keep-doing-it, for others. But now you know what PLG is, some basic ways to do it, and why some companies are going all in.
Further reading and supporting links:
https://6sense.com/blog/applying-product-led-growth-to-your-organization/
