If you’re in the SaaS world, you’ve probably heard the term “product-led growth” or “PLG” thrown around. So, what exactly is product-led growth marketing and what does it mean for SaaS PR?
A quick refresh on PLG…
A term coined by OpenView Partners, product-led growth marketing focuses on the end user (the average Joes of the company) over the traditional buyer (like the company executives). With PLG, a business lets individual user adoption of the platform organically transform into paying customers.
The entire point of PLG is to deliver a user-friendly experience that solves pain points up front before requiring users to invest heavily in the product. PLG is built on three core principles: design for the end user, deliver value before capturing value and invest in the product with go-to-market intent. It’s simple: make a product that quickly proves its worth to free users — so much so that they want to pay to unlock even more value.
Take Calendly for example — chances are you’ve probably used a free version of the platform to help with scheduling. All you had to do was fill out a free signup form. There’s also a chance you loved the ease of scheduling with Calendly so much that you upgraded to a paid version of the tool to unlock additional capabilities, like allowing your entire team to coordinate scheduling through the platform. That’s a PLG strategy working its magic as you organically moved down the funnel into a paying customer.
So, what does a product-led growth PR strategy look like?
While product-led growth marketing isn’t necessarily rocket science, it does take a special focus on PLG’s core principles to create a successful product-led growth PR strategy. At the heart of it, the principles of PLG all tie back to making a product that creates true value for the everyday human — so that’s exactly where your PR strategy should focus.
Because you’re trying to capture the attention of the end users themselves, your PR strategy should prioritize their needs and desires over anything else. Sure, the average employee wants the business they work for to succeed — but more than that, they want to personally succeed at their job (without losing their mind). If you can show how your product helps them do this through your media coverage, you’ve mastered a product-led growth PR strategy.
A few ways to relay this message are through vendor neutral commentary in the form of contributed articles or media interviews, press releases about your product and customer stories.
Vendor neutral commentary
Commentary around your industry itself — whether that be trends or best practices — without explicitly mentioning your product is a great way to initially introduce your focus to prospects. As you delve into best practices that will streamline a part of their job or knowledge gaps that will help them become more informed, they’ll quickly associate your name with industry expertise that makes their life easier.
Press releases
It’s all too easy to focus on the business benefits of your product when you’re selling a B2B solution. But for companies following a PLG strategy, press releases must always zero in on the end user. Again, call out the personal benefits those individual users may experience with your new product update so they can clearly see the value potential.
Customer stories
Last but not least, one of the best ways to show your potential value is through someone who has personally felt it. Leverage those very customer end users to spread your value story far and wide. As they share their personal experiences with the platform, prospects and customers moving through the funnel will visualize the value your solution could provide as they relate to the daily struggles it solved for someone else.
If you’re delving into the world of product-led growth marketing to grow your business, it’s important you don’t overlook a targeted PR strategy. With a refocus on the end user and a little special attention to how you tell your value story, you’ll see prospects realizing the potential of your solution in no time.
Want to know how PANBlast can help you determine your product-led growth PR strategy? Contact Lindsey Groepper for more details!