Have you ever thought what the difference between companies that create great products and mediocare products is? You may think it’s an agility that makes companies progress fast, but is it enough? What should we focus on to deliver the best product to the market?
From our experience, it’s a mixture of things that makes a difference and we do believe that this is an effort of the whole organization. It all starts with careful examination of customer needs so the product can provide better customer experience, which is often a challenge for the structure of the organization. Sales, marketing and customer service teams reorient to let the product (and the positive social proof it generates) take the lead. They intuitively move towards the end-user and prioritize the communication with them. Contact with a client evolves to get as close to a client as possible, to understand them and meet their expectations. The aim is to make it easier for a company to help customers and see the value of the product they expect. Every customer contact with a company, from social media to direct contact and purchase of a product, must contribute to positive customer experience.
In such an environment, good communication channels and cooperation between marketing, sales and product development plays a critical role in building successful products. To keep up with the market and stay ahead of the competition, companies must adapt their marketing, sales and service strategies. Easy to say, but how to do it? Head on over to this article to get all the know how.
What is product-led growth?
Product-led growth is a model which is oriented towards the result of the product, which is treated as the leading contender in acquiring customers. This business strategy is based on using the product as the primary tool for acquiring, activating and retaining users. Due to the consumerization of the software, existing users need to have tools that are evolving and becoming better. It inspires the company to grow faster and more efficiently as they use their products to generate a wave of active users that ultimately become their customers. A product-led growth model counts on the product itself - its features, performance and virality - to do much of the selling.
Product-led growth is a strategy thanks to which a company can ensure that the team responsible for a given project is focused on the common goal of providing users with the greatest possible value for each interaction with the product. Product teams are people driven by innovation, creating a new culture and increasing business value. Companies invest in the internal value of the current and the future employees to create the best product possible.
How does PLG make your business successful?
Everyone knows that the product is a value that drives the organization’s growth, so great attention is paid to checking the application and user feedback to detect possible problems as soon as possible. This allows you to avoid losing a client whose loss significantly exceeds the cost of acquiring a new one. The company's success lies in the user experiences. PLG is becoming more and more popular among large key enterprises. However, the niche ones in order to increase the effectiveness of entering the market, must also improve the user experience, which is why they adopt the strategies of the product-led growth model.
Many companies are still adopting a revenue-based business model by taking advantage of costly campaigns. The preparation of sales representatives requires a great deal of time and cost. Although these companies are successful in many cases, they indicate that the product requires a lot of commitment and promotion.
Often organizations treat PLG as a pricing model, not using its full potential. The critical approach in this situation is to understand that the product should work in such a way as to indicate development activities and solve the problem on its own. Companies should strive to assume that the product is the primary and pivotal element of the company.
Focus on value, not profit
Contrary to sales, product-led companies are based on several essential features, thanks to gaining an advantage over others. PLG enables them to shorten the sales cycle. The attractiveness of PLG focuses on the ability to drive growth through the use of a product. This is crucial as we strive to lower customer acquisition costs and increase product value. In a product-led company, the product is significantly responsible for acquiring new customers. This type of organization will not allocate as many resources as other companies to sales, marketing, advertising, or customer acquisition strategies. Thanks to this, it is understandable that the product should be prioritized and operate in such a way that it can solve customer problems immediately.
Working with a client requires understanding their needs and responding to them. Onboarding is essential in this situation. A positive onboarding experience leads directly to a paid conversion. For the onboarding process to run correctly, you must understand precisely what a customer expects. Only at this stage, by using the collected information, can you create a product that creates joyous experiences.
Going through this stage will allow you to create a product that will not require additional promotional activities, so that the costs of marketing activities do not reduce the organization’s profit.
So why do we believe that this approach is better?
Do not focus on money, instead focus on a problem that needs to be solved for the world.
Manoj Arora
Here at Appunite, we care about our products’ impact on the market. It’s not only about following the guidelines and making things work but also investing our knowledge and experience to make clients’ products successful. We want to be perceived as partners, which is why we try to understand the problem and contribute to finding solutions. We want to work on great products and be a part of clients’ success. We believe that delivering actual value to products is what matters, and we love to contribute to the cooperation more than just focusing only on engineering work. We collaborate closely with clients because we know that our client’s success makes us grow. We share knowledge between our teams and, thanks to this, we avoid making the same mistakes. While we are your technical partner, our real job is to solve problems for the clients. We try to ensure that our systems work as perfectly as possible. We care about the impact we leave behind on our partnerships and we definitely can attribute our success to the support of our clients.
Being a product-led company doesn’t mean resigning from marketing or sales strategies, but it means that the organization is focused on providing the best value to its clients and staying competitive on the market where a customer has unlimited choices. Being product-oriented is not only a strategy for us - it’s also a mindset and philosophy. In Appunite, we believe that every team in our structure influences the product and that’s why we take pride in unique atmosphere that allows us to make great products. We know that what helps acquiring and retaining customers is product experience and unique value.
