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Because the product-led progress (PLG) movement turns into more and more extra standard, the method will mature as will the strategic technique of buying clients. The levels of buyer acquisition have gotten ever extra obvious according to the flywheels of each the PLG course of and the inbound advertising and marketing technique.
The PLG flywheel has 4 levels; activate, undertake, adore and advocate. The inbound flywheel has three; appeal to, interact and delight. Every of those spins quicker the extra you study, check and iterate for long-term success. But none of those displays the rules of product-led onboarding in my thoughts.
Associated: How Buyer Enablement Drives Product-led Development
The levels of onboarding for B2B PLG organizations
To set the scene, onboarding doesn’t begin on the level somebody indicators a contract or inserts their bank card particulars. Onboarding is extensively agreed to start out on the first touchpoint in any channel your group owns. This could possibly be an advert, a social media submit, an occasion or a speculative electronic mail, for instance, and every of those should set the tone or development for the next actions and actions. So, what are the 4 rules?
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Advertising onboarding: making the unfamiliar acquainted
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Platform onboarding: acquainted to the freemium consumer
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Worth onboarding: freemium to paid consumer
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Peer-led onboarding: paid consumer to product champion
For every precept, there are corresponding ways and methods — a few of which will be utilized in silos, and others carry out greatest when utilized in a cumulative or mixed strategic method. Let’s talk about these in additional element.
Advertising onboarding rules for PLG firms
The very first stage of onboarding for product-led firms is advertising and marketing. From right here, there’s a pure circulation to take strangers to champions. However what does that seem like, and what’s the greatest technique specializing in B2B SaaS? For me, it is the inbound advertising and marketing technique, however let us take a look at a few of the channels you possibly can undertake:
You possibly can dominate a single channel alone, however that will not show useful to your longer-term objectives. For a lot of, content material advertising and marketing is the value of admission to sit down on the desk, however for content material to reach in the present day’s overcrowded on-line world, you want electronic mail advertising and marketing to help it, paid promoting to put it on the market and social media advertising and marketing (each natural and paid) to distribute it.
Subsequently, a multi-channel persona-led inbound advertising and marketing technique is the one selection. Until, in fact, your PLG platform additionally sells to the enterprise, after which you’ll require each an inbound and account-based advertising and marketing technique for continued success. Past this, you want a powerful messaging technique in your web site’s copy that may drive your new events to begin to strive your platform.
Associated: Inbound Advertising — What’s it and Why Does it Matter?
Platform onboarding rules for PLG firms
As soon as you’ve got totally optimized your advertising and marketing technique (which may solely occur over time as you acquire and use your information) you wish to totally optimize your onboarding process. To do that, it is advisable to use a acknowledged framework or mixture frameworks like:
Nail this stage of the onboarding course of and your buyer acquisition program will probably be heating up. Not solely have I given you the playbook on PLG onboarding right here, however I’ve additionally given you the instruments to do it — and I am not carried out but.
Worth onboarding for product-led SaaS
The articles I’ve shared with you within the hyperlinks will provide you with and your workforce extra worth steerage and context for certain, however there’s one other stage to optimizing onboarding and that requires instruments. These instruments come within the type of:
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Pendo
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Userflow
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Chameleon
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Heap
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Amplitude
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Mixpanel
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FullStory
There’s additionally a complete host of different instruments that can assist you perceive in case your product is delivering the worth you got down to ship, the place the bottlenecks are and how one can take care of them. Optimizing your PLG platform for worth is the way you decrease the time that your freemium customers take to acknowledge the true worth of your product.
Hold optimizing to ship ongoing worth and to grasp find out how to construct and deal with future product and/or characteristic releases.
Peer-led or peer-to-peer onboarding for product-led organizations
The ultimate precept of onboarding is to optimize your platform’s means on your champions or cheerleaders to ask their buddies and colleagues. While incentives are all the time good, finally, you wish to construct a product so good, so priceless and so crucial that your greatest customers can not help however speak about you and hype you up.
You need these customers to inform their tales and have your platform as a hero within the story. So, how do you do this? The chances are high that in case you nail the primary three, this one takes care of itself. Nevertheless, your job is to not turn into complacent however to deal with this onboarding section like a partnership channel — one that’s pushed by a consumer group, not a gross sales workforce.
You possibly can add the power to ask and share from their account, that is just about customary nowadays, however ask your workforce this query: How will we allow our greatest customers, the champions and cheerleaders, to simply invite and onboard new customers on our behalf? Determine that out by way of a champions committee or one thing related, and you have nailed the 4 levels of PLG onboarding.
Associated: How you can Flip Strangers into Loyal Clients With Consumer Onboarding
I hope you loved this tackle the 4 precept levels of onboarding for product-led progress platforms and that I’ve given you sufficient so that you can return to your groups and refocus your efforts. Utilizing this framework will permit your group to turn into extra embedded and cross-functional, which may solely show useful for your complete go-to-market movement.
Supply: Entrepreneur