Search

Welcome

Launch Instant

Contact Support

🔥

PLG Blueprint

The Unstoppable PLG Blueprint

Follow a battle-hardened framework to scale your PLG Self-Service business to the next stage of growth. I’ve personally used these principles to scale my last SaaS company to 100K users and coached 250+ SaaS Founders on implementing them.
image

Overview

In this comprehensive guide, we'll cover the following key topics:

  1. Sales-led vs Product-led: We'll explore the differences between a sales-led and a product-led approach to business, and how to choose the one that's right for you.
  2. What is Product-led: We'll define what product-led growth (PLG) is and discuss the four principles you need to know to run a successful self-service SaaS business.
  3. PLG Blueprint: We'll share a blueprint for implementing PLG in your business, focusing on key principles such as addressing the emotional, logical, and fear-based objections of your audience.
  4. PLG Demo Videos: We'll talk about the importance of product demo videos in the SaaS industry and the four golden principles for creating an effective product demo.
  5. PLG Pricing Strategy: We'll delve into the complexities of pricing strategy, sharing three key principles for establishing a three-tiered pricing model for your SaaS business.
  6. Launching Your PLG Product: We'll discuss the concept of a multi-threaded launch strategy, which involves building your product and go-to-market simultaneously.
  7. PLG Go-To-Market Strategy: We'll guide you through building a successful go-to-market plan, which is crucial for any SaaS business looking to scale and achieve predictable growth.
  8. Generating Trials with Lead Magnets: We'll show you how to generate trials for your Product-led offering by launching an educational Lead Magnet.

By the end of this guide, you'll have a comprehensive understanding of how to implement a successful Product-led Growth strategy for your SaaS business.

1. Sales-led vs Product-led

At the time of this writing, I own and operate two SaaS companies. One is Product-led and one is Sales-led. How did I make this distinction? I didn’t. The market did. Some products and markets require a Sales-led offering while other marketers prefer a Product-led offering.

While Product-led is the most cost efficient way to grow companies, you should only pursue this journey if it’s a fit for how your market likes to purchase your type of offering.

Here’s the big question though… how do you figure out if Product-led is right for you? Or if you should focus on Sales-led (before you go too far down the rabbit-hole here). Here’s some specific training on how to choose between Sales-led vs. Product-led.

Key Takeaways:

  • PLG focuses on driving growth through a self-service product experience, where users can quickly reach an 'aha' moment and convert without heavy sales involvement.
  • Sales-led approach relies on traditional sales processes to acquire customers, with sales teams actively engaging and guiding prospects through the buying journey.
  • PLG requires a product that can deliver a compelling user experience, leading to activation and revenue generation without extensive sales efforts.
  • Sales-led approach is more suitable for complex products or high-touch sales processes.
  • In PLG, marketing and product teams work closely together to acquire and activate users, while sales teams can still play a role in upselling and expanding within larger accounts.

2. What is Product-led?

Product-led growth (PLG) is a hot topic in the SaaS industry right now, but it can also be confusing and overwhelming for many. As a SaaS founder and operator, I've had experience with both self-service and sales-driven models. My last company ToutApp amassed 100K salespeople on the platform thanks to Product-led Growth. We grew revenues on the backend with our Inside Sales team to become one of the top Sales Engagement platforms of its time.

I've seen the power of using product-led growth to drive up engagement and scale a business without relying on salespeople. Let’s now dig into what exactly Product-led is and walk through the four principles you need to know to successfully run a self-service SaaS business.

  1. Principle #1: Aha Moment in Few Clicks The first principle is all about making sure that your users experience an "aha moment" as quickly as possible. When users don't have a salesperson guiding them, it's crucial to measure how many clicks it takes for them to reach that moment where they see the value your product brings. This could be a key feature, a successful task completion, or any other indication that they are getting value from your product. The goal is to reduce the number of clicks it takes for users to reach that moment, ensuring a smooth and engaging user experience.
  2. Principle #2: Keep Them Coming Back The second principle focuses on user engagement and retention. Your biggest competitor is not another SaaS product – it's the back button on the browser or the close tab button. You need to find ways to encourage users to keep coming back to your product. This could involve email reminders, text messages, browser extensions, or even calendar events. The key is to use all available channels to keep reminding users about your product and enticing them to re-engage with it.
  3. Principle #3: Ask Them to Pay Once you've successfully activated and retained your users, the next step is to get them to pay. This involves two stages: asking them to pay and then upselling. You can use email drips, trial periods, and pricing pages to guide users smoothly through the payment process. However, it's important to remember that the focus should always be on delivering value first. Make sure users are getting enough value from your product before asking them to pay, and consider implementing upsells to drive up your net dollar retention rate.
  4. Principle #4: Encourage Referrals The final principle is all about leveraging your users to drive referrals. Get creative with how you incentivize and encourage users to invite friends or refer more people to your product. This could be through in-product prompts, special features for inviting friends, or even creating a competitive environment where users want to outdo each other. The goal is to create a viral effect and expand your user base organically.

To sum it all up, building a self-service SaaS business requires following these four key principles: creating an aha moment in as few clicks as possible, engaging users to keep them coming back, guiding them through a smooth payment process, and leveraging them to drive referrals. By implementing these principles, you can scale your SaaS business without relying on salespeople.

3. PLG Flywheel

In order to make Product-led work, it goes deeper than just a product a customer can sign up for. I’ve learned that you have to have a proper framework in place in your organization and a partnership across Product, Marketing and Sales to truly drive Product-led growth.

So, as we dig in, let’s first talk through the three core principles you need to know in order to craft an effective product-led growth strategy.

  1. Principle #1: Understand the Core Flywheel of a Product-led SaaS Business Before diving into the specifics of product-led growth, it's important to understand the core flywheel of a Product-led SaaS business. This flywheel consists of:
    • acquisition,
    • activation,
    • revenue,
    • retention,
    • and referrals. (we’ll dig into this more later on in the PLG Metrics section)

      • Every SaaS business, regardless of its growth model, operates based on these principles. It's crucial to optimize this flywheel and increase the percentage of users who convert from acquisition to revenue, retain customers, and drive referrals.

  2. Principle #2: Partnership between Product, Marketing, and Sales Product-led growth doesn't mean that the product team drives growth on its own. It requires a strong partnership between product, marketing, and sales. In a product-led growth strategy, marketing and product work together to acquire users and get them into the product. This partnership involves crafting messaging and positioning that compel users to try the product and creating a seamless user experience to ensure successful activation. Running one to three experiments per week is essential in this partnership. These experiments focus on optimizing the conversion rates between acquisition, activation, and revenue. Monitoring these percentages and consistently improving them is key to driving growth in a product-led growth strategy. Sales also plays a role in product-led growth. While the product team takes the lead in acquiring and activating users, sales can be involved in upselling, cross-selling, and expanding the customer base. By identifying high-value users and partnering with product to ensure their success, sales can drive additional revenue.
  3. Principle #3: Upsell, Cross-sell, and Expansion An important aspect of a product-led growth strategy is to focus on upselling, cross-selling, and expansion. After acquiring and activating users, it's crucial to continue engaging them and driving additional revenue. This can be done through in-product upsells and cross-sells, as well as leveraging sales to target larger deals and expand within existing customers.

Crafting an effective product-led growth strategy requires a deep understanding of your product, your target audience, and your ability to deliver value quickly. By focusing on the core principles outlined above, you can create an unstoppable product-led growth machine that delivers a great customer experience and accelerates the growth of your SaaS business.

4. PLG Metrics

Building a successful product-led growth experience is the holy grail for SaaS businesses. The ability to scale your business, acquire new customers, and convert them to revenue without relying heavily on expensive salespeople is incredible.

As someone who has gone through the journey of building a product-led SaaS business, I understand the challenges that come with it. One of the biggest questions is, what metrics should you track to ensure proper product-led growth and how do you optimize those metrics? In this blog post, I will walk you through three key principles that will help you build a product-led experience that converts to revenue and scales your SaaS business.

  1. Principle #1: The Framework I always think of the product-led experience as a core funnel. It is important to break it down into specific pieces to understand where the potential issues may lie. The three principles I will discuss are the key inflection points in this funnel.
    2. image
  2. Principle #2: Traffic and Acquisition Many people make the mistake of assuming that if you're product-led, you don't need marketing. However, in order for your product to lead the growth of your company, you need people to discover your product in the first place. This is where traffic comes in. You want to measure how many people are discovering your product and becoming aware of it. Acquisition, on the other hand, refers to the number of people who actually start a trial or use your product. It's important to distinguish between the two metrics and track them separately to understand where improvements can be made.
  3. Principle #3: Activation and Revenue Once you have acquired users, the next step is to focus on activation. Activation refers to the meaningful actions that users take within your product. It is crucial to get them to an "aha" moment where they see the value of your product. By tracking activation, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize the user experience to increase the likelihood of conversion to revenue. Finally, revenue is the ultimate goal. It's not just about acquiring customers, but also about retaining them and driving expansion. This is where salespeople and customer success managers can play a crucial role in upselling and ensuring customer satisfaction.

It's important to note that while these principles provide a framework for success, there is no one-size-fits-all benchmark for success. It's about understanding and improving your own metrics week by week. Continuously experiment and iterate to increase traffic, improve acquisition rates, drive activation, and ultimately boost revenue.

In conclusion, building a product-led growth experience requires a strategic approach. By following these three principles and tracking the right metrics, you can optimize your product-led funnel and scale your SaaS business. Remember, marketing is essential to attract users, and salespeople can play a role in driving revenue growth.

5. PLG + Sales

Even when you a Product-led experience, as you start to grow in the market, you may find that it makes sense to have a sales team to help active users upgrade to bigger plans or expand usage across the company.

This is to say that even with PLG, there’s a need for both Sales and Marketing. In this section, I’ll talk about how you can drive long-term growth by augmenting a sales team and have a specific sales methodology in place to complement your PLG motions.

Sales is optional. But Marketing is not. So we’ll square away the optional plays you can do with Sales. And in latter sections, we’ll dig into Marketing (you’ll need this so your ideal customers can discover your product and get into your beautiful PLG experience).

Let’s talk through the three sales methodologies for selling SaaS software and the principles you can apply to choose the right one and accelerate your path to growth.

  1. Methodology No. 1: The Top-Down Sales Model The top-down sales model works best when there is a salesperson involved, and you are dealing with larger deal sizes. This is because your software is a critical part of how the business operates, and there will be multiple decision-makers involved in choosing your platform. Start at the leadership level of the company or department, work through the buying process, and educate them on the transformation and why they should trust you. This sales model can involve multiple phone calls, Zoom meetings, or even in-person meetings. The benefit of this model is that once you close the deal, you become deeply embedded in how the company operates, reducing the likelihood of churn.
  2. Methodology No. 2: The Bottoms-Up Model The bottoms-up model is the opposite of the top-down model. Instead of starting at the top, you focus on getting end-users to start using your product. This model works well when you have a product that users can easily adopt and find value in. You start by offering trials or low-cost plans to individual users and encourage them to spread the usage within their organization. Once you have critical mass, you send in the sales team to upsell to a wider or company-wide license. The advantage of this model is that the salespeople come in when there is already momentum and warm leads.
  3. Methodology No. 3: The Land and Expand Model The land and expand model is a hybrid of the top-down and bottoms-up models. Instead of going all-in with one approach, you start with a small pilot or initial sale and then plan to expand from there. This model allows you to deliver quick value to a specific part of the organization and then gradually expand to larger deals and larger usage. The key here is to plan the "wedding," meaning you should have a cohesive plan to move from the initial pilot to the larger deal. This model allows you to have control over the sales experience while still building momentum.

Now that you understand the three sales methodologies, it's important to choose the right one for your SaaS business. Consider factors such as the nature of your product, deal size, and how your customers want to buy. Each model has its pros and cons, so it's essential to evaluate which one aligns with your goals and resources.

Implementing these methodologies requires a clear go-to-market strategy, including targeting the right customers, crafting effective messaging, and running consistent sales and marketing activities.

6. PLG + Marketing

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” — that is an age old philosophical question that no one quite knows the answers to. However, let’s ask a more important question…

“If no one knows about your SaaS product, how many trials will you convert to revenue?” → ZERO.

Even with a Product-led Strategy, Sales is optional, but Marketing is required so that your ideal customer discovers your product, builds trust with you, and then tries your product (and eventually becomes a great customer!) In the subsequent sections, I’ll walk you through the key components of PLG + Marketing including:

  • How to drive Awareness
  • Your PLG Homepage
  • Your PLG Pricing
  • Your PLG Demo Video
  • …and how to pull all this together into a cohesive Go-To-Market Strategy to drive growth

Now, let's get into the three key types of customer acquisition funnels that I've seen working in the SaaS industry.

  1. The first type is the traditional funnel, where you start by generating awareness through ads, outbound efforts, social media, and SEO. This leads to a lead magnet, such as a manifesto, that captures leads and nurtures them. From there, you bring them into a sales conversation or demo, and eventually convert them to revenue. This funnel is effective for SaaS businesses with an average customer value (ACV) of at least $20k. It requires investment in salespeople but can yield great results if executed properly.
  2. The second type of funnel is for SaaS businesses that is Product-led but starts by attracting leads through offering a Lead Magnet. Instead of relying on salespeople, you can offer a free trial directly from the lead magnet. The manifesto still plays a crucial role in educating and convincing potential customers during the trial period, which leads to conversion. This model allows for economies of scale without the need for expensive sales teams. If you’d like to use a Lead Magnet to drive quality trials for your Prouduct-led SaaS business, then grab a complimentary copy of my 10-Point Landing Page Checklist where I dig into how you can launch your own 3-Point Lead and Trial Generation Funnel👇
  3. Lastly, the third type of funnel is the product-led growth (PLG) funnel that directly promotes the Product (usually a free trial). This approach skips the lead magnet and goes straight to offering a free trial. The messaging and value proposition from the manifesto are incorporated into the trial experience. This type of funnel is particularly effective for SaaS products targeted at end-users who can quickly see the value and benefit from a trial. Offering onboarding calls and additional educational resources during the trial can further boost conversion rates.

It's important to note that while these three types of funnels offer a proven framework for customer acquisition, there are still nuances to consider. Factors like market fit, messaging, positioning, and pricing can impact the success of each funnel type. It's essential to constantly test and iterate to find the right approach for your target audience and ideal customer profile.

I hope you're starting to see the power behind these three customer acquisition funnels. They simplify the process and provide a clear strategy for growth. However, executing them successfully requires a solid understanding of your ideal customer profile, crafting a compelling manifesto, and implementing an effective go-to-market strategy.

If you’d like to learn more about how to build an end-to-end GTM Strategy, check out my 5-Point SaaS Growth Strategy Guide: 👇

7. PLG Product Homepage

Creating a high-converting homepage for your SaaS business is crucial to driving growth and attracting customers. As a startup founder, I know the struggle of constantly changing and experimenting with website content to find what works. But what if there was a framework that could help you create a homepage that resonates with your target audience and drives conversions? In this section, I'll walk you through four principles (three core and one bonus) that you absolutely need to know to create a high-converting homepage that you won't have to constantly change.

  1. Principle #1: Emotion The first principle is understanding how a homepage is structured around emotion. When someone lands on your homepage, they make a split-second decision on whether to stay or leave based on the emotional impact of your content. To create an emotional connection, you need to craft a catchy headline that communicates the result, problem, transformation, and differentiation your product offers. This can be a challenge, but by developing a clear value proposition, strategic narrative, and differentiation, you can effectively evoke the desired emotion in your audience. Additionally, including logos of your customers can help build trust and credibility.
  2. Principle #2: Call to Action The second principle is the call to action (CTA). A CTA is a clear indication of what action you want your visitors to take. It's important to repeat the CTA throughout your homepage and decide whether you want to offer a free trial or a talk to sales option. Depending on your target audience and buying decision process, choose one that aligns with your sales and marketing model. In your case, this would be the “Start Trial” button to get users into your Product-led experience. By including the CTA in strategic sections, you can guide visitors towards taking the desired action and moving them further into your sales funnel.
  3. Principle #3: Logic The third principle is logic. While emotion and a compelling CTA may capture the attention of some visitors, others will seek more rational reasons to engage with your product. In this section, you need to highlight the features, benefits, use cases, and testimonials that support your value proposition. The logical part of your homepage should address objections and provide concrete evidence that your product can solve the important problems your target audience faces.
  4. Bonus Principle: Fear The bonus principle is fear. Some visitors may still be hesitant to take action even after going through the emotional, logical, and CTA sections of your homepage. Including a fear element can help address their concerns and offer a non-committal way to engage with your brand. One effective way to do this is by linking to a manifesto or ebook that educates them further on the problem space and how your product solves it. By doing so, you instill a fear of missing out and provide an opportunity for them to learn more without committing to a trial or sales call.

Here’s a visual cheatsheet of how your PLG Homepage should be structured to maximize trials. You’ll notice that even for a PLG experience, it’s still a good idea to have a “Talk to Sales” button to capture higher end customers who’d rather talk directly with the team.

image

By following these principles, you can create a homepage that addresses the emotional, logical, and fear-based objections of your target audience. This framework helps you avoid constantly changing your website content without a proper system in place. Remember, a well-crafted homepage is the foundation for driving up engagement, attracting customers, and accelerating the growth of your SaaS business.

8. PLG Demo Videos

Now that you’re starting to understand the PLG machine you’ll have to build as part of this Unstoppable Product-led Blueprint, let’s start talking about how to get users to try your product. One of the core components that will get your customers to try your product is a great Product Demo video.

SaaS is noisy and buyers are tired of SaaS products that over-promise and under-deliver. So even before someone tries your Product-led experience, they’ll want to see a demo video (and it has to be great).

I want to talk to you about the four golden principles for giving an unstoppable product demo. Having been part of numerous SaaS product demos throughout my career, I have come to understand the importance of these principles in captivating your audience and highlighting the value of your product. So, let's get right into it!

  1. Principle 1: Jump Into the Action Shot When giving a product demo, it's crucial to jump right into the action. Just like a Joe Rogan podcast that grabs your attention from the start, you want to immediately show your audience the core product loop - the key workflow that your primary user goes through. By zooming in on this action shot, you can showcase the result and experience your software provides. Remember, people care about the outcome, not the fancy details. Keep it focused and engaging!
  2. Principle 2: Highlight the No Hands Mode Once you've demonstrated the core product loop, it's time to show how your software works its magic automatically for the user. This is what I call the "no hands play." Show the behind-the-scenes activities that happen after the user completes their workflow - data syncing, calculations, triggering of other workflows, and more. In this part of the demo, emphasize how your software takes care of everything so that the user can sit back and let it do the work. This showcases efficiency and time-saving benefits.
  3. Principle 3: Cater to the Manager Your product demo should not only cater to the primary user but also to the manager overseeing the user. Highlight the visibility and control aspects that your software provides to managers. Showcase how your platform offers insights, dashboards, reports, and audit logs that give managers a clear picture of what their team is doing. Managers want to ensure their employees are productive and following the right processes, so demonstrate how your software can streamline workflows and provide the necessary oversight.
  4. Principle 4: Show Value to the Buyer Lastly, don't forget about the buyer - the person who holds the budget and makes the purchasing decision. In this part of the demo, bring it back to the enterprise value your software delivers. Focus on how your product can help the buyer save money, make more money, or reduce risk. Highlight the financial benefits and ROI potential that your software offers. By tying your core product benefits to the buyer's bottom line, you can make a compelling case for why they should choose your product.

Now, how will you know if your demo video is any good? You’ll want to track on a weekly basis how many people watched your demo video and how many people went on to start the trial. This can be tracked using a tool like Mixpanel which I also recommend for tracking the PLG Metrics Section 4.

So, there you have it - the four golden principles for an unstoppable product demo. Start with the action shot to captivate your audience, showcase the no hands mode to highlight automation and efficiency, cater to the manager's needs for visibility and control, and demonstrate the value your product brings to the buyer. By following these principles, you can create a compelling and engaging product demo that drives customer engagement and boosts your SaaS sales.

9. PLG Pricing Strategy

Pricing is a bit of a black art. Doubly so when it comes to Product-led offerings. I want to share with you the three key principles that you need to know in order to establish a three-tiered pricing model for your SaaS business. Pricing can often be a complex and confusing process, especially in the competitive landscape of B2B SaaS. However, I believe that it doesn't have to be that way. By following these principles, you can simplify the pricing process and drive growth for your early-stage SaaS business.

  1. Principle #1: Map out your customer maturity curve When it comes to pricing, it's important to consider where your customers are in their journey of transformation. Are they just starting out and in the beginner stage? Are they already partway through their transformation and in the intermediate stage? Or are they advanced and leading the transformation in their industry? By understanding the different stages of customer maturity, you can create three pricing tiers that cater to each stage. This will make it easier for customers to choose the plan that best suits their current needs. It also allows for upsell opportunities as customers progress along their journey.
  2. Principle #2: Embrace price anchoring Price anchoring is a powerful psychological tactic for influencing purchasing decisions. By offering three pricing tiers, you can anchor customers' perception of value. Let's say you have a basic plan for $30, an intermediate plan for $49, and an advanced plan for $199. By presenting these options, customers are more likely to view the intermediate plan as reasonable and affordable compared to the other two options. This creates a sense of value and encourages them to choose the middle tier. By anchoring the pricing, you can guide customers towards the plan that you want them to choose, while still giving them options and maintaining a sense of value.
  3. Principle #3: Include a "talk to sales" option (yes, even for PLG) While self-serve options are great for many SaaS businesses, there will always be customers who prefer to talk to a sales representative before making a purchase. By including a "talk to sales" option on your pricing page, you can cater to these customers and ensure that you don't lose out on potential enterprise deals. This allows you to gather more information about the customer and determine if they are a good fit for your product. It also signals to potential enterprise customers that you understand their unique needs and are willing to provide personalized support.

By following these three principles, you can establish a solid foundation for your pricing strategy. Mapping out the customer maturity curve, embracing price anchoring, and including a "talk to sales" option will simplify the pricing process and drive growth for your early-stage SaaS business.

10. Launching Your PLG Product

When I first started out, I, like many other founders, fell into the trap of following a linear launch model. We would build the product, make it perfect, and then hit that magical launch button, expecting it to take off and become a huge success. But as you can guess, it rarely worked that way.

I soon realized that there is no one giant launch that will suddenly skyrocket your business. Instead, I learned the power of a multi-threaded launch strategy, which involves building your product and go-to-market simultaneously. This approach avoids the pitfalls of the linear model and allows for continuous iteration and improvement.

So, let's dive into the three core principles of a successful multi-threaded launch strategy:

  1. Avoid the linear launch model: The linear launch model involves building your product first and then launching it to the market. However, this approach is flawed because it relies on unproven assumptions and often leads to a never-ending cycle of adding more features before launch. It's important to break free from this mindset and embrace a more holistic approach.
  2. Embrace a multi-threaded approach: Instead of focusing solely on building the product, you should also start building your go-to-market strategy early on. This means creating an engaged audience or community around your problem space, even before your product is fully developed. By involving your target audience in the iterative process, you can gain valuable insights and validation, ultimately leading to a better product-market fit.
  3. Leverage popular trends: There are several current trends that align with the multi-threaded launch strategy. Building in public, for example, involves sharing your journey and progress with your audience, allowing for early feedback and engagement. Community-first businesses focus on building a community of interested individuals who can become your early adopters and evangelists. Product-led growth, on the other hand, emphasizes getting users into your product early and using their feedback to iterate and improve.

By implementing these principles, you can achieve a gradual and sustainable growth trajectory for your SaaS business, rather than relying on one big launch event. Instead of a single spike followed by a decline, you'll see consistent growth as you continue to refine your product and go-to-market strategy.

Remember, there's no one-size-fits-all approach to launching a successful SaaS business. It's all about finding the right balance between building your product and engaging with your target audience. So let's break free from the linear launch model and embrace the power of a multi-threaded launch strategy. Together, we can make our SaaS businesses unstoppable.

Now, how do you actually do this multi-threaded approach? You set up a proper Go-To-Market Strategy from the beginning and set up a lead acquisition funnel so you can consistently acquire leads and then nurture them to become customers on a daily basis. Let’s dig into how to do that in the next section.

11. PLG Go-To-Market Strategy

image

Once you have a PLG experience and everything wired, you still need Marketing. You need a cohesive GTM Strategy so that your ideal customers discover your product and start a trial. Building a successful go-to-market plan is crucial for any SaaS business looking to scale and achieve predictable growth.

Otherwise, your beautiful PLG experience will sit in the forest with no one to ever discover it. That would suck, wouldn’t it? Let’s dig into how to create a cohesive GTM Strategy so that users discover your product and start trials.

These steps are based on my 15 years of experience as a CEO of a scaling SaaS company and helping over 250 SaaS founders build their own go-to-market plans. So let's dive right in.

  1. Define your Market Before you can effectively build a go-to-market plan, you need to define the market you are playing in. This means understanding the urgent and important problem that your product solves and identifying the target market that has this problem. Whether it's a mature market with a three or four-letter acronym or a brand new market, it's important to have a clear definition of the market you are targeting.
  2. Why is this an urgent & important problem for your target Market and Ideal Customer Next, you need to determine why this urgent and important problem exists. What macro trends or industry shifts are happening that make this problem relevant? Understanding the why behind the problem will help you validate the market and justify the existence of your product.
  3. Positioning Once you have defined your market and understand why it exists, it's time to position yourself within that market. This involves segmenting the market based on factors like company size or sales complexity, and determining how you will sell your product. By defining your position in the market, you can tailor your approach to different segments and understand how to engage with potential customers.
  4. Competitive Differentiation No matter what industry you are in, there will always be competition. Take the time to research and understand who your competitors are and how they are solving the same problem. This will help you identify white spaces in the market where there may be unmet needs, as well as areas where you can differentiate yourself from the competition.
  5. Craft your Messaging With a clear understanding of your market, why the problem exists, and your positioning, it's time to create your messaging. This includes your value proposition, which succinctly explains the problem you solve and why customers should choose your product. It also includes your strategic narrative, which provides a clear message about the transformation your product brings to customers' lives. Your messaging will form the basis of your marketing and sales efforts.
  6. Execute and Iterate The final step is to put your plan into action. Execute your marketing and sales activities using your messaging as a guide. Track the data and results to see what is working and what needs improvement. Continuously iterate on your go-to-market plan based on the data you collect, allowing you to scale and accelerate your growth. In this video, I walk you through how I measure my Go-To-Market Execution on a weekly basis and iterate based on what the data is telling me.

These six steps provide a framework for building a successful GTM plan for your SaaS business. By following this structure and continually iterating based on data, you can drive up engagement and accelerate your path to growth.I hope you find these steps helpful in building your Go-To-Market plan.

12. Generating Trials with Lead Magnets

48% of C-Suite Executives said that Thought Leadership Content directly led them to giving a company their business.

One of the best ways to generate trials for your Product-led offering is to launch an educational Lead Magnet using Instant. Lead Magnets are the best ways to attract your ideal buyers, educate them the urgent and important problem you solve and then drive them to start a trial with your SaaS product. These type of funnels convert 10x better than trying to get your ideal customers to just start a free trial of your product cold.

image
  1. Principle #1: Establish your Lead Magnet Funnel The first step is to establish your lead generation pipeline funnel. It consists of three parts: the landing page, the lead magnet, and the next step. The landing page is the page where you direct your audience from various channels, such as ads, social media, or blogs. It should offer a compelling offer or guide that educates and entices your audience. Once they fill out their contact information, they receive the lead magnet, which is a PDF or manifesto designed to convince and educate them about your product or service. Finally, the next step is where you want your audience to take action, such as booking a demo or talking to sales.
  2. Principle #2: Measure the Right Metrics To determine the effectiveness of your landing page and lead magnet, it's crucial to measure the right metrics. First, track the conversion rate from your landing page to the lead magnet. This will help you understand how many people are actually engaging with your offer. Second, measure the activation rate, which shows how many people are consuming and engaging with your lead magnet. This metric is essential because if people are not consuming the content, they won't take further action. By measuring these two metrics, you can establish a baseline and identify areas for improvement.
  3. Principle #3: Diagnose and Tweak Once you have the data from your metrics, it's time to diagnose and tweak your lead magnet and landing page. This is where a tool like Instant can be immensely helpful. Instant allows you to create and customize landing pages easily and provides detailed analytics on conversion rates, activation rates, and traffic sources. By analyzing this data, you can identify which parts of your funnel need improvement and make the necessary tweaks to optimize your lead generation pipeline.

By following these three principles, you'll be able to generate high-quality trials and accelerate the growth of your SaaS business. It's important to note that these principles apply to both early-stage and later-stage SaaS businesses. I have worked with companies at various stages of growth, and this framework has consistently delivered results.

About the Author, TK Kader

TK started his career as the CEO & Founder at ToutApp (backed by a16z, Jackson Square Ventures and prominent angel investors in Silicon Valley). After scaling ToutApp to 100K users and pioneering the Sales Engagement category, it was acquired by Marketo where TK went on to join Marketo's executive team and serve as their Senior Vice President of Strategy. After running a 2-year transformation as part of the executive team, Marketo was acquired by Adobe for $4.75bn.

TK now spends his time operating two SaaS companies (one Product-led and one Sales-led) and also serves as a Strategic Advisor to 300+ B2B SaaS Founders globally.

In Conclusion & Next Steps

In this comprehensive guide, we've discussed the key principles of building a successful Product-led Growth (PLG) strategy for a SaaS business. We've explored key strategies that I’ve personally battle hardened with my own SaaS companies and with my coaching clients to drive success in Product-led SaaS businesses.

Once you’ve established your Product-led Framework, the key to driving growth is to generate leads and trails. The best way to do this is by launching a Lead Magnet using Instant.

Launch Your Content Marketing Funnel using Instant

Instant is a Content Marketing Platform that helps you launch high converting content marketing funnels that generates quality leads and drives revenue growth. [>> Click here to launch your Instant Content Funnel](https://instantlanding.page)

>> Click here to launch your Instant Content Funnel

Content Marketing Launchpack (Training + Platform Bundle)

Anyone can post content online. But the quality of your Content Funnel determines the success of your lead generation efforts.

Inside of the Content Marketing Launchpack, we'll teach you how to craft an incredible Content Marketing Machine that fuels your Product-led Experience.

>> Click here to learn more about the Content Marketing Launchpack

Work With Me

Want my coaching and help as you implement your PLG motions?

>> Click here to learn more about my SaaS GTM Coaching Program