Consider this information as a guide describing the steps to allow product-led progress (PLG) for a B2B SaaS product in 2022. This information is much less conceptual and extra actionable and is related for progress professionals from firms which have discovered early product-market-fit, have a steadily rising consumer base, have the assets to put money into information infrastructure, and are able to construct a progress operate.

This information doesn’t point out particular instruments or supply tooling suggestions—I’ve assumed that you’ve got entry to the instruments and assets wanted to place this information into motion.

I’d like to begin by describing the fictional SaaS product I’ll be referencing right here: Airtouch is a knowledge integration instrument to maneuver information out and in of a knowledge warehouse—the instrument is simple for less-technical of us to make use of but additionally provides superior options for extra technical ones. Additionally, Airtouch has a number of use circumstances and is utilized by numerous industries attributable to which personalizing the consumer journey is vital—a linear journey simply gained’t lower it.

Earlier than leaping in, it’s useful to bear in mind as a progress individual that whilst you don’t essentially personal all the above-mentioned areas of labor, you need to see your self as a stakeholder—you could have an understanding of the respective workflows and you need to contribute to them wherever attainable.

It’s time to place your self within the footwear of the expansion lead at Airtouch.

Accumulating buyer information for evaluation and activation

From a progress perspective, you want buyer information that can allow you to derive behavioral insights and take motion based mostly on these insights.

Within the context of Airtouch, you need information that can allow you to reply questions like:

• What proportion of customers who enroll additionally create their first workflow inside 24 hours? What number of of these customers create greater than 1 workflow?
• What proportion of customers invite a colleague to affix the workspace earlier than creating the primary workflow? What number of invited customers solely create connections and what number of additionally construct the workflows?
• What proportion of accounts ran the primary workflow inside the first 24 hours? What proportion of accounts took longer than 3 days? And what number of by no means ran a workflow in any respect?

You may want solutions to a complete host of different questions, but it surely’s essential to have the ability to reply these primary ones earlier than digging deeper. No matter the SaaS product you’re making an attempt to develop, you could embrace an iterative course of that appears one thing like this:

1. I’ve a query.
2. I want some information to reply that query.
3. I’ve the reply and now I need to run some experiments to check my speculation.
4. I have to measure the impression of my experiments.

Getting by means of the above for all of your preliminary questions can take some time and getting this proper itself can drive vital progress by way of consumer adoption.

On the time of planning the info assortment, it is rather useful to consider the locations the info might be consumed. Certain, you need to analyze the info in a selected instrument, however then you definately additionally want the identical information to be out there within the instruments the place you plan to take motion on the derived insights.

This can be a non-trivial course of and I extremely advocate documenting the place all the info you plan to gather might be consumed and for what objective—doing this sooner fairly than later can go a great distance in getting assets allotted for the respective workflows.

Furthermore, figuring out what you want to do with information factors lets you collaborate higher with information and engineering groups which can be sometimes concerned in accumulating, storing, and shifting information. As the expansion lead at an organization that provides a product to maneuver information round, it’s best to know this finest.

Analyzing product utilization to establish factors of friction

Now that you’ve got the info to reply your preliminary questions or burning questions (as I prefer to consult with them), it’s best to be capable to analyze the info to establish numerous factors of friction within the consumer journey.

Inverting your burning questions is an efficient approach to determine whether or not customers are getting caught at locations you’d least count on or need them to. Let’s dig deeper into some questions that may assist establish factors of friction for Airtouch.

What number of customers signed up however didn’t confirm their e-mail?

After you have this information and if the quantity is significant, it’s essential to determine why that is taking place. Are folks utilizing faux emails to enroll? Are accounts being created by bots? Are folks not receiving the verification e-mail or is it touchdown within the spam folder for some motive?

Airtouch permits customers to strive the product for 48 hours even with out verifying their e-mail—it’s useful to see if customers who haven’t verified their e-mail have added a connection or carried out one other key motion resembling inviting a coworker.

Based mostly on such analyses, the verification reminder emails may also be extra personalised for various cohorts of customers and may probably be useful in driving the following desired motion. For example, when customers click on the verification hyperlink, those that have already created a connection could be proven an in-app walkthrough of easy methods to construct a workflow or easy methods to invite a coworker.

What number of customers began making a workflow however didn’t full it?

Making a workflow has many steps and it’s attainable for a consumer to begin the method however for some motive, depart it incomplete and finish the session. You need to monitor distinct occasions that inform you {that a} workflow creation was began and a workflow was truly saved—it will allow you to establish customers who in all probability get caught and don’t find yourself making a workflow regardless that they’d the intent to take action.

If there’s an onboarding survey asking customers for his or her position, you should use that information level to interrupt down the above evaluation by consumer persona. If customers who don’t belong to the core consumer persona find yourself leaving workflows incomplete, then there’s nothing to fret about—it’s okay to imagine that these customers are simply taking part in round. Nonetheless, since Airtouch caters to information engineers, you definitely don’t need quite a lot of customers who establish as information engineers to begin creating workflows and never full them.

In different phrases, in case your core consumer persona is getting caught whereas performing a key motion in your product, then you may have a product or an onboarding drawback that must be mounted sooner fairly than later.

Constructing personalised experiences

For Airtouch, the variety of lively workflows is a key metric, and a excessive proportion of customers not saving a workflow after beginning one signifies a degree of friction that may be addressed both by making native adjustments within the app’s interface or by triggering personalised in-app guides based mostly on consumer intent.

A information that exhibits easy methods to transfer information out of the warehouse is not any good for a consumer who’s making an attempt to ingest information within the warehouse from an exterior supply, and vice versa. In-app guides are sometimes carried out utilizing third-party instruments and are a greater wager than making adjustments to the app’s UI. Furthermore, these guides could be hyper-personalized and could be triggered based mostly on particular occasions carried out by customers belonging to particular segments.

Customers from a gross sales or advertising operate belong to a non-core persona for Airtouch and these customers sometimes depend on their coworkers to arrange a connection on Airtouch earlier than they will construct workflows. Retaining that in thoughts, if a gross sales rep indicators up, guiding them by means of the method of inviting a coworker is extra helpful than exhibiting them easy methods to add a connection. Even the welcome e-mail must be personalised and should embrace a name to motion asking the consumer to ask a coworker to their account.

Equally, when a knowledge engineer indicators up through an invite from a colleague, it is perhaps finest to not present them an in-app information in any respect as they have already got the context and are prone to know their approach round a knowledge integration instrument like Airtouch. As a substitute, you’ll be able to level them to the docs and after 24 hours, ship them an e-mail inviting them to affix the consumer neighborhood and upvote characteristic requests.

By way of natural signups (not through an invite), you undoubtedly need to embrace the hyperlink to the docs within the welcome e-mail for the info engineering persona. Moreover, you’d need to set off one other e-mail that hyperlinks to an in-app information if the consumer doesn’t add a connection or create their first workflow inside 24 hours of signing up.

Measuring impression and iterating

Utilizing solely a handful of knowledge factors, you may have managed to reply a few of your burning questions, establish numerous factors of friction, and construct personalised experiences to get new customers to carry out desired actions. Undecided in the event you seen, however thus far, every little thing you’ve carried out has been geared in direction of activating new accounts and there’s a lot extra to be carried out to get customers to extend product utilization and develop into paying prospects.

Nonetheless, getting customers to get to the aha second and derive the core worth of the product is vital, and if product-led progress is a precedence, you need to improve the activation price earlier than shifting to conversion (which frequently entails salespeople).

Evidently, measuring the impression of your personalization efforts and iterating based mostly on the outcomes is the one approach to improve product adoption and the activation price.

With a view to measure the impression of your in-app and e-mail campaigns, it’s not sufficient to have a look at view/open and click-through charges—you want to have the ability to measure if customers carry out desired actions after they view or open an in-app information or e-mail, respectively. To take action, you could be part of behavioral information out of your app with the info from third-party instruments powering these campaigns after which carry out analyses to determine the impression of your campaigns on consumer habits.

Relying in your information stack, this may be carried out both utilizing a product analytics instrument that integrates with third-party engagement instruments or by performing analyses utilizing SQL straight in your information warehouse after syncing information out of your app and third-party instruments to it.

Whereas such measurement is often seen as one thing reserved for groups with superior use circumstances, I extremely advocate prioritizing such analyses earlier than accumulating extra information factors to reply extra burning questions on product utilization.

Rinse and repeat

With a robust basis in place to gather correct information, derive insights from the info, drive motion on the info through engagement campaigns, and measure the impression of these campaigns, you ought to be in place to extend product adoption.

Resisting the temptation to gather all the info one can earlier than aligning numerous groups round evaluation and activation efforts is tough however mandatory if you wish to really develop into data-led and undertake a product-led progress technique.

Be taught extra about product-led progress with these 5 PLG diagrams, or begin mapping your product-led progress technique with this free PLG worksheet.