Product-Led Growth — The Next Big Thing

Sonia Dey
4 min readFeb 13, 2021

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What do you do when you decide to buy a new car? Do you directly buy the car model you like the most? Or you blindly follow any suggestion from your best buddy to go for a car?

Nobody would like to spend money without being 100% sure about the car; usually, every one of us would go for a test drive on the car we would like to buy, we prefer getting behind the wheel before committing to buying a car. We do this basically to find out if there’s anything that is not good about it, which is not satisfying our expectation. This process of test drive helps us make the right buying decision. I am sure you all agree that test drives are a great idea before we buy a car.

As that matter of fact who doesn’t like to try before you buy? Like the way you test drive a new car, you also prefer to try any product before you buy, be it to try on clothes, shoes before you purchase them, and even try out your new glasses before you commit. Customers prefer to try the products before they buy them.

Wait!!! So what’s THE BIG THING HERE?

Its the strategy, a strategy which will satisfy the customer and hence satisfy the product success too. This strategy is called Product-Led growth strategy.

What exactly is Product-Led Growth?

“Product Led Growth (PLG) is a go-to-market strategy that relies on product usage as the primary driver of acquisition, conversion and expansion.”

It is a business methodology in which the product itself drives the product’s success. Hence, the word “Product-Led” means the product itself leads to customer acquisition, expansion, conversion, and retention and thus contributes to the business’s revenue.
Unlike other business strategies where the sales and marketing teams are responsible for customer acquisition, expansion, conversion, and retention. In PLG, the whole company across teams from engineering to sales and marketing around the product works with the same strategy, i.e. Product-Led for the sustainable, scalable business growth.

Long Story Short “The product does the majority of the selling.”

Why your business should opt for Product-Led Growth Strategy?

This strategy ensures significant low customer acquisition cost. In this strategy, as the product itself does the selling, it has been observed that the sales cycle has become short and more beneficial. Undoubtedly this strategy is a capital-efficient way of growing in terms of capital optimization.

PLG is a strategy where the growth of the product is not dependent on any other factor. In this strategy monetization is much easier; the product’s growth doesn’t involve many investments.

PLG is entirely about customer satisfaction; the strategy is genuinely customer-centric; this strategy gives the customer confidence before they buy a product.

PLG is based on Freemium Pricing model; this strategy lets the customer get started on their own and interact with the product without any payment.

Key Benefits About PLG

  • Dominant Growth Engine
  • Lower customer acquisition costs
  • Faster sales cycle
  • Rapid globe scale
  • Higher revenue per employee
  • Better user experience

If I ask you whom will you trust more? If someone tells you about a product, the benefits, the advantages etc. or if you use the product and get to know and experience it?

The answer is simple; Anyone would opt for trying the product on own. This is one reason why PLG is in the trend, especially in all consumer products.

Customer/consumers are more comfortable than ever before using software on their own.

Customer need not go by the sales process words and wait for the final day when they get to buy the product to decide whether their decision to purchase the product was right or wrong.

I would like to conclude by saying, your customer’s success eventually becomes your business success — That’s the trick of Product-Led Growth.

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Sonia Dey
Sonia Dey

Written by Sonia Dey

Product Manager in PowerSchool, Passionate about product, product management and singing.

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