Growth Paths in Tech: What the Heck is Product-Led Growth Marketing?

What Does PLG Stand For?

As every person who has been working in tech industry, especially in marketing department, knows there are SO MANY acronyms in our daily lives. PLG is among them.

PLG stands for - Product Led Growth. Which is actually self- explanatory — the product leads the growth. Regarding the product, we are referring to software. This growth strategy is one of the most high-return, low cost form of go-to-market strategies in software companies- of course, product and marketing teams should go hand in hand.

We shouldn’t forget SLG- yet another acronym- which stands for Sales Led Growth. Again, this one too is self explanatory; sales teams lead growth. A sales team reaches out to the user directly and drives sales through outbound sales strategies. Growing the sales team and changing marketing strategies depending on sales teams’ targets/needs/accounts would be the way to go.

Most of the companies start with SLG strategy. Then either they choose only one of the growth strategies, or go parallel.

Dig Deeper into PLG

Product sells itself: How?

User side of the business

• User tries out the product (demo or buys online) 

• Purchases the product 

• Integrates & onboards to the product smoothly

• Uses the product (mostly for more than 1 year)

• Becomes an advocate (fingers crossed)

Business side of the business

Must Haves:

• Product is at the center of the business - a product the end user CAN use 

• Growth/Marketing Team & Product Team collaboration is inevitable

• A smooth self-onboarding process and technical infrastructure for this

• Communication plan must be close to perfect in and out of the product

• User friendly product for the target market 

• Testing out the product & getting the feedback from the users constantly

• Testing the communication channels & messaging in and out of the product

• Smooth inbound sales process (from the website & other channels)

• To be able to do all these testing and optimization: data and analysis tools

Understanding the user's needs and their connection with a software can be challenging and time-consuming. This is particularly true when the product is not user-friendly.

Analysis and tools help marketing teams understand user flow, customer journey, product feedback, and retention. This is important for the team.

In the end, there is one user and one product. Marketers can approach and improve this journey in various ways. Marketers can improve this journey in different ways.

The key is for both teams to collaborate closely. They should plan, test, optimize, gather feedback, and listen to users. Then, they should plan again for the product and its marketing journey.