Hey everybody welcome to the Stack and Growth podcast. I am Tori and I'm joined today by my co-host Allison. Hey everyone So today we've got a cool topic Domitifying product-led growth for demand-gen marketers And so while we have I think some some interesting things to share including a framework that Allison and I have been using with some of our clients that you know We've kind of been I guess kicking around with with some of our colleagues as well There's kind of some Important I guess setting up the stage here that that needs to happen before we dive into this I think like the important caveat to all this right is that what we're going to talk about today is really Kind of a nuanced situation right so demand-gen marketers out there You know who are really focused a lot on many of the same things that we're talking about you know A refined labs on a day-to-day basis right the demand creation the demand capture That you know people that are approaching their their roles their marketing roles their demand generation roles I'm you know looking at things under the same lens we do Occasionally you're met with a request or prompt from the executive team the CEO that says hey You know we have this new idea we want to introduce some type of product-led growth motion on top of what we're already doing And so you know what we're talking about what we're kind of creating here is a product-led growth motion that leads into a sales-led growth motion This is not necessarily a framework that maybe would be As impactful for a 100% product-led growth revenue model But rather you know what we're gonna be kind of talking about today is how companies that are looking at you know some type of free trial or freemium or You know some type of offering intake almost that is going to bring people in Get them using their tool or their product or their service And then ideally you know almost using that as a qualification step of sorts to you know to pass them along to A sales team who will take them from a free trial free free user to one that is actually generating revenue for the company So that's my preamble that's kind of I think a little bit of setting the stage here and Allison I want to pass it over to you to just kind of you know Maybe we can call this housekeeping, you know, maybe we can kind of call this You know scoping out the the work at hand here But I know you had some some thoughts to share that I think would be helpful for all of our listeners here just around Product-led growth, you know in general sales leg growth the difference between the two and so before we get into our framework All passing over to you so that you can kind of share a little bit of of your thoughts and ideas Absolutely. So a lot of the clients that I've been working with that have this dual-motion PLG SLG sort of a hybrid situation A majority of them were not PLG first They started with that sales leg growth that traditional sales buying motion And they have since layered on this product-led growth motion And that's been really interesting because you know if you have a SLG motion in place when you incorporate PLG into your growth strategy You're not necessarily starting from complete scratch.
You just have to think a little bit differently about some of the strategies you're already using So really to me when I think about what the main differences are from a PLG versus an SLG motion aside from the fact that You're basically yet letting the user experience justify the future purchase versus the sales Employee kind of having to guide that that buyer along the journey the buyers really guiding themselves whether it's through a free trial a free basic version Etc. That's obviously the main difference, but something else that's different is it's actually almost two different types of personas So instead of trying to necessarily talk to a buying committee that's already thinking of buying the product they've maybe been Created through all the demand that your organization is running and you've since captured them and then you're leading them through that buyers journey You're really focusing on creating that connection with an individual end user so that you can help them solve a problem so that they can then make the case Internally to buy maybe an enterprise version or just continue to sort of advocate within their own organization to get more users So it becomes a little bit less about like the buying committee and more about the individual user and the user experience Go ahead, go ahead, please. No, I think if you keep that in mind like the framework that we're about to discuss will make a lot of sense Yeah, and so the way that you had Explained it to me when we were talking about this a couple weeks back was the main difference is between a top-down approach and a bottoms up approach Right, so that top-down approach which I think is oftentimes what marketers are focusing on with their go-to-market motions, which is like Okay, you know, let me run this quick kind of opportunity analysis see all the you know the the opportunity primary primary contact records on the opportunity Which is typically going to be like your contract signers or some sea level person or you know Someone to kind of higher up the food chain so to speak As compared to right the bottoms up approach where like you just mentioned you're going after the end user The people that are are you know seeing this in some respects a Immediate value from your your product might have a different use case different pains than the person that's actually The budget owner the decision maker, but that that difference right from the bottoms up approach to the top-down approach I think is really really important right we're always talking about knowing your buyer and in this case the buyer is very different same company same ICP but just you know different kind of psychological drivers Buying behavior that that comes along with this kind of bottoms up approach versus the top-down And so yeah I just wanted to kind of sprinkle that in there because I thought that was a great way that you had summarized it when we've been having this conversation recently Yeah, the sales lad, you know, you're you're selling the product before the user adopts it and products led They're using it before you sell it. So top top down bottoms up It's it's definitely both can coexist and likely should coexist for for your organization And so many of my clients have been sort of tasked with helping their internal product marketing teams Their finance teams sort of flesh out what does this plg motion look like for my organization and how can we replicate the success?
We're having on the traditional sales led side with all the demand creation and capture activities How do we then back that into a plg motion? And so that's kind of where this framework has loosely been been created at sort of a high level Yeah, I I do want to get into that framework, but I think even before we we dive into that What do you see as far as like the the benefits of a product like growth motion as compared to a sales like growth motion, right? Besides the one that you just stated which might be I don't even know if it's debatable I would say it absolutely is the most important one which is that you know, it's much more aligned to The buyer and much less to what the salesperson wants to do or is intending to do or is incentivized to do right? So that's kind of understood across the board.
We'll put that one aside for now Aside from that, you know, what um what do you see as the main benefits of a product like growth and you know and maybe even conversely sales like growth? Yeah, so I mean the number one reason I think most of my clients have brought this ability to move down market at scale So with a plg model, it's definitely lower cost lower customer acquisition costs a reduction on internal headcount perhaps or maybe you're not building out a downmarket Team but you're still able to widen the top of your funnel because you don't have to necessarily add internal headcount But you can still get your product to a more, you know, downmarket motion or potentially Just especially if it's like a self-serve model where they can self-serve and then onboard themselves and become a paying client They don't necessarily have to have a sales touch at all depends on the cost and the way that your business is structured, of course Um, I think other things too though is something that's really come out of it as you get that tighter product feedback loop So it really forces marketers to work very closely with the product team and so now instead of just that sales and marketing alignment You've got sales product and marketing alignment, which is really interesting Um because really you have to have an extremely tight sort of life cycle marketing strategy in place Which in my experience and with my clients typically lives within the product team. How are you once you're getting people to sign up free trial? How are you moving them through the next stages?
So, um, I think that feedback loop is is really interesting Um, and then I think just overall it's it's a really good positive customer experience I think the more you can let a buyer try something out and sort of self Uh, like eliminate themselves from the sales process or choose to continue on and let them do that themselves versus having to have a salesperson Like go through discovery go through demo and then eventually give them a price And then it becomes apparent that this is not a good fit You kind of let the buyer determine their aptitude for moving forward with your product I think there's a lot of trust to be earned and gained um by allowing them to do that and and not keeping everything, you know Gated it's kind of like the the product version of ungated content, you know, it's a lot Um, there's a lot of synergies between our fine labs philosophy in terms of like don't hide things from your end user Let them get all of that knowledge all of that Experience up front so that they can move through your sales processes faster and potentially with more higher intent to buy Yeah, and I think that that uh, 100 all valid points there. Um, the caveat I want to throw out to to anyone listening in today is Um, we're not suggesting that you go to your product team or the higher up to your company and say hey We should build a PLG motion here, uh, right? You know, this is um, especially for companies that uh historically have not had this product leg growth motion and are, you know, trying to kind of engineer that Um, that's a very difficult task and frankly is not one that should be owned by uh, just a marketing team, especially a demand generation marketer Like that's that's product management product development, right? The the um, the nuances inside of a product whether it be like a free trial model or a freemium model Uh, the way that these things are constructed are done so with uh, in a way that you know, the um, the user experience the the the buyer the user Uh, when they're utilizing that that product, um, the offering, especially at the front end when it's when it's free to them Uh, there are kind of preconceived, you know limitations with with the accessibility of that product Um, and it's very intentional, right?
It's it's there created, uh, so that when the person kind of has experienced enough of the product has gotten some type of value from it Um, you know, ideally that's when all the sudden they kind of reach the extent of that limitation and would need to to kind of choose to upgrade themself Right. So um, there is that nuance in there, right? That like, yes, there is absolute alignment to their fine life strategy Uh, we love anything that puts more of the onus on the buyer in the buying process and allows them to to have more control That is what we know is true that buyers are in more control and are are constantly working to Um, gain even further control of the the process, uh, as the the years go on here Um, but you know, we're not out here kind of telling you to go to your executive leadership team and say, hey, you know, if we really want to be Uh, a buyer-centric company, then we need to create a plg motion So that is not what this is I kind of wanted to put that caveat out there for everyone because, um, you know, for for many of us that work in these demand generation roles Uh, this is a different wrinkle than we're accustomed to, right? And so there are of course, um, swinging the pendulum back the other way There's a ton of benefits to sales-led growth motion as well that you don't expect, you know, to see from from product-led growth offerings And so else I know you kind of had a couple thoughts there on on what you see as the you know, the strengths the benefits of uh, of sales-led growth motions as well Yeah, so I think um, from my experience plg tends to be a little more of the like one-size-fits-all because you're really trying to cast that wide net and get People using the product that's sort of like the very basic minimum Um, to your point so that eventually kind of all good things come to an end and hopefully they're so compelled to continue on in the journey that they become that paying customer On the other hand with the sales-led motion, you really have the opportunity to target more niche clients and tailor the buying experience to their individual needs And it's also that is, you know, the proven strategy for moving up market certainly because you're going to be able to increase your ACV You can go into larger organizations.
You can have dedicated subject matter expert sales persons who are are dedicated to crafting a buyer experience that is really personalized and tailored I also think you know, it can be easier to show value through a sales rep because through a sales rep because there's sort of these key milestones of the buying process that you're pretty much guaranteed to show the product you're guaranteed to um, you know identify the buyer's pain points but with a A free trial or a freemium a lot of times it's like sign up and forget, you know, set it and forget it type thing and you don't necessarily have As much opportunity to show that value And then I just think like with the sales motion you're staying really close to your customers and you're getting a lot of that qualitative first-hand feedback That isn't always immediately apparent in uh, when someone's meeting themselves through a buyer's Journey unless you have very uh, specifically crafted points in that journey where where the user is giving feedback Um, so there's a couple of things to consider But as you can see they they do work together very nicely and what you're doing to create demand Um can be done for both Those who want to take this journey themselves and then those who you really need to have that personalized sales person kind of guiding them through Yeah, yeah, and I think right obviously as I just went through it There is there's merit there's validity to either approach the product leg growth motion the sales leg growth motion Um, but the one that's that's really fun is this hybrid approach where you know, they come in Uh with the product leg growth motion and then um in some ways it almost kind of like initiates the sales outreach Uh at a very specific time of course and we'll talk through that a little bit So I think that brings us to kind of like really what we wanted to share with with uh with our listeners today Which is this framework that um that a few of uh our colleagues alson included have been Kind of developing around here Uh, and at least a way to organize your your thoughts or campaigns or budgets Um to support those those clients that do have some type of product leg growth motion whether it's a hybrid one or you know A true product leg growth motion, but um the uh first things first I do want to give a quick shout out to our colleague evan hues because when I was going around looking for some guidance Um evan is the one that uh that kind of spelled this out for me And um, I guess that that might be a little bit of a pun here because the the framework itself is made up of kind of these The four a's framework is what we're going to refer to it as today Uh, and those four a's um represent the different stages throughout this kind of product leg growth motion Whether it's a pure plg or one that leads into a sales motion, but um, so each of these stages Which we'll we'll talk through in a moment here Uh are the acquisition phase where you acquire the person typically, um, you know, uh, They're coming in for that free trial that that freemium sign up the activation phase when you start to uh take these free trial signups And get them active on the platform the adoption phase where they use it just more than one time and are starting to kind of Go from a totally brand new user to maybe in time some type of power user But certainly someone that is seeing legitimate value out of the product and then the uh the the advocate phase, right? So, um, this one is critical towards really kind of, you know, uh Selling this throughout the company and and driving further adoption outside of the person that was Um, originally coming in through that that free trial motion And that's really when um, you know, they're kind of starting to spread the word to their colleagues their friends their peers About what a great tool this is and so those are the four a's and so why don't we kind of start back at the top there with uh, With the acquisition and um, else and I think what will be cool is if we kind of talk a little bit And we'll keep things high level for now, but we'll talk a little bit about like kind of the key objectives of the phase different tactics and kpi's that we've seen Uh, you know, work in driving and measuring success, um, and maybe any any, you know, quick tips that uh, that we can offer for each of these phases as well Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So let's start with a choir Um, typically as as Tori mentioned, this is where you're really generating those signups and you're trying to build your database of users And this particular tactic that we like to use is a little bit different than what we recommend when we're creating demand for Uh, nonplg for companies that don't have that that plg motion.
So here we are going to recommend direct response advertising I know it's crazy, but um, he stay with me So the reason being that the Elgorithms on specifically like a facebook instagram that meta properties are so sophisticated and you're not necessarily marking to A niche iCP you have the ability to go a little bit broader because remember you're looking for some of those end users Some of those people that are going to be sort of internal champions Um, so you already have a wider audience to begin with and the actual Action of signing up is a fairly low ask Compared to like going through an entire demo process So you're likely to get more free signups, which means the algorithms can actually do their job and optimize around getting Conversions for that particular action whereas when typically with what we do with a more clearly defined iCP They have to go through a traditional buying process. We're really focused on just reaching the widest net possible and having them Learn about the product and then self-identify and raise their hand whereas here we have the more more of an ability to Uh, continue to tell the story in the feed of why they should take the action But the action is a little bit of a lower lift and it really gives the algorithms that kind of power They need to optimize the campaigns and adds that's around a more direct response Uh campaign objective instead of something as broad as reach it also helps control the cost a little bit more too Because there are significantly more end users and there are, um, you know champions of the buying committee I will just say the cool thing is when these things work hand in hand Uh, your reach campaigns will also pick up a lot of free signups a lot of you know free trial users as well So they're not negating each other they're working in tandem And we've seen this work really nicely for our clients where we sort of rolled out this paid social um Process for them by taking uh instead of optimizing for each we've been optimizing for conversions Yeah, and that is definitely a distinct difference from a lot of the the approaches that we're typically recommending for for paid social campaigns Um, you know the typically we're offering some type of word of warning around optimizing for conversions And I still think that that you know this does need to come with a little bit of a warning Which is just like don't build your entire strategy purely around cost efficiencies, right? Because um for instance, you know, you might be able to get the lowest cost per conversion on I don't know like uh, Facebook, right? But um that doesn't necessarily mean that that's where your best users and customers are going to come from and so like if you have the ability to In time layer in uh data like the ltv right around um the different sources that you're using to acquire these customers and optimize off Something like that uh that would make a lot more sense because not every conversion is equal Um, and you know, even if you're tasked with driving a certain amount of signups You want to make sure that you're driving the right one So just be cautious, you know when when building these campaigns It is easy to kind of build them in a way that your budget will they eaten up really quickly And you know you might be out there celebrating a ton of conversions But then all of a sudden you might be finding yourself back in a new iteration of this mql hamster wheel and um and we don't want that either Right?
So that's certainly not what we're advising but uh, but yeah, definitely some some different wrinkles and nuances to this this acquisition phase that um, uh, You know goes a little bit against the grain of many of the recommendations that we're typically offering clients and um and our audience here so uh, okay Let's move into the next stage right the the activation phase and even you know if we want to kind of couple this with the adoption phase because They are similar and there are some instances where you know, uh, these things kind of effectively be one of the same It might be a single step where you know, you're moving for someone from the trial to actually using the product Um, for instance, you know, maybe that the the actual usage of the product Uh, it means that they need to put the credit card information in but sometimes it doesn't sometimes they might have free reign of your tool or your Your service or your platform for a period of time or there might be some type of walls within that that product And when you reach them, that's when you need to put your credit card information And so um, so these two steps here the activation and the adoption uh could be blended together Um, if not they're very close together, but uh, yeah, allison any any um, you know, uh, Information that you want to share with the listeners here around these two phases Yeah, so the main reason why we broke it into activate and adopt is because um, These are different signals of intent so within the refined labs philosophy and sort of how we're layering, um, layering and in adapting it to Appealing g motion is exactly to torries earlier point We don't want to get on the free sign up hamster wheel just like we don't want to get on the um ql hamster wheel And so a lot of times there there needs to be some sort of process of when are we going to get sales involved To and how do we identify different levels of intent so that they're not wasting their time going through a thousand signups? Um, maybe they're looking at a you know list of 750 that have activated or 500 that have adopted It's just being able to sort of narrow in their scope of outreach and um, the scope of activity from the sales side to sort of promote these clients to to higher paying higher paying users or If um, there are enough monthly active users might it makes sense to roll them into like an enterprise plan So within activate though, I think typically I look at it as like they've signed up and have they you know confirmed their email or have they Done some sort of like bare minimum requirement. Have they created a profile? Have they gone through the like guided tour of the product?
Maybe that's what you're considering activation and there's typically like a time frame, you know Of of when like you would see that free trial to activation sort of depreciate over time And so you want to make sure that you have really strong life cycle marketing within this activation stage so you're you're having you have an email nurture sequence that is very Um informative. It's really helping the user understand how they can play around with the product use the product to customize to their own needs Um, you want to make sure you have a very strong in product experience So what does the tour look like? What are the prompts within the product? Because the goal is to get it from just like that pure activation and sort of base level usage of the product to someone who's really adopted this So now they're increasing the frequency of how they use the tool Um, and it's it's definitely where they perhaps have entered credit card or billing information Maybe they've become a monthly user or an annual user Um, so that's maybe the main difference is is that they've just shown higher intent to be within your tool within your platform Um, and these are the people that you typically want to siphon off and make sure there's some sort of sales outreach or At a minimum just a different type of email or lifecycle nurturing Um to help them kind of upgrade and continue to to move on within the with the LG motion Yeah, and I would add that um email marketing, uh is absolutely critical to be using for um, you know for for a scenario like this one Right, you have that that very personalized data on you know the the product usage of an individual And so you can and should be personalizing email outreaches with the intent of getting those people to be utilizing other features or even upgrading themselves You know over the course of these activation and adoption phases and then again depending on the you know the Um the revenue model that you have this is also going to be the time typically when you do introduce that that sales motion But you know another word of warning make sure that you have very clear understanding with your sales team about what is a you know A sales ready lead, right?
You know, it's not just icp fit It's not just a single user and so you know you want to be crystal clear with your sales team about you know When they want it passed over from marketing what type of usage how many users these things are are extremely important for laying the groundwork of a successful sales and marketing relationship here Just the same as it is, you know for the pure sales like companies but with some some very different wrinkles introduced And then the last day's year, right is the um the education So finding those those those power users the people that are seeing a lot of benefit from it and figuring out ways that you can incentivize them To be sharing their experience and maybe even you know getting some other peers to sign up for the tool as well So it's the best when you can get them to be sharing it within their own internal network with their colleagues, right? Because that's when you can really um, you know spark some type of enterprise sales motion where you know You've got a sales team that's following up after they've seen a number of different users that are adopting the tool Um, but also, you know, I think for those companies that are looking for let's say instead of that vertical adoption Maybe horizontal growth and trying to get more and more companies more users Again incentivizing the people that are seeing value from your product to share it within their network their friends their family Um, you know, whoever, you know, this is going to be a time when you want to be doing that And so again, I think you know paid media can certainly be your friend here Uh, but a lot of the opportunity with paid media is going to be dependent on the size of your audience And so if this is new you have a small group it might be difficult to build out an audience the size Um, a one that you could get some efficient ad campaigns running Uh, but you can certainly again rely on email here Which is um, you know, gonna be your uh, your best friend when it comes to this stage of the of the product led sales led hybrid model Um, uh growth for a company and being able to personalize and outreach for someone get them using the product adopting even further and sharing their experience with others Um, and uh, and that can oftentimes be difficult to do with uh, the paid media with, um, without a lot of hyper segmentation and personalization Yeah, absolutely I think just to kind of put a bow on it I think for demand generation leaders and marketers you can really then start to look at each of these stages You're a choir stage those who those who you've acquired those who you've activated those who you've helped adopt And then those who have become advocates how do you then market to them create demand within each one of those segments so that they continue moving through? Um, I think that's that just opens up kind of this whole possibility of of ways to Create thought leadership create Case studies other things that help other items that help lead your buyer through their own buying journey Um, and it just becomes really interesting and you'll start to see a lot of synergies between this and and what you're already doing It's it's really similar to how you would go about sort of looking at a marketing to sales handoff process and making sure that your high intent handraisers are Being guided through the journey. This is is really similar on which is a couple of different nuances And so for those of you who are in the process of um, you know, maybe your company is bringing something like this on They've already brought it on you're looking to change jobs and the job you're looking at has this motion and hopefully this is helpful and kind of summarizes it Gives you that high level framework a good place to start Uh makes it you know sort of demystifies it a little bit for you, which I think was ultimately a minutaries goal today Well said that was I think a very beautiful boat to put on top of this one.
So let's wrap it there. Thank you all for listening