Methods to Leverage Buyer Knowledge to Enhance Product Adoption

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

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 software to maneuver information out and in of a knowledge warehouse—the software is simple for less-technical people to make use of but in addition gives superior options for extra technical ones. Additionally, Airtouch has a number of use circumstances and is utilized by numerous industries resulting from which personalizing the consumer journey is essential—a linear journey simply gained’t reduce it.

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

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

Gathering buyer information for evaluation and activation

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

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

• What proportion of customers who join 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 throughout 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, however it’s vital to have the ability to reply these fundamental ones earlier than digging deeper. Regardless of the SaaS product you’re making an attempt to develop, you’ll want to 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 must measure the impression of my experiments.

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

On the time of planning the info assortment, it is vitally useful to consider the locations the info will probably be consumed. Certain, you need to analyze the info in a particular software, however you then additionally want the identical information to be accessible within the instruments the place you propose to take motion on the derived insights.

It is a non-trivial course of and I extremely suggest documenting the place all the info you propose to gather will probably be consumed and for what goal—doing this sooner somewhat than later can go a great distance in getting assets allotted for the respective workflows.

Furthermore, understanding what you want to do with information factors allows you to collaborate higher with information and engineering groups which might be sometimes concerned in accumulating, storing, and shifting information. As the expansion lead at an organization that gives 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 wish to check 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 means 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 electronic mail?

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

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

Based mostly on such analyses, the verification reminder emails can be extra personalised for various cohorts of customers and might probably be useful in driving the subsequent desired motion. As an illustration, when customers click on the verification hyperlink, those that have already created a connection might be proven an in-app walkthrough of how you can construct a workflow or how you can 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 doable for a consumer to begin the method however for some motive, go away 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 really saved—this may allow you to establish customers who most likely get caught and don’t find yourself making a workflow though they’d the intent to take action.

If there’s an onboarding survey asking customers for his or her position, you should utilize 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. Nevertheless, since Airtouch caters to information engineers, you actually don’t need numerous 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’ve a product or an onboarding downside that must be mounted sooner somewhat 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 primarily based on consumer intent.

A information that exhibits how you can transfer information out of the warehouse isn’t 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 applied utilizing third-party instruments and are a greater wager than making adjustments to the app’s UI. Furthermore, these guides might be hyper-personalized and might be triggered primarily based on particular occasions carried out by customers belonging to particular segments.

Customers from a gross sales or advertising and marketing perform 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. Conserving that in thoughts, if a gross sales rep indicators up, guiding them by way of the method of inviting a coworker is extra helpful than exhibiting them how you can add a connection. Even the welcome electronic mail ought to be personalised and should embody a name to motion asking the consumer to ask a coworker to their account.

Equally, when a knowledge engineer indicators up by way of an invite from a colleague, it could be 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 means round a knowledge integration software like Airtouch. As an alternative, you possibly can level them to the docs and after 24 hours, ship them an electronic mail inviting them to affix the consumer group and upvote function requests.

By way of natural signups (not by way of an invite), you undoubtedly need to embody the hyperlink to the docs within the welcome electronic mail for the info engineering persona. Moreover, you’d need to set off one other electronic 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’ve 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 when you observed, however to this point, the whole lot 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 turn into paying prospects.

Nevertheless, getting customers to get to the aha second and derive the core worth of the product is essential, and if product-led development is a precedence, you need to improve the activation charge earlier than shifting to conversion (which regularly includes salespeople).

For sure, measuring the impression of your personalization efforts and iterating primarily based on the outcomes is the one approach to improve product adoption and the activation charge.

In an effort to measure the impression of your in-app and electronic mail campaigns, it’s not sufficient to take 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 electronic mail, respectively. To take action, you’ll want to 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 conduct.

Relying in your information stack, this may be carried out both utilizing a product analytics software that integrates with third-party engagement instruments or by performing analyses utilizing SQL immediately 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 suggest prioritizing such analyses earlier than accumulating further information factors to reply extra burning questions on product utilization.

Rinse and repeat

With a powerful basis in place to gather correct information, derive insights from the info, drive motion on the info by way of engagement campaigns, and measure the impression of these campaigns, you need to be in an excellent 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 obligatory if you wish to actually turn into data-led and undertake a product-led development technique.

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