The 7 Types of Product Messaging to fuel your SaaS growth
Episode #68
Friends,
Product Messaging is underrated and severely overlooked. When building products, our minds go to UIs, features, etc. But imagine if all you had before you was a product with no words, no emails, no communication while you’re left to figure out the product on your own.
Talk about having a poor user experience.
Over the last few essays I’ve talked about product-led-growth for SaaS businesses.
Today I’m gonna share the 7 types of product messaging that correspond to the 7 stages of your user journey, and the corresponding metrics you should track.
Let’s dig in.
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The 7 Types of Product Messaging to fuel your SaaS growth
Type 1 - User- Awareness based messaging:
Stage of user journey = Here the user is not aware of your product.
Goal = Get users to be aware of your product & sign-up
Corresponding product messaging = Position your product relative to the solutions in the market and present your unique value proposition. Lead with problems and how your solution solves for the problems.
Channels to leverage = landing pages, ads, socials, content (Top of the funnel)
Metrics to track = % signups, CAC
Type 2 - User Acquisition-based messaging:
Stage of user journey = This is the stage where the user has become aware of your product.
Goal = Get users to login to the product
Corresponding product messaging= Lead with product capabilities (features & corresponding benefits).
Channels to leverage = Landing pages, ads
Metric to track = % signups, PQLs (product-qualified leads)
Type 3 - User Activation-based messaging:
Stage of user journey = User has signed up but hasn’t used the product yet.
Goal = Get users to try out the product for the first time.
Corresponding product messaging= Lead with step-by-step walkthrough of the core product features.
Channels to leverage = In-app walkthrough modals, onboarding emails, in-app nudges
Metric to track = Activation rate, Time to value (TTV)
Type 4 - User Engagement-based messaging:
Stage of user journey = User has activated and has experienced the product’s core value
Goal = Get users to use the product more frequently.
Corresponding product messaging= Show them what benefit they’ve received from the product (eg: user has seen a 10% response rate on his sales outbound process using the tool). & incentivize them to keep using.
Channels to leverage = In-app nudges, email notifications
Metric to track = Daily & monthly active users (DAUs, MAUs)
Type 5 - User Monetization-based messaging:
Stage of user journey = User is using the free version of the product.
Goal = Get users to becoming paying customers
Corresponding product messaging = Remind them about the benefit they’ve received from the product & incentivize them to upgrade to the paid tier
Channels to leverage = Email case-studies, in-app nudges.
Metric to track = User lifetime value (LTV), MRR, Avg revenue per user (ARPU)
Type 6 - User Expansion-based messaging:
Stage of user journey = User is regularly using the paid version of the product.
Goal = Get them to experience additional aha moments available in the next tier
Corresponding product messaging = In case of freemium pricing, remind them of adjacent capabilities they can unlock. In case of value-based pricing, send usage-based reminders (eg: you have already sent 50 emails, you can only send 10 more. To send unlimited emails, upgrade)
Channels to leverage = in app nudges, email notifications
Metric to track = Expansion Revenue
Type 7 - User Retention-based messaging:
Stage of user journey = User has not been using the product as much and risks churning
Goal = Understand user intent, and value-delivery system and prevent churn
Corresponding product messaging = Remind them of their progress + case studies of successful use-cases. Send surveys to gather feedback.
Channels to leverage = Email notifications, customer support messages.
Metric to track = Churn %, Net dollar retention (NDR), Net promoter score (NPS), Weekly/monthly retention cohort curves
SaaS product marketing (finally) on autopilot
“Content is eating the world” - or should I say AI-generated content is eating the world?
Whatever the case, the written word isn’t going away anytime soon. Neither is the need to grab users’ attention towards SaaS products.
In fact, with the commoditization of content, the differentiating element becomes HOW companies use this commodity to grow their SaaS product.
On the road to finding PMF and profitability, customer acquisition costs are the biggest bottleneck.
This means there are opportunities to explore that not only help reduce SaaS CAC, but also optimize key metrics that improve SaaS unit economics like retention & churn.
While working with over 100 SaaS companies, I’ve realized that MarketCurve is best positioned to tackle a pressing need that every SaaS company has - creating good copy/content that is aligned with their product growth goals.
To solve this problem, we’re combining 3 big forces: (a) the power of the gig economy (b) The free distribution of internet market networks and (C) generative AI.
Using these 3 levers, we aim to connect SaaS startups with specialist SaaS product copywriters from around the world to execute and collaborate on their product marketing from a single place.
Think Uber but across the entire SaaS product growth/marketing spectrum - product acquisition, product engagement & product retention.
Collaboration is at the heart of this exercise - with streamlined progress reporting, feedback reviews, approvals and communication. All done from a single place.
The goal is to design a virtual 24*7 product marketing arm for SaaS companies that optimizes their unit economics at the grass-root level while enabling them to craft compelling narratives around their brand at scale on the macro level.
If this sounds like you (or you know someone who does) then shoot me a text at (sb@marketcurve.org). I’m all ears :)
Cheers,
Shaunaq