Free Product-led Marketing (PLM) Database
With over 50+ examples of PLM strategies!
Drew Teller
April 13, 2023
Why are we here?
In the era of PLG, traditional marketing is dying and the future of marketing is product-led. Don’t get left behind.
As a growth operator, advisor, and consultant, I have seen countless struggles with getting the right marketing strategy down in PLG. It’s a (fun) mess, and it’s backward.
The current challenges I am seeing:
1️⃣ Products and features are being built without discovery in mind
2️⃣ Marketing teams are writing content to communicate what the product is already communicating
3️⃣ We are creating arbitrary constraints in which we allow users to see and experience the product and its features
4️⃣ Marketing and product-led teams are more siloed than you think. I am not talking about product marketing. I am talking about how the product roadmap thinks of marketing and distribution as an afterthought. “yeah let’s just run paid ads” smh
Even though traditional B2B/Prosumer marketing is critically important such as ABM, demand generation, content, etc → there is a gap in strategic knowledge. Marketing needs to evolve with the right PLG strategies to keep up with the fast progress of software tooling, development, and web applications.
Companies need to embrace product-led marketing.
PLM Database with over 50+ examples!
Here is the link to my product-led marketing database!
What is Product-led Marketing (PLM)?
Product-led marketing is a PLG marketing strategy that leverages the product or parts of the product to reach potential users who experience a problem or motivation by moving up the product funnel (or moving up earlier in the user journey).
Let’s break this down:
👉️ Leverages the product - the product, the app, or the piece of your company that your customers use. Think: decoupling or packaging parts of the product like templates or a changelog.
👉️ Reaching potential users - distribution through marketing channels, communities, and the company website. Think: SEO, virality, social content
👉️ Moving up the product funnel - in a simple manner, the deepest part of your product funnel is product engagement and retention. The top of the funnel is an awareness or a website visit. Think: how can you bring the product upwards with little friction?
PLM serves as a strategic bridge between marketing-led acquisition and product-led acquisition.
Strategies of PLM
The success of your PLM strategy is a function of themes and tactics.
Strategy = f{Themes x Tactics}
Tactics are the form in which the product or part of the product is shared. The themes are the principles that the tactics follow in order to be successful.
Tactics
There are 5-6 major PLM tactics I have seen world-class PLG companies deploy. They are:
Templates & Integrations
Examples: Miroverse, Figma, Softr & Webflow templates, Netlify & Vercel integration marketplacesCommunities
Ungating Products
Examples: Butternut.ai, Coolors, Stackblitz
Interactive/Personalized Product Demos
Product Content/Education
Examples: Snyk vulnerability test, AppsFlyer deep-linking guide, Ahref’s keyword strategy
Meta Experiences → where you use the product indirectly without you realizing it as you go to the website or signup.
Examples: Stytch, Netlify, Clerk, Softr
Themes
The themes of PLM consist of four core principles that should be considered when building a successful PLM tactic. They are:
Distribution = making the product more accessible and decoupling the product to meet users
SEO = making the product more discoverable on search engines
Dynamic = making the product adaptable, flexible, and changeable
Regenerative = making the product drive incremental growth to acquisition or retention
The PLM comprehensive guide is on the way. I am actually struggling with perfectionism at the moment which is why it’s taking forever 😭.
If you think of other examples to add, let me know!
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