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The Marketer's Guide to Product-Led Growth Marketing
Jayakumar Muthusamy
Integrating product led content into your growth strategy is essential if your business leverages content marketing to promote software or digital products. This approach allows you to educate your target audience while showcasing your product's value—a unique advantage over other content formats.
Our comprehensive guide is designed for those new to product led content or looking to refine their product led content strategy. In this guide, you'll discover product led content, how it stands out from other types, why it's essential for product led growth, and how to develop it effectively.
Product led content marketing strategically weaves your product into the narrative, helping your audience address their challenges while positioning your product as the ideal solution. For content to be classified as product led, it must meet the following criteria:
Consider this example:
The screenshot above is from one of our client's articles on “Workforce Management Scheduling.”
Product name: Surfboard
In this article, the writer highlights 'Enhance forecasting accuracy for better planning' as a critical issue that Workforce Management Scheduling can address. Notice how Surfboard is seamlessly woven into the narrative under this heading, illustrating its role in predicting increased customer activity based on seasonality and historical data.
This approach ensures that product led criteria are met: the reader learns about the problems that workforce management software can solve, the product Surfboard is highlighted, and value is delivered.
Product led content doesn't have to be strictly blog post. It can take various forms, such as case studies, customer testimonials, or success stories. Here are different product led content examples based on different approaches;
These provide in-depth insights into how your product has solved specific client problems. For instance, our client DataBrain helped Spendflo achieve faster insights, prompting them to create a detailed customer case study.
In this case study, they communicated the problem they were trying to solve (see screenshot).
They also shared the solution, highlighting how DataBrain addressed the issue without sounding overly promotional (see screenshot).
The outcome was then presented to prove their solution worked effectively (see screenshot).
This way, any potential customer reading this will be able to see concrete evidence of the product's effectiveness and be more inclined to trust and consider the solution for their own needs.
These highlight positive experiences and build credibility. This approach is unique because it leverages customer-generated content instead of content created by your marketing team.
You can feature these testimonials on any relevant part of your website, ensuring they fit seamlessly into the overall design and message.
You can see how Pitchlane integrates customer testimonials in their blog post about lead nurturing;
Anyone reading this will likely find the content and the brand reliable and trustworthy.
These videos visually showcase how your product works and highlight its benefits. They are often embedded on the homepage or in the how-to section.
The image shows how Pitchlane embedded a video that illustrates sending personalized videos as scale.
With this video, prospects are now more engaged, finding it easier to understand the value of personalized outreach, and are more likely to subscribe to Pitchlane.
Unlike conventional content strategies that often focus on broad industry trends or general advice, product led content zeroes in on potential customers' problems and illustrates how the product offers a concrete solution. This product led approach creates a deeper connection with your audience, as the content feels highly relevant and actionable.
Product led content allows for more seamless product integration than other content types. This method ensures that the product naturally fits within the narrative, presenting it as a logical solution to the discussed problem rather than as an intrusive advertisement. By seeing the product in context, readers can understand its benefits and applications more clearly.
If product led content is done right, it can enhance trust and credibility for your brand. You promote a perception of authenticity by consistently delivering valuable information to your audience and showcasing your product's capabilities in a non-sales manner. This approach positions your brand as trustworthy and reduces buyer journey friction.
Product led content is essential for content marketers following a product led growth strategy. It aligns perfectly with the overall business and content marketing strategy, where the product is the primary growth driver. Creating content highlighting the product's features, benefits, and use cases supports the PLG approach and helps drive user acquisition, retention, and expansion.
Product led content is a cornerstone of any product led growth (PLG) strategy, driving your business's growth and success. Here’s how it plays a vital role:
Products are designed to solve one or more specific problems, and the only way to ensure they sell is to let prospects know how your product is the most effective solution to their problem. This is where product led content comes in. It educates prospective customers about their issues and demonstrates how your product can address them.
High-quality, product led content improves your search engine rankings and drives organic traffic to your website. As prospects search for solutions to their problems, they find your content and learn about your product. This increases your chances of converting them into customers.
Prospects are well-informed through product led content and enter the sales funnel with a clear understanding of how your product can benefit them. This pre-education shortens the sales cycle, as prospective customers require less convincing and are more prepared to purchase.
Delivering valuable content that addresses evolving customer needs helps maintain engagement and loyalty. Showcasing advanced features or new use cases can encourage existing customers to expand their usage or upgrade to higher-tier plans.
You must understand your audience's pain points to create impactful product led content. If you don’t, creating content that resonates with them and meets them at the right stage in their buyer journey might be difficult.
The process begins with asking the right questions and sourcing reliable information. Here are some questions and reliable sources to guide your audience research:
Key Questions to Ask:
What are the most common challenges your audience faces?
Which solutions are they currently using, and where do they fall short?
What motivates your audience to seek out new products or services?
How does your audience prefer to consume content?
What keywords and phrases does your audience use when searching for solutions?
Aligning content topics with product features and benefits starts with a deep understanding of the product. This is easier if you are a frequent user of the product. If not, you must put yourself in the shoes of the user by doing the following:
Once you thoroughly understand the product, you can map features to customer pain points. This process is straightforward if you have conducted comprehensive audience and product research. Here’s a simple approach you can use:
The writer highlighted G2's features, linking them to specific pain points they solve. For example, G2's integration capabilities enable automated workflows, lead scoring, and enriched data.
After successfully matching the product features with pain points, go a step further by highlighting the benefits.
While product features describe what the product does, benefits explain why those features matter to the user. Benefits often relate to improved efficiency, cost savings, better performance, or enhanced user experience.
For instance, the benefit of G2's highlighted integration feature could be enhanced operational efficiency, leading to significant time savings and more accurate lead scoring, ultimately resulting in higher conversion rates and better customer satisfaction.
While it's called product led content, it shouldn't come across as a sales pitch. The primary goal is to put your audience first by providing genuine value. If you're unsure how to achieve this, here are some techniques to ensure your content remains valuable and avoids sounding overly promotional;
By incorporating these techniques, you can create content that genuinely engages and educates your audience while subtly showcasing your product's benefits.
Product led content comes in various formats, each serving a unique purpose. It could be blog post, case studies, videos, and more. The type of content you choose often depends on your audience, goals, and the stage of the buyer's journey.
Here are different content formats and what they are suitable for:
Bottom of the Funnel Blog Post: These are designed to target potential customers close to making a purchase decision. Suitable topics include:
Case Studies: These highlight real-world examples of how your product or service has solved problems for other customers. They are ideal for building trust and demonstrating the value of your offerings.
Videos: Engaging and easily consumable, videos can be used to explain complex concepts, showcase product features, or provide testimonials. They are effective at all stages of the buyer's journey, from awareness to decision-making.
Infographics are visual representations of data and information. They are great for simplifying complex topics and making content more shareable.
White Papers and Ebooks: These in-depth documents provide valuable insights and detailed information on industry trends, research findings, or comprehensive guides. They are excellent for lead generation and establishing thought leadership.
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