Are you tired of building features that users don’t actually want? User stories can help you avoid that pitfall.

By focusing on the user’s needs and goals, user stories ensure that each sprint delivers features customers truly value.

In this article, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step process for writing effective user stories that drive customer satisfaction and improve product outcomes.

TL;DR

• A user story describes a software feature or functionality from the user’s perspective. Agile user stories focus on explaining the “who,” “what,” and “why” of a software requirement, making it easily understandable for both technical and non-technical product team members.
• The benefits of writing user stories include improved team collaboration, avoiding expensive product development mistakes, and promoting a user-centric culture.
• No matter how well written, a standard user story isn’t without its disadvantages. User stories are usually time-intensive, too narrow, and may exclude important details.
• In most companies, it’s the product owner or product manager who is responsible for writing user stories. However, any member of the Agile team can write user stories.
• User stories are written at the start of the agile software development process. Then, refined, adjusted, and expanded as the team gains more insights.
• Here is an example of a good user story: “As a sales representative, I want to receive automated reminders for follow-up calls and emails so that I can stay engaged with potential leads and improve sales conversion rates.”

Follow these 5 steps to create good user stories:

1. Outline the definition of “done.”
2. Identify your customer personas and use that information to create your user story template.
3. Create tasks and subtasks for your user story.
4. Map user stories in the form of ordered steps that include your major and smaller user stories.
5. Collect user feedback and iterate to ensure you strike a balance between delivering business value and meeting user needs.

Userpilot helps product teams like yours understand users better and write user stories that drive satisfaction. Book a demo now to begin.

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What are user stories?

A user story is an informal description of a feature or functionality told from the user’s perspective.

It serves as a way to capture the “who,” “what,” and “why” of a software requirement in plain language, making it easily understandable for both technical and non-technical product team members.

Benefits of user stories

User stories are a core component of the agile methodology. They aim to ensure that the product development process remains user-focused and efficient.

Here are some of the key benefits:

• Promote a user-centric approach: A user story inherently focuses on the needs and experiences of the end user. By defining features from the user’s perspective, development teams can prioritize functionality that delivers the most user value. This ensures that the final product aligns with user expectations and improves overall satisfaction.
• Improve collaboration: A well-crafted user story creates a common language and understanding between stakeholders (product managers, developers, designers, etc.), allowing everyone to contribute.
• Prevent development mistakes: Because agile user stories clearly define the “why” behind a feature, they provide valuable context for the development team. This helps developers make informed decisions and avoid building the wrong thing or implementing a feature in a way that doesn’t actually solve the user’s problem.

Disadvantages of user stories

While a user story offers many benefits, it’s important to be aware of some potential challenges it can present:

• May exclude necessary details: By design, user stories are meant to be brief and focused on user needs. However, this brevity can sometimes lead to a lack of essential technical or implementation details.
• Time-intensive: User stories often involve continuous engagement from product owners, stakeholders, and development teams to ensure each story accurately reflects user needs and project goals. This iterative process can consume significant resources, especially in complex products with numerous user stories.
• Too narrow: User stories typically focus on individual features or functionalities from a single user’s viewpoint. This can make it difficult to see the bigger picture and understand how different features contribute to the overall user experience.

Who is responsible for writing user stories?

It depends on the company. In most cases, the product owner is primarily responsible for creating user stories and setting priorities.

However, any other product team member (such as the UI/UX designer or product manager) can write a user story since it doesn’t require much technical knowledge.

For greater effectiveness, it’s best to make it a collaborative process with input from different members of the product and development team.

When are user stories written?

Product teams typically write user stories throughout the agile project, beginning during the initial stages of product planning and continuing through each sprint.

At the start of the agile project, key stakeholders collaborate to create an initial backlog of user stories. These stories outline the core features and functionalities the team needs to add over the course of the project or a three-to-six-month release cycle.

Throughout the development cycle, new user stories may emerge as the team gains a deeper understanding of the project requirements and receives user feedback.

How to write a user story in 5 steps

Now that you’ve understood user stories, it’s time to learn how to write them. Follow these steps:

Outline the definition of “done”

This step involves establishing a crystal-clear understanding of what it means for a user story to be successfully completed.

Think of it as crafting a detailed checklist that leaves no room for ambiguity. Your definition of done (or acceptance criteria) should be specific and measurable.

Write it in a way so that anyone on the team, whether they are a developer, designer, or stakeholder, can look at it and instantly know if the feature has been fully implemented.

For example, instead of simply stating, “As a user, I can log in,” the acceptance criteria might include details like:

• Successful login: The user is redirected to the account dashboard upon entering the correct credentials.
• Error handling: Clear error messages are displayed for incorrect credentials or system issues.
• Security: Password requirements are enforced, and login attempts are limited to prevent brute-force attacks.

By defining these detailed criteria upfront, you can avoid misunderstandings and ensure that the finished product perfectly aligns with user needs.

Identify your user personas

Employ various user research methods such as interviews, surveys, focus groups, and observational studies to gather valuable insights into your target audience.

Next, consolidate your findings into user personas—fictional representations of your ideal users that encapsulate user goals, pain points, and motivations.

By mapping these important details onto a persona template, you create a tangible reference point for crafting a user story that resonates with your target audience.

Create tasks and subtasks

Once you have a clear understanding of your personas and their needs, it’s time to break down the user stories into smaller, more manageable tasks and subtasks.

For instance, a user story like “As a user, I can create a shopping list” might involve tasks like:

• Design the user interface for the shopping list page.
• Develop the functionality to add items to the list.
• Implement a feature to categorize items.
• Enable users to save and share their lists.

You can break each of these into subtasks, such as creating wireframes, writing code, conducting user testing, and so on.

This meticulous breakdown ensures that no detail is overlooked and that the development team has a clear roadmap to follow.

Map user stories in the form of ordered steps

Visualize the user journey through the product or feature you’re building and create detailed user stories covering each key step.

By creating a visual map, it becomes easier to identify dependencies between stories, prioritize features based on their impact on the overall user experience, and foster better collaboration among your team members.

Collect user feedback and iterate

After implementing a user story, it’s time to gather insights from real users.

This could involve conducting user testing sessions, sending out surveys, or having one-on-one interviews with a few users.

Choose a feedback format that best suits you. Then, ask questions to help you understand how users interact with the new features and gather valuable suggestions for future iterations.

For most agile companies, in-app surveys are the most convenient method as they are fast to create and easy to analyze.

After collecting the data, analyze user responses and use the insights to refine your stories, add details, or remove unnecessary elements.

For example, if users consistently mention struggling to find a specific feature, you might add a more prominent button or refine the navigation to make it easier to locate.

User story examples

Need some examples to get your inspiration rolling? Here are a few:

1. As a sales representative, I want to receive automated reminders for follow-up calls and emails so that I can stay engaged with my leads and improve sales conversion rates.
2. As a project manager, I want to create task dependencies and assign resources so that I can ensure the timely completion of complex projects.
3. Being a marketing manager, I want to see a dashboard of key metrics (website traffic, lead conversion rate, customer acquisition cost) so that I can quickly assess the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns.

Key takeaways:

• Focus on the user’s role: Notice how each user story clearly identifies the specific type of user (e.g., sales representative, project manager, marketing manager).
• Highlight the “why”: The user stories above not only state the user’s desired action (e.g., see a dashboard) but also explain the reason behind it (e.g., assess campaign effectiveness).
• Keep it concise: Notice how each user story is expressed in a single sentence. This brevity ensures that the core user need is clear and easily understandable. Avoid overly complex or lengthy descriptions.
• Use action-oriented language: Each user story clearly states what the end user wants to do (e.g., “see a dashboard,” “create task dependencies,” “receive reminders”). This action-oriented language makes the stories more concrete and actionable for the product development team.

Conclusion

User stories are easy to write. Anyone can do it. However, what differentiates a good story from a bad one is the amount of user research that goes into it.

Without a proper understanding of the needs, motivations, and pain points of your target audience, it’s almost impossible to create stories that resonate with them.

Pairing in-app analytics with customer feedback tools, Userpilot helps product teams like yours understand users better and craft stories that align with core user needs. Book a demo now to discuss your needs and get tailored solutions.

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The post What Are User Stories in SaaS and How to Create Them appeared first on ProdSens.live.

The product management world sometimes uses the terms product design/development interchangeably. However, these two areas have different scopes, roles, and goals.

This ultimate guide will walk you through the key differences between product design and product development. We’ll explore the specifics of each process and outline the key steps involved in both.

TL;DR

• Product design starts with the conception of a product and continues with research and testing until the point of market validation.
• Product development is a comprehensive process that includes product design, engineering, launching products to the market, and other stages.
• Key stages of the product design/development process include research, ideation, prototyping, testing, planning, engineering, prototyping (again), deployment, and launch.
• The desire to connect product design and development together has led to the creation of agile methodologies, user-centered design, cross-team collaboration, and human-centered design (HCD).
• Product growth platforms are best deployed either before launch or immediately following the release in order to collect preliminary user data from early adopters.
• To bridge the gap between product design and development using our no-code platform, get your free Userpilot demo today!

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What is product design?

Product design is the process of conceptualizing and creating a product, focusing on its aesthetics, functionality, and user experience. It involves research, ideation, prototyping, user testing, and feedback collection to ensure the product effectively addresses the intended problem.

Product design goals could include meeting the needs of a specific user persona or filling a gap in the market.

For instance, the product design team at Spotify focuses its efforts on creating a seamless UI for the streaming platform, which requires continuous user research and A/B testing.

What is product development?

A product development process encompasses the entire lifecycle of a product, from conception and design to engineering, build testing, prototype construction, market launches, and mass manufacturing (where applicable).

The key objectives are to build a product, launch it to the market, iterate based on user feedback, and maintain the infrastructure to maintain usability as the underlying code becomes more complex over time.

Returning to the Spotify example, its product development team works on building out the backend infrastructure to meet customer needs (in this case, streaming music) and maintaining the product to ensure its features continue to reflect the ever-shifting target market.

Product design and development: 7 key differences

Product design and development are two distinct but closely related disciplines. After all, product designers conduct the research necessary for developers to create products that align with user wants and needs.

That said, there are 7 key differences between product design and product development:

1. Objectives.
2. Scope.
3. Processes.
4. Roles.
5. Tools.
6. Output.
7. Collaboration.

The sections below will go over each of these differences.

1. Objectives

Product designers focus on creating user-centric products with pleasing aesthetics, while product developers aim for functionality and reliability. The former sets goals around improving user experience, while the latter focuses on technical feasibility and ensuring successful product launches.

2. Scope of Work

The product design scope centers around UI/UX, while product development includes market research, product strategy, engineering, prototyping, testing, market launches, and post-launch evaluation. Prototyping may fall into the scope of work of both departments, with design prototypes being sent to developers who then create functional prototypes.

3. Processes and Methodologies

The product design process consists of research and user testing whereas product development covers various stages, from market analysis to engineering undertaking. The former process requires plenty of design thinking, whereas strategy and execution — such as manufacturing planning and agile development — are more crucial in the latter.

4. Roles and Responsibilities

A product designer holds roles that are responsible for UI/UX and other visual/experiential aspects of the product, while product development usually includes product managers, product engineers, developers, or QA testers. In other words, the responsibilities of all roles are different, but they share mutual goals.

5. Tools and technologies

Product designers use tools like Figma or computer-aided design software, whereas developers use platforms like Jira and integrated development environment software. Certain teams may also use cross-department tools that allow both designers and developers to access the same files.

6. Output and Deliverables

Product design teams deliver design concepts, feedback reports, and final specifications while product developers map out the overall strategy and create functional prototypes and production builds. Collecting and acting on user feedback is important for both product designers and developers.

7. Collaboration

Product designers interact with the target audience (e.g. focus testers or end users), as well as stakeholders, marketers, and other creatives like writers or designers. Product developers collaborate with the company’s stakeholders, product designers, marketers, and manufacturing and engineering teams.

Why is it important to connect product design and development?

While product design and development are different disciplines, it’s crucial to foster collaboration between members of both teams while intertwining cross-departmental processes. There are a few benefits to meshing your product design and development workflows:

• Consistency and alignment. The product vision should remain consistent across every stage, from idea generation to execution, as any misalignment could lead to the creation of disjointed products.
• Open communication. Open lines of communication between product designers and product developers are paramount to ensure both departments can properly collaborate.
• Faster launches. Strategic collaboration between your designers and developers can accelerate the time-to-market for any software product.
• Product quality. The quality of the final product is at its highest when both user experience and technical feasibility are taken into consideration.
• Cost efficiency. Production costs are often reduced when designers and developers work towards mutual business objectives in tandem.
• Innovation. Cross-department collaboration makes it easier to generate ideas and innovate using the combined expertise of both teams.

Key stages of product design and product development

Both product designers and product developers are part of the same overarching development process. The sections below will go over the key stages of the entire flow so you can see exactly where the product management process shifts from design to development.

1. Research and discovery

The research and discovery stage is where most product lifecycles begin. This primarily consists of market research, user research, and competitive analysis.

Once enough data has been collected, it will be easier to discover design opportunities and identify any relevant constraints.

If you’re not sure what to ask users, you can read our full guide on user research questions. As a quick primer, here are a few examples of what you can ask your users:

• What problems are you looking to solve with this product?
• What is the main goal when completing a certain task?
• How hard is it to complete the task in question?
• Which tasks do you accomplish on an average workday?
• Are there any recurring issues that, if solved, would greatly increase your satisfaction?

You can also offer incentives such as vouchers in order to get more customers to volunteer their user feedback and give you their time:

2. Ideation and concept development

Brainstorming to generate fresh ideas and developing initial concepts — such as wireframes or sketches — are the next steps in the product lifecycle.

The concepts are then evaluated with concept testing so the best concept or features (based on feedback and feasibility) can be selected and prioritized.

When attempting to collect product feedback, it’s best to open with short surveys before attempting to invite users to lengthier 1-on-1 interviews:

3. Prototyping

The product design team moves on to creating low-fidelity prototypes such as wireframes and mockups.

These almost always come before 3D models or interactive prototypes as they’re a lot faster to create and revise prior to finalizing the prototype design.

Only once the prototype design has been finalized will product designers be able to hand the specifications over to developers who work on building a functional prototype (more on this later).

4. User testing and validation

Once the final design specs are available and a working prototype is ready, usability testing is the next stage.

This allows product teams to analyze feedback and improve the design based on results to improve the user experience early on.

By leveraging iterative testing, your product team will be able to validate individual features and ensure that the final product is in line with what its end users expect.

5. Planning and feasibility analysis

This is where the product development team usually takes over in order to define project goals across the roadmap, set the scope of the project, and create a rough timeline for when each milestone should be completed.

Note: This is the same stage where business analysis, such as feasibility study, resource requirement, and risk assessment occurs.

Once the scope, timeline, and milestones have been set, this information can be converted into a roadmap that helps the entire team stay on track throughout each stage of the development process:

6. Detailed engineering design

The engineering design phase consists of converting design specifications into technical requirements, developing detailed engineering drawings/models, and technical evaluations to ensure that the product doesn’t encounter any unforeseen roadblocks.

For more complex products, developers may need to run simulations in a sandbox environment to verify that the software is working as intended before resuming user testing or releasing builds to an open beta.

7. Prototyping and testing

The second prototyping stage consists of building functional prototypes and performing stress tests on them to gauge their performance. This will allow product developers to identify (and proactively address) any design flaws or technical issues.

In addition to creating the functional prototype itself, developers may also be responsible for producing detailed engineering models or drawings that explain how everything works.

These resources will be crucial for progress updates with other stakeholders and during technical evaluations by QA testers.

8. Product planning and deployment

Immediately following the prototype testing stage is the Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) phase where the necessary infrastructure is set up. This is around the time when security and compliance are handled in preparation for an upcoming launch.

Depending on which industry the product is in and who its target market is, the level of compliance may be more stringent.

For instance, SaaS products in the medical field will need to be HIPAA-compliant when processing data, while other platforms may only require SOC 2 compliance to serve their users.

9. Release and post-release activities

In the lead-up to launching the product, most teams will conduct beta testing in either closed or open betas.

The product launch itself will consist of GTM strategy, product marketing, and SaaS sales. Post-release activities mainly consist of monitoring and maintenance to keep everything running smoothly.

Ongoing improvements will also be needed to increase product usage and drive feature adoption.

These objectives are most often achieved by extracting product experience insights and creating in-app guidance for users.

By analyzing data and building flows, product teams will be able to see how the product performs post-launch while having the means to boost the usage of early adopters.

This, in turn, leads to a larger sample size to draw from when reviewing user feedback.

Top 4 product design and development practices for 2024

Tying product design and development together is a common goal that most SaaS companies share. This has led to the rise of new methodologies and best practices to better connect the two divisions such as:

• Agile methodologies.
• User-centered design/development.
• Collaboration between designers and developers.
• “Design thinking”.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these in the sections below!

Agile methodologies

While Agile release planning originally gained traction as a way to break projects down into smaller chunks to speed up delivery timelines, it has since turned into a popular avenue for iterative design and development.

The opportunity for test marketing new features in isolation makes it possible to gather feedback earlier on and adjust the product accordingly. This stands in stark contrast to releasing only a few large updates per year and being swarmed with tickets spread across countless newly launched features.

User-centered design and product development

While product-centric development may have been the norm just a few years ago, SaaS companies are quickly transitioning towards a user-centered design ideology to adapt to the increased competition from the hordes of VC-funded startups.

User-centric product design and development put the customer’s needs at the core of every strategy throughout the product lifecycle. This in turn leads to products that better reflect what users want and lead to reduced churn rates as a result.

Collaboration between designers and developers

While product design and development have traditionally been thought of as different departments, the division between them has diminished over time to make way for better collaboration.

These cross-functional teams are further boosted by so-called “full stack designers” who are involved in every step of the process, from research to implementation.

These cross-functional team members bridge the gap between design and development teams to create a more unified product lifecycle.

Design thinking

In its most basic form, design thinking is an iterative approach to solving problems. It consists of implementing various design-based solutions depending on the specifics of the issue being addressed. However, this can be difficult to reconcile with newer user-centered design philosophies.

Human-centered design (HCD) takes the adjusted approach of centering every stage of the development process around the users who will be interacting with the functional prototype or final product.

Conclusion

As you can see, design and development are equally important to satisfy your customer base.

Fostering collaboration and synergy between both of these departments should undoubtedly be a top priority for modern product managers.

If you’re a product designer or developer who wants to create human-centric in-app flows, then it’s time to get your free Userpilot demo today!

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The post Product Design and Development: The Ultimate 2024 Guide appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Wondering what product growth strategy is and how to build it for your SaaS?

If so, you’re in the right place!

In this article, we discuss:

• Why you need a business growth strategy.
• Different types of business growth strategies.
• How can product teams choose the best strategy.
• How to develop a growth strategy.

We also look at a few examples of successful business growth strategies and show you how to use Userpilot to execute yours!

Let’s dive right in!

TL;DR

• A product growth strategy is a plan outlining how the company will pursue long-term growth using its product as the main driver.
• A well-defined product growth strategy can help you increase customer satisfaction and retention, reduce customer acquisition costs, and develop a competitive edge.
• The Ansoff matrix outlines four key strategies: market development (using existing products to enter new markets), market penetration (expanding market share with current products), product development (developing new products for existing markets), and diversification (building new products for new markets).
• The choice of strategy depends on your current market saturation, available resources, risk appetite, and organizational goals.

Here’s how to build a product growth strategy in 7 steps:

1. Conduct a SWOT analysis, customer research, and competitive analysis to deeply understand your product’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
2. Set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound (SMART), and challenging goals for your product growth strategy.
3. Track a North Star metric aligned with your main goals, auxiliary metrics for different product performance aspects, and counter metrics to ensure a balanced approach.
4. Use tactics like personalized onboarding and in-app messaging to drive adoption, retention, and expansion.
5. Leverage analytics tools to analyze user interactions, identify friction points, and measure the impact of your strategies over time.
6. Regularly gather qualitative feedback through in-app surveys and widgets to understand user behaviors and needs.
7. Continuously test tactics through experiments like fake door and A/B tests to optimize your product growth strategy.

• Slack offers a free plan to allow users to experience the product’s value.
• Calendly’s meeting scheduling functionality is easily shareable via links, exposing non-users to its value and driving signups.
• Userpilot reduces time-to-value with a frictionless sign-up flow.
• Cuvama provides a resource center within their product for self-service support.
• Dropbox incentivizes existing customers to refer new users by rewarding them with bonus storage space.
• Want to learn more about how to use Userpilot to build your product growth strategy? Book the demo!

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What is a product growth strategy?

A product growth strategy is a plan that outlines how a company will expand its market reach, increase sales, and drive long-term growth.

In contrast to traditional growth strategies that rely heavily on sales and marketing teams, a product growth strategy centers on leveraging the product as the main driver of customer acquisition, engagement, retention, and revenue expansion.

Why does your company need a business growth strategy?

A well-defined product growth strategy is not just nice to have. It’s vital for ongoing product success and helps the company to maintain a competitive edge. Here’s why:

Increases customer satisfaction and retention

A product growth strategy ensures that your product continuously evolves to meet and exceed customer expectations. This ongoing improvement cycle helps to keep your product relevant and valuable to users.

When customers feel that a product meets their needs and is easy to use, they are more likely to stay loyal. In practice, this means higher retention rates.

Reduces customer acquisition efforts and costs

Higher retention means that you don’t waste your resources on refilling a leaky funnel and can instead invest them into product development and innovation, which is essential for sustainable growth.

It gets better.

Loyal customers don’t just keep using your product and renewing subscriptions. They often act as product advocates, promoting it to their friends and colleagues. As WoM is one of the most effective marketing tactics, it drives further growth and reduces customer acquisition costs.

Provides a competitive advantage

A strong product growth strategy promotes continuous innovation, which enables your company to quickly adapt to market changes and stay ahead of competitors.

This is often done by offering solutions to unmet customer needs that enable your product to stand out in crowded markets and build a strong brand reputation and market position.

Different types of product growth strategies

Ever heard of the Ansoff matrix?

It was invented by a Russian-American manager, and it defines 4 main product growth strategies: market development, market penetration, product development, and diversification.

Let’s unpack each of them.

Market development strategy

Market development focuses on introducing existing products to a new market. And new markets can mean not just different geographical areas but also different customer segments.

Here’s an example:

Slack was built with the tech sector in mind. However, it soon expanded into new verticals, like education and non-profits.

This strategy works for companies competing in saturated markets. It enables them to reach new customer groups and diversify their income sources.

Market penetration strategy

Market penetration involves expanding your market share within the current market with existing products, for example, by offering a superior user experience or competitive pricing.

That’s exactly what Zoom leveraged to dominate the video conferencing software during the Covid-19 pandemic. One of their tactics was offering free access to premium features for educators, who heavily depended on video calls to deliver their courses.

Market penetration is a low-risk strategy because you operate in a familiar environment and don’t need to develop new products. You just need to figure out ways to steal your competitors’ customers.

Product development strategy

Product development is about building new products for existing markets.

This is a strategy that Userpilot has been pursuing consistently since its inception. For example, we have recently added a range of new analytics capabilities like custom dashboards to add value to the product and better serve customers.

For the product development strategy to work, your company needs commitment to innovation, robust product discovery, and idea validation processes. Otherwise, you risk burning your R&D resources on unwanted features and diluting the value proposition.

Diversification strategy

Diversification focuses on building new products for new markets.

HubSpot managed to pull it off with its Customer Service Hub. By expanding its product range, the company gained access to new customer segments.

This strategy offers substantial growth opportunities but carries significant risks. It diversifies your revenue streams and allows you to access untapped markets. However, it requires considerable investment in new products for unknown markets.

How to select the right strategy for your business?

The choice of the strategy for your SaaS depends on multiple factors:

• Market saturation: Start with market penetration until your current market is completely saturated and only then consider market development.
• Resources: Building new products or expanding into new markets can be resource-intensive, so if you’re short of cash, talent, or technological know-how, focus on market penetration.
• Risk appetite: Entering a new target market, especially with a new product, comes with a lot of risk. If your organization is risk-averse, stick to existing markets and product lines.
• Organizational goals and mission: Some companies, prioritize other goals over growth. For example, Patagonia is on a mission to build a sustainable and environment-friendly business model.

How to create an effective product growth strategy?

With the theory ticked off, it’s time for our step-by-step guide to creating a product growth strategy.

1. Understand your product thoroughly

To drive product growth, you need to understand what your product has to offer to its customers.

So, the first step is conducting a SWOT analysis. This popular tool helps you identify your product’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

For example, if adaptation is your weakness, volatile market shifts could be a threat. Conversely, if you’re strong in the innovation department, rapid technological changes could be an opportunity.

To inform your SWOT analysis, conduct granular customer and market research, and competitive analysis. Map out the customer journey, focusing on major touchpoints, user goals, and challenges.

2. Define your goals clearly

With an in-depth understanding of your product and the markets where you’re operating, you can set meaningful goals for your product growth strategy.

Here’s an example: Increase monthly recurring revenue by 7% by the end of Q3.

To set this goal, I used the SMART goal-setting framework. SMART is an acronym for:

• Specific.
• Measurable.
• Achievable.
• Realistic.
• Time-bound.

For an extra twist, you can make your goals CSMART. What does the C stand for? Challenging.

SMART isn’t the only goal-setting framework out there. Other popular ones include BHAG and OKR.

3. Identify product growth metrics to monitor

To measure progress toward your goals, you need to track the right metrics.

These will normally include:

• A North Star metric: The main metric that guides the work of your teams and reflects your goals, like monthly recurring revenue.
• Auxiliary metrics: Ones that allow you to evaluate different aspects of product performance essential for achieving your main goal. For example, increasing retention rate and expansion revenue are key to improving MRR.
• Counter metrics: Metrics that ensure you don’t forget about other important customer experience aspects while chasing your goals. For example, you could track support ticket resolution time to ensure customer service isn’t sacrificed to maximize profits.

4. Implement different product growth strategies

Using your metrics for guidance, implement relevant growth strategies.

For example:

• To improve product adoption, you may focus on providing personalized onboarding to new users and reduce the time they need to experience value.
• For higher customer retention, you could develop secondary onboarding experiences which help users discover new and more advanced functionality.
• To drive account expansion, target users with upsell and cross-sell in-app messages.

5. Use data analytics to track the performance of your product-led growth strategy

To inform your product growth strategy and track progress, use data analytics.

These tools allow you to track user interactions with the product and analyze them for patterns and trends.

For example, tracking your MRR over time will tell you if your strategy is working on a high level, while other metrics will give you insights into the performance of different strategies, like onboarding.

It doesn’t stop at simply tracking trends.

With tools like funnel, path, or heatmap analysis, you can uncover friction points in the customer journey. Armed with such insights, you can implement strategies that help users achieve their goals.

For example, a hotspot may be enough to help users find a feature they need to complete a task.

6. Collect customer feedback to gather insights

In addition to tracking user behavior, use in-app surveys to collect feedback.

In particular, focus on gathering qualitative data that will help you understand why users behave in a particular way and how you can improve their user experience.

Run your surveys regularly, say every month or quarter, depending on their purpose. In addition, send contextually triggered surveys that zero in on specific user experiences or features. For example, you can use them to measure the success of new features.

Finally, consider embedding a feedback widget in the product UI to collect passive feedback.

7. Experiment with and iterate on your strategy continuously

Your product growth strategy and the tactics you use to implement it aren’t set in stone. As user needs and preferences change, so should your approach.

To identify the best strategies, run experiments.

For example, fake door tests are great for validating your feature ideas before spending any effort on their development, while A/B tests are an excellent tool for testing different onboarding flows.

By running two flows side by side and tracking their performance, you can quickly identify the one that drives the desired behaviors more effectively.

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Best growth strategy examples from leading companies

Now that you have an idea of how to create a product growth strategy, let’s have a look at examples of a few well-known SaaS companies and how they do it.

Slack’s freemium strategy

Slack is a well-known communication platform that’s taken the business world by storm. What’s its secret? It helps teams improve productivity and collaboration by improving information sharing and reducing the need for meetings.

To help users realize its value, Slack offers a freemium plan.

This way, users can use the product and experience the positive change it can bring to their working lives firsthand.

Of course, not all features are included in the free plan. To gain access to unlimited message history or app integrations, users have to purchase one of the paid plans.

Calendly’s viral growth loop

Calendly is a meeting scheduling app. It saves you time by eliminating the need for the endless back-and-forth that was traditionally involved when scheduling meetings. All you have to do is click on the link and choose an available slot that fits your schedule.

The best part? You don’t need to be a registered product user.

But it’s very likely you will want to be once you experience how convenient it is.

If that’s the case, Calendly makes it easy for you to sign up. Just click on the ‘Powered by Calendly’ banner in the top right corner of the calendar.

That’s how Calendly uses its customers to drive product growth with minimal effort.

Userpilot’s frictionless sign-up flow

Userpilot is a product growth tool. It caters to medium and large businesses and enables them to create onboarding experiences that facilitate product growth.

To reduce time to value, we have created a minimalistic sign-up process.

By collecting only essential information (first and last name, email address), we enable users to get inside the product as quickly as possible.

The sign-up flow isn’t entirely frictionless, though. For example, to register, you need a work email address, which enables us to prequalify leads.

Cuvama’s in-app customer support

Cuvama is a customer value management (CVM) platform. It enables B2B software companies to understand and communicate their product value to customers for improved sales, increased retention, and informed product development.

To support their customers and help them maximize their product value, Cuvama offers a resource center. It includes links to onboarding flows, how-to guides, a help center, case studies, and product announcements.

Thanks to the resource center, users can solve simple problems without relying on support agents, who are usually not available 24/7.

Dropbox’s referral campaign

Founded in 2007, Dropbox was one of the first online file storage platforms and still remains one of the key players in the cloud storage space.

Just like Calendly, Dropbox leverages its customer base to drive growth.

They do it through a simple referral program: users get rewarded with extra storage space when they refer a friend to the product, which is a win-win situation for all parties involved.

How can Userpilot help execute your product growth strategy?

As a DAP, Userpilot offers a range of tools that SaaS companies can lean into to drive product growth.

First, there’s an engagement layer that allows you to create in-app experiences. For example, to onboard new customers or drive upsells.

The engagement features include:

• UI patterns (tooltips, modals, banners, slideouts, hotspots, driven actions).
• Interactive walkthroughs.
• Onboarding checklists.

Here’s the kicker: you can create and fully customize these without writing a single line of code. All is done from the Chrome extension.

Next, there are Userpilot analytics features – that no other growth platform can match.

These include:

• User segmentation.
• Code-free event tracking and feature tagging.
• Heatmaps.
• Industry-standard reports: trends, funnels, paths and retention.
• A/B and multivariate testing.
• Custom analytics dashboards.

Let’s wrap up with the feedback functionality.

Just like the in-app patterns, Userpilot surveys are fully customizable without any coding. You can pick a template and tweak it in the visual editor to give it a native look.

Userpilot offers event-based triggering so you can send them to users at a specific time.

Conclusion

A product growth strategy guides growth initiatives by giving them a clear focus. It enables companies to make informed decisions aligned with their high-level goals to better satisfy customer needs and offer them a better experience.

If you’d like to learn more about Userpilot and how you can leverage it to execute your product growth strategy, book the demo!

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The post Product Growth Strategy: A Guide for SaaS Companies appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Looking for the best no-code SaaS tools to build innovative solutions and improve your product management workflows?

This article dives into some of the best tools in 2024. Whether you’re looking to build a custom app without writing a single line of code, optimize user onboarding, gain deep insights into user behavior, or automate your marketing efforts, we’ve got you covered.

TL;DR

• No-code SaaS tools are software products that allow users to create applications, websites, or in-app experiences without writing any traditional programming code. The no-code technology offers a drag-and-drop interface that makes these tools easy to use for non-technical teams.

No-code development platforms:

• Webflow – best no-code app builder for landing pages and websites.
• Bubble – best for building no-code SaaS MVP and progressive web apps.

No-code SaaS tools for user onboarding and adoption:

• Userpilot – best user adoption platform for SaaS apps.
• Pendo – the best no-code onboarding platform for mobile apps.

No-code platforms for SaaS analytics:

• Mixpanel – the best no-code SaaS product for data analytics and visualization.
• Hotjar – best no-code SaaS product for collecting qualitative data.

Best no-code tools for marketing automation:

• Mailchimp – the best no-code platform for email marketing.
• Zapier – best no-code platform for creating automated workflows.

Want a code-free UX tool to better understand your users and deploy in-app experiences that drive engagement? Userpilot can help. Book a demo to learn more.

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What are no-code SaaS tools?

No-code SaaS tools are software products that allow users to create applications, in-app experiences, analytics dashboards or automate marketing processes without writing any traditional programming code.

These platforms use visual interfaces, drag-and-drop components, and pre-built templates to facilitate the design or building process.

Best SaaS no-code tools for app development

No-code app development tools allow you to create web or mobile applications easily.

Most come with extensive component libraries and collaboration features, giving you the flexibility to build and iterate quickly.

Here are some of the best no-code tools for app development:

1. Webflow – best no-code app builder for landing pages and websites

Webflow empowers designers and non-technical users to build professional-grade websites and landing pages without writing code.

It distinguishes itself by offering a unique blend of design flexibility, powerful CMS capabilities, and seamless hosting, all within a visual interface.

Key features

• Visual web design: Webflow’s drag-and-drop editor allows for pixel-perfect design control. Users can customize every aspect of their site, from typography to animations, without touching code.
• Responsive design: Websites built with Webflow adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes and devices, ensuring a consistent user experience across desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.
• Content Management System (CMS): Webflow’s CMS lets you easily create, manage, and update website content. It’s ideal for blogs, portfolios, or any site with dynamic content.
• Hosting and security: The platform provides reliable hosting and security, taking care of the technical aspects so you can focus on building your website.

Pricing

• Free plan.
• Basic — $14/month.
• CMS — $23/month.
• Business — $39/month.
• Enterprise — Custom pricing.

2. Bubble – best no-code tool for building progressive web apps

Bubble is a full-stack development platform for building no-code SaaS MVP and fully functional web applications.

Its strength lies in its ability to build complex products with rich interactivity and logic.

This makes it a popular choice for startups and businesses looking to quickly develop and deploy scalable web applications without the need for extensive coding knowledge.

Key features

• Visual programming: Like most no-code platforms, Bubble’s visual editor allows you to design the user interface, build database structures, and define app logic through a drag-and-drop interface.
• Database management: With Bubble, you can easily create and manage your app’s database without the need for SQL or other complex database languages. The platform handles data storage, relationships, and queries.
• Workflows and logic: Bubble allows you to design custom workflows and logic to define how your app reacts to user actions. You can create complex interactions, automate processes, and personalize user experiences.
• API integrations: You connect Bubble to external services and APIs to extend your app’s functionality. For example, the platform allows you to integrate with popular tools like Stripe for payments, Google Maps, and social media platforms.
• Deployment and hosting: Bubble eases the launch of your application across multiple platforms. It provides hosting for web apps, making them easily accessible through web browsers on any device. Additionally, you can explore options to extend your Bubble app’s reach, such as converting it into a mobile format for distribution on app stores like Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store

Pricing

• Free plan.
• Starter — $29/month.
• Growth — $119/month.
• Team — $349/month.
• Enterprise — Custom pricing.

Best no-code SaaS tools for user onboarding and adoption

User adoption platforms are software solutions designed to help users learn and master new software applications.

These platforms provide tools and features to guide, train, and support users through the onboarding process and ongoing usage, leading to higher engagement and productivity.

Some of the best no-code platforms for driving adoption:

3. Userpilot – best user adoption platform for SaaS apps

Userpilot is a product growth tool designed to enhance user adoption and drive growth for SaaS apps. It empowers product teams to create personalized in-app experiences without writing any code.

Key features

• Chrome extension builder: Userpilot allows you to create and customize different UI patterns completely code-free. You can choose from tooltips, modals, banners, slideouts, hotspots, and checklists to create in-app guides that show users how your tool works

• AI writing assistant: Userpilot’s writing assistant can help you generate engaging microcopy for your in-app messages, rephrase or shorten existing content, and improve overall readability.

• Event tracking: You can track various in-app interactions, such as clicks, hovers, or combinations, to gain deeper insights into user behavior.

• Segmentation: Userpilot allows you to segment users based on various attributes, such as survey responses, NPS score, product behavior, etc., and trigger highly relevant adoption flows.

• Funnel analysis: Track user progression through key stages of your product and identify funnel drops. This analysis helps you understand where users are losing interest or encountering obstacles, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to improve retention.

• Path analysis: This feature lets you analyze how users navigate your product. Use it to identify the shortest and most effective path to success (aka the happy path), and put the rest of your users on that frictionless path with in-app guidance.

• Analytics dashboards: Userpilot’s analytics dashboard helps you view all your key adoption metrics in one place, such as the number of active users, sessions per user, average session duration, feature adoption, etc. Userpilot’s customers are also able to create custom dashboards with metrics of their choice.

• Product experimentation: Userpilot lets you run A/B and multivariate testing to determine which product experiences resonate more with your audience so you can optimize your strategy and improve your conversion rates.

• In-app surveys: Userpilot empowers you to gather valuable user insights and refine your product strategy. Choose from ready-made CSAT, CES, PMF, and other microsurvey templates, or easily build custom surveys from scratch, code-free. After gathering feedback, you can use the survey analytics feature to analyze user inputs, uncover actionable insights, and make data-driven decisions.

Pricing

Here’s an overview of Userpilot’s pricing plans:

• Starter: The entry-level Starter plan starts at $249/month and includes features like segmentation, product analytics, reporting, user engagement, NPS feedback, and customization.
• Growth: The Growth plan starts at $749/month and includes features like resource centers, advanced event-based triggers, unlimited feature tagging, AI-powered content localization, EU hosting options, and a dedicated customer success manager.
• Enterprise: The Enterprise plan uses custom pricing and includes all the features from Starter + Growth plus custom roles/permissions, access to premium integrations, priority support, custom contract, SLA, SAML SSO, activity logs, security audit, and compliance (SOC 2/GDPR).

4. Pendo – the best no-code onboarding platform for mobile apps

Pendo is a product experience platform that helps businesses understand and improve how users interact with their digital products.

This platform is one of the few that enables onboarding for mobile users.

Key features

• Customizable onboarding flows: Pendo enables you to design custom onboarding experiences that guide new users through your app’s key features and functionalities. These flows can be tailored to different user segments, ensuring each user receives the most relevant and helpful information.
• Auto-generated guides: Powered by Pendo’s artificial intelligence, generate in-app product tours according to your preferred parameters, from the number of steps in a guide to the tone of voice employed.
• Multi-platform support: You can create consistent onboarding experiences across both web and mobile applications.

Pricing

Pendo offers a customized pricing model — you only pay for the features you need. However, the dollar amounts aren’t publicly stated.

Best no-code platforms for SaaS analytics

Analytics tools are software applications that collect, process, and analyze data from various sources to provide meaningful insights and reports.

They play a crucial role in helping businesses make informed decisions, optimize performance, and drive growth.

Here are some of the best no-code SaaS analytics tools to choose from:

5. Mixpanel – the best no-code analytics tool for data visualization

Mixpanel is a product analytics platform that helps companies measure user engagement, retention, and conversion.

The platform provides detailed insights through intuitive data visualization, making it easy for teams to analyze complex datasets without needing any technical expertise.

Key features

• Event tracking: Mixpanel lets you track user interactions with your product, capturing every event and action taken. Then based on the tracked events, Mixpanel allows you to generate detailed reports that highlight user behavior trends and patterns.
• Segmentation: Mixpanel’s segmentation capabilities allow you to create highly targeted analyses and understand how different user groups interact with your product. You can segment users based on company size, sign-up date, pages visited, and so on.
• Cohort analysis: Track and analyze user cohorts over time to see how behavior changes. This helps you understand retention rates, user engagement, and the long-term impact of your product changes.
• Integrations: Mixpanel integrates seamlessly with Userpilot to help you better understand user behavior across different journey stages. Other Mixpanel integrations include Segment, Intercom, Appcues, and Slack.

Pricing

• Free plan.
• Growth — from $28/ month.
• Enterprise — Custom pricing.

6. Hotjar – best no-code analytics tool for collecting qualitative data

Hotjar is a no-code SaaS product for understanding how users engage with your website or app.

It provides a comprehensive suite of features to visualize user behavior, including interactive heatmaps, session recordings, and survey features for collecting qualitative data.

Key features

• Heatmaps: Hotjar uses colors to visualize where users click, hover, and scroll on your website. The insights from this analysis show you what part of your product customers gravitate toward and what is causing frustration.
• Session recordings: You can record and replay individual user sessions to see exactly how users interact with your site. This helps you identify usability issues and understand user behavior in detail.
• Goal tracking: You can set up goals and track user progress towards them. This lets you measure the effectiveness of your optimization efforts so you can double down on what’s working.
• Feedback widgets: Hotjar lets you display customizable widgets on your website to gather contextual feedback from visitors. Similarly, you can deploy in-app surveys and polls to collect user opinions and improve.

Pricing

• Free plan.
• Plus — From $32/month.
• Business — From $80/month.
• Scale — From $171/month.

Best no-code SaaS tools for marketing automation

As the name suggests, marketing automation tools handle routine marketing tasks, allowing businesses to nurture leads, engage customers, and drive conversions more efficiently.

Here are two of the best no-code SaaS platforms for marketing automation:

7. Mailchimp – the best no-code platform for email marketing

MailChimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that empowers businesses of all sizes to create, send, and analyze email campaigns with ease.

Key features

• Drag-and-drop email builder: Mailchimp’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to create visually appealing and contextual emails. You can customize templates or build your own from scratch, adding images, text, buttons, and more without any coding skills.
• Advanced segmentation: This is one of the features that makes MailChimp stand out. The platform lets you segment your audience based on various criteria such as demographics, behavior, purchase history, and engagement levels. This allows you to send targeted emails that resonate with specific groups of subscribers.
• Automated email sequences: MailChimp lets you set up automated email sequences to nurture leads and engage customers over time. You can create workflows for welcome series, trial reminders, follow-ups, and more.
• Campaign performance reports: Track the performance of your email campaigns with detailed reports on open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and more. These insights help you understand what’s working and where improvements are needed.

Pricing

• Free plan.
• Essentials — From $6.5/month.
• Standard — From $10/month.
• Premium — from $175/month.

8. Zapier – the best no-code platform for creating automated workflows

Zapier is a leading no-code workflow automation platform that connects apps and automates repetitive tasks.

With Zapier, users can create “Zaps,” which are automated workflows that trigger actions in one app based on events in another, all without needing any coding skills.

Key features

• Extensive app integration: Zapier connects with more than 3,000 apps, including popular ones like Google Workspace, Slack, Trello, Mailchimp, and Salesforce. Zapier regularly adds support for new apps, ensuring that you can continue to expand your automation capabilities as new tools become available.
• Task history: Monitor and manage your automated tasks with Zapier’s task history feature. View logs of all tasks, identify any issues, and take corrective actions if necessary.
• Shared workspaces: You can collaborate with your team by creating shared workspaces where multiple users can create and manage Zaps. This feature promotes teamwork and ensures that everyone has access to essential automation.
• Custom integrations: If a desired app isn’t available, you can use Zapier’s Webhooks and API integrations to connect virtually any service and automate tasks easily.

Pricing

• Free plan.
• Professional — $19.99/month.
• Team — $69/month.
• Enterprise — Custom pricing.

Conclusion

When choosing the ideal no-code platforms for your processes, start by clearly defining your goals. Are you aiming to build landing pages, gain insights into user behavior, or automate your marketing efforts?

Once you know what you want to achieve, select the tool that offers the features and integrations that align with your specific needs.

Userpilot can help if you’re looking for a no-code SaaS tool to track user behavior and deploy engaging in-app experiences. Book a demo if you want to learn more!

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7 lessons learnt from trialling the Shape Up product development methodology Read more »

The post 7 lessons from trialling Basecamp’s ‘Shape Up’ methodology appeared first on Mind the Product.

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At HubSpot, customer experience comes first. Always.

Whether our marketing team is selecting a time at which to send an email or our web team team is choosing the size and location of a button on our homepage, the question we always go back to is: “Will this be a good experience for our customers?”

As HubSpot’s Chief Product Officer, this customer-first principle is my guiding light when it comes to product development. And it’s the reason why we don’t buy technology when we want to deliver a new product to our customers. We build it.

This build-first approach is becoming increasingly rare in our industry. Traditional SaaS companies tend to acquire other companies when they want to significantly expand their product offerings or quickly increase their customer base. This can sometimes lead to a quick uptick in revenue — after all, when a company buys another, it acquires all of its customers — but it’s often a very negative experience for the customer.

When two completely different systems are cobbled together after an acquisition, the burden of making them work together is foisted onto the customer. Each company probably took a completely different approach to product development, resulting in different underlying technology, different processes, and different user interfaces.

Reconciling these differences without causing friction for customers is an almost impossible task. And when SaaS companies apply this approach over time, the friction accrues, technical debt goes through the roof, and the customer experience steadily degrades as a result.

This approach solves for the company implementing it, not the customers it’s supposed to serve. That’s why we do things differently at HubSpot. After all, it isn’t like us to follow the crowd.

When most companies were doubling down on the old outbound playbook, we championed inbound approaches instead. When most businesses were wondering whether remote work could ever work, we saw the percentage of HubSpotters working from home hit double digits long before 2020 forced everyone’s hand. And while our industry was still furiously focused on funnels, we embraced the flywheel.

We’re different. It’s in HubSpot’s DNA. It’s even reflected in our company mission: we help organizations grow better. Not grow according to the status quo. Not grow by adhering to age-old playbooks. Grow better.

Just as we believe there’s a better way to grow, we also believe there’s a better way to build. That’s where the Primary Colors come in.

Meet the Primary Colors

Our approach to product development is simple, and it allows us to create multiplicative benefits for customers that no other CRM platform offers. We focus on five foundational elements that span all of our products, and we work at improving each one of them, all of the time. Those elements are: Automation, Content, Data, Messaging, and Reporting. We call them “Primary Colors.”

Every one of our Hubs – Content Hub, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub – comprises a different blend of the five Primary Colors, meaning that every product on our platform is built on the same underlying foundation.

So when the product team shows up to work every day, the question we ask ourselves isn’t “Which Hub or feature will we work on today?” It’s: “Which Primary Color will we enhance?”

As a result, when we add value to one area of HubSpot, value is automatically added across the entire CRM platform. And that allows us to deliver a steady stream of delight to all of our customers on an ongoing basis.

Here are three ways in which this approach allows us to offer unique value to our customers in the crowded CRM market:

1. Continuous improvement across the platform.

“HubSpot is the perfect, always-improving marketing software” – review on G2

The same five Primary Colors go into building each HubSpot product, so when we improve one Primary Color, we improve every Hub. And every customer of every HubSpot product sees an immediate benefit, whatever part of the platform they use.

For instance, when we invest in making Reporting in Sales Hub more robust, this robustness ripples out to every Reporting tool across the HubSpot CRM platform. So Marketing Hub customers who use our Reporting tools benefit, Service Hub customers who use our Reporting tools benefit, as do Content Hub customers — all because we invested in improving just one Primary Color.

2. Easy adoption of new products.

“We quickly adopted the Sales Hub Pro and Marketing Enterprise for our growing needs. It has been one of the best decisions we have made” – review on G2

Since all of our Hubs are built on the same Primary Color foundation, our customers can expect a familiar, fast, and friendly user experience every time they add a new feature or product to their tech stack. This means customers can enjoy the benefits of each new addition right away, with no time lost to training, integration, or new-system frustration.

As HubSpot’s co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, puts it: “Our customers’ time-to-joy is reduced.”

Once a customer learns how to use Automation in, say, Marketing Hub, they instantly know how Automation works in all of HubSpot’s products across the CRM platform. So as their company scales and adds new products, features, and integrations to their tech stack, they can expect consistency, not complexity.

They don’t have to relearn how Messaging works or how Data is stored every time they add a new Hub — something they would likely have to do if they were working with a system that had been cobbled together through acquisitions or if they use different tools for different customer-facing teams.

3. The ability to run an entire business on a single platform.

“I can manage the website, CRM, email marketing and all other efforts in one single place. This allows me to have a single location for all my data Reporting and have a single source of truth” – review on G2

With HubSpot, fast-growing companies can run their whole business on a single system, because HubSpot offers the same insights and power to marketers, salespeople, and service professionals alike.

And when all teams at a company are working out of the same familiar system, silos crumble, data is centralized, and information flows freely. The whole team has access to the same valuable insights, allowing them to understand their customers better and deliver a seamless experience across every touchpoint.

For example, when a company’s marketing team uses Marketing Hub and its sales team uses Sales Hub, both teams gain access to the same customer data in a centralized CRM. And because both Hubs offer identical functionality for recording and storing Data, it becomes equally easy for each team to access not only the data they generate, but also Data the other team generates.

This gives marketers and salespeople a holistic view of the customer, enabling each of them to tailor their tactics and personalize their outreach. If a prospect is showing particular interest in marketing content about a certain feature, the sales team can see this information in the shared CRM and will know to focus on that feature on their next call with the prospect.

They don’t need to wait on a marketing report or rely on an impersonal script – they can personalize their outreach and hone in on a prospect’s specific areas of interest, all as a result of both Hubs being built on the same foundation.

Building Differently, Growing Better

The challenges that companies face in 2021 are new, so our approach to building our products needs to be new as well. With the rise of the hybrid workplace, we’re all finding our work lives intersecting our home and family lives, too. That raises the bar on what we expect from business software.

People use HubSpot to power their businesses, to provide for their families, to help their communities thrive, and in many cases, to make the world a better place.

It’s now more important than ever that our CRM platform experience feels like something you’d use on the weekends, not just Monday morning.

That’s why we’re fiercely committed to building software that has enterprise-grade power combined with consumer-grade intuitiveness and an experience as delightful as that offered by the apps we all use in our personal lives.

At HubSpot, our bar is set by what our customers need, not what our competitors have done in past decades. With the five Primary Colors powering our platform and our unwavering commitment to never compromise on customer experience, we are excited to continue to help our customers grow better in 2021 and beyond.

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Every seasoned product marketer knows that adding new features to your product is key to product management success. But not just any features will do. You need a robust ideation process to bring the right ideas to life and add more value for your users.

This guide explains what feature ideation is, what strategies to use to come up with new ideas, and how to focus on the right ones.

TL;DR

• Feature ideation is a process through which product teams brainstorm ideas for new features to introduce to their product.
• It helps you meet user needs, enhance user experience, improve product value, and gain a competitive advantage.
• The first stage of an ideation technique involves gathering ideas from different sources such as feature usage trends, feature requests, customer reviews, user behavior, and competitor analysis.
• The second stage requires you to round out your ideas to make them more comprehensive. You can do this by asking key questions related to product gaps, competitor features, and more.
• The features then have to be prioritized based on your goals so that the resources are allocated to impactful endeavors.
• You then build prototypes of the features to gain an understanding of user experience and preferences.
• The last stage of the product ideation process involves testing the features with small focus groups and collecting feedback to fine-tune them.
• There are various techniques for ideating features—some involving user data and others relying on productive ideation sessions.
• Brainstorming sessions involve sitting down and coming up with unique ideas for your product features and prioritizing them.
• Mind mapping is a product design method that dives deep into various aspects of a central topic to get new feature ideas.
• User journey mapping helps you visually see gaps in the product experience that need plugging.
• The SCAMPER product ideation technique categorizes existing features into the following buckets: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify (includes Magnify and Minify), Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. Based on these, you can ideate feature enhancements.
• Role-play involves placing yourself in the user’s shoes to dive into user psychology and understand how they react to different situations.
• A SWOT analysis helps discover gaps and opportunities in your product for new feature development.
• Prototyping builds a minimum viable product with new feature ideas to test their impact on the user experience.
• The Analogy product ideation process helps you find innovative product feature ideas through analogies.
• Reverse engineering involves defining a goal and backtracking from it to find feature ideas to take you there.
• Userpilot is a product growth tool that lets you track feature usage with powerful data analytics, collect user feedback, and build in-app onboarding flows to introduce new features. Book your demo to learn more.

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What is feature ideation?

Feature ideation is the process of brainstorming new feature ideas to add to your SaaS product. It informs the creative process for product roadmapping and helps focus on impactful feature enhancements.

Why do you need feature ideation in your product development process?

Here are some reasons why the idea-generation process is non-negotiable in product development.

• Effectively meet user needs: The ideation process helps propose new features that users might want. It involves understanding their needs and what they expect.
• Enhance user experience: A successful ideation session can help you develop features that can elevate the product experience.
• Gain competitive advantage: The ideation process brings fresh ideas to the forefront of product development to help you differentiate yourself and overcome product parity.
• Maximize product value: Creating features that users want helps increase product value, product stickiness, and in turn, retention.

Feature ideation phases

Follow the ideation process to discover new ideas for features and incorporate them into your business strategies.

Ideation phase 1: Generate ideas from different sources

Before you develop a new feature, it’s important to generate as many ideas as possible to get started. Here are various methods you can use to collect new product ideas.

Feature usage trends

Start by looking at your feature usage trend reports. Which features are popular among your users? How often are they used? Think about what can be done to improve the features as well.

Also, look at which features force users to try other platforms simply because you don’t have them. For instance, if your onboarding tool doesn’t offer a no-code builder, your users might use other platforms for creating email drafts.

With Userpilot, you can easily observe feature usage trends and use them to inform the ideation process.

Feature requests

Asking your users is one of the best methods for idea generation. Put up a modal asking users about the features they want in your product. Then, look at the feature requests feedback to identify the most common requests. This will help you build the most-requested features, giving users exactly what they want.

Customer interviews

Another handy ideation technique is user interviews. Customer interviews can tell you a lot about what customers want from your product, allowing you to generate creative ideas for your features accordingly.

User behavior research

You can also generate new ideas by performing user behavior analysis. This helps identify how users leverage your features, what UI elements they’re attracted to, and where they face friction.

For example, a trend analysis report can help identify popular features. You can use the insights to ideate related features knowing they would likely please your user base.

Competitive research

While other ideation techniques involve user and product analysis, this one deals with your competitors. Comparing your product with existing solutions allows you to identify feature gaps and understand what your target audience is expecting from other companies.

For inspiration, head over to competitor websites to explore their offerings. Learn more about their feature sets, explore new releases, and analyze their roadmap if it’s public.

Ideation phase 2: Round out product ideas

Now that you’ve used ideation techniques to get a bunch of new ideas for product feature design, let’s get them sorted. They’re still quite raw, and you need to make them more comprehensive.

Here are some questions that can help round out and refine the ideas you’ve collected through the design thinking process.

• Are there any overlooked or emerging needs that need to be addressed?
• What features do your competitors offer, and how do yours compare?
• Are there any gaps in the market that our product can fill?
• How do the proposed features enhance the overall user experience?
• Do we have the technical capabilities to implement the proposed features?
• Do the proposed features align with the product’s value proposition?
• What resources (e.g., budget, employees) are required to implement and support the new features?
• Do the proposed features align with the product’s long-term roadmap and vision?
• How will the features evolve to keep up with changing user needs and market trends?

Ideation phase 3: Prioritize feature ideas based on your objectives

Now that you’ve rounded out your ideas, it’s time to prioritize them based on their importance. This is where feature prioritization comes in.

Decide the objective of your feature development and use it to guide your prioritization framework.

For instance, if you’re an email marketing tool and your current goal is to automate email creation with ease, you would prioritize features like drag-and-drop builders, HTML editors, image library, and so on.

Ideation phase 4: Build the prototype

Now, it’s time to put your feature ideas to the test. Start developing the feature set you’ve prioritized from the idea development process and build the prototype.

Prototyping will help you create the feature set at a smaller scale and collect user feedback for it. The main advantage is that you’re able to validate your feature ideas and make modifications before investing extensive time and money into developing full-scale features.

Ideation phase 5: Test with small focus groups

Prototyping gives you an idea of how the feature should be developed and what it should accomplish. But the testing shouldn’t stop there. You also need to collect feedback on the completed feature design.

Focus groups help in this case. You can build beta tester groups from your current customer base and invite them to beta test the feature by offering free access to it.

For instance, here are the email invites Notion sent to selected users to try out their latest AI feature.

Once the user opts in to start testing the feature, Notion also lets them know that they’re on the waitlist. It helps build anticipation and hype for the new feature.

Once they’ve played around with the feature, ask them for their feedback. Analyze the responses to identify the most common ones. Use these to guide feature modifications and improvements.

After you’ve incorporated the changes, roll out the feature for your entire user base.

Most popular ideation techniques

Now that you know the steps involved in the ideation process, let’s look at a few ideation methods you can use to discover new feature ideas.

Brainstorming session

The simplest ideation technique to start with is brainstorming. All you have to do is get your product, sales, and marketing teams together for brainstorming sessions. Each team will be able to give their input for feature ideas.

Pros:

• Teams contribute based on their customer interactions.
• Brings diverse opinions from various teams.
• Includes qualitative interactions.

Cons:

• Not based on user data.
• This could lead to missed opportunities.

Mind mapping

Mind mapping is a popular product design ideation technique that helps cover most major ideas related to a central topic. With mind maps, you write a central idea and then create various branches for feature ideas related to it.

Pros:

• Helps collect similar ideas in a single spot.
• Gives a visual representation of your ideas.
• Shows how each idea is connected to another.

Cons:

• Time-consuming to come up with linked ideas.
• Ideas may not be as detailed.
• Can get complicated if you try to add many branches.

User story mapping

This method leverages user behavior to inform ideation. It involves visually mapping the user journey to understand what they need at every stage and how they interact with your product. This helps determine which existing features have the greatest impact on users and how can they be improved further with new enhancements.

Pros:

• Analyzes user data for feature ideas.
• Helps spot gaps in the user experience.
• Makes it easy to customize the experience with feature reshuffling.

Cons:

• No clear idea of the problems users face.
• Doesn’t account for user feedback.

SCAMPER technique

SCAMPER is a design thinking process and stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify (includes Magnify and Minify), Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. These are the parameters that you need to compare your existing features with. The SCAMPER technique can help determine what needs to be changed in the product, giving rise to new feature ideas.

Pros:

• Gives a comprehensive analysis of the existing product.
• Extensive brainstorming while categorization leads to innovative ideas.

Cons:

• Effectiveness depends on how well you ask questions for each category.
• May spring up some ideas that may not be feasible.

Role-playing

Instead of relying on user feedback, you can role-play to ideate. Here, you can put yourself in the users’ shoes and build custom scenarios. Determine what the user would need in those situations.

Pros:

• Gives diverse perspectives as you can create unlimited scenarios.
• Doesn’t require the collection of user feedback.

Cons:

• Doesn’t take user opinions into consideration.
• Role-playing may not give you a full picture of user needs and pain points.

SWOT analysis

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This sort of analysis should be done for your product as a whole. It can help you find where opportunities lie to improve your product. You can also spot weaknesses that can be rectified with new feature ideas to improve product experience.

Pros:

• Gives a holistic view of your product instead of a pinhole perspective.
• Discovers opportunities for product and feature development.
• Helps identify areas you can double down on to boost your strengths.

Cons:

• Doesn’t involve in-depth analysis into the causes of SWOT.
• Decisions aren’t based on user data.

Prototyping

Unlike other ideation methods, prototyping involves ideating first and then creating prototypes of the features you wish to introduce. You can create prototypes with limited resources, see them in action, and understand how they impact user experience.

Pros:

• Tests user responses regarding new features and extracts unparalleled insights.
• Allows experimenting with variations of your feature to find the best-performing one.
• Makes it easy to implement the full-scale feature as the base would be ready.

Cons:

• Takes up a lot of time as it involves prototype creation from scratch.
• Features introduced in a prototype might keep changing before they’re finalized, leading to confusion among users.
• Relatively expensive as you’d have to invest time and resources into prototype creation.

Analogy technique

The Analogy technique encourages product teams to use feature analogies for ideation. This is a creative way to brainstorm new ideas.

Imagine your app is a toolbox. Just like a toolbox helps you fix things with all sorts of tools, your app solves problems by offering a variety of features. So, if a toolbox has a hammer for nails, a helpdesk tool could add a chatbot to solve user problems. This way, by comparing your app to something familiar, you can come up with creative features that make your app useful.

Pros:

• Challenges your team to think out of the box.
• Helps simplify a complicated concept.
• Enables you to come up with unique solutions to user problems.

Cons:

• If not done right, you end up creating ineffective solutions.
• Doesn’t offer enough insight into the users’ minds, so solutions might not be highly targeted.

Reverse Engineering

Instead of making challenging assumptions and developing ideas based on problem statements, reverse engineering works by setting a goal and backtracking from there. It helps you understand what steps can help achieve product growth, leading to new feature ideas.

Pros:

• Helps chart a clear path to your product goals.
• Gives you a series of features that can be introduced to accomplish goals.

Cons:

• Long process as you have to backtrack from your goal to find feature ideas.
• Can be complicated if you don’t get the steps right.

Conclusion

Introducing the right features can help you win over your users’ trust and play an important role in retaining them. But it only works if you do feature ideation right.

This is a problem that user behavior analytics can solve, and that’s where Userpilot helps. It equips you with powerful user data that offers direction for feature development and helps boost user satisfaction. Book a free demo now to build innovative solutions for your users.

Try Userpilot and Take Your Product Growth to the Next Level

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The post Feature Ideation Process Steps & Techniques for Product Teams appeared first on ProdSens.live.

In this spotlight session at #mtpcon London 2023, David Carlile, Sr Director, Product Strategy at Optimizely shared insights on how we can reduce risk and fail faster by building experimentation into the product development lifecycle. Watch the video in full, or read on for his key points. Read more »

The post Reduce risk, fail faster: Experimenting across the product development lifecycle appeared first on Mind the Product.

The post Reduce risk, fail faster: Experimenting across the product development lifecycle appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Do your product betas feel more like a beta test for your patience? I’ve been there too!  

As a product leader who has run dozens of betas, let me let you in on a secret – following a structured framework is the key to nailing beta tests every time.

In this guide, I’ll share the exact framework my team uses to run successful betas. You’ll discover how to:

• Set clear goals and exit criteria
• Recruit and engage the right testers
• Create a rock-solid action plan
• Oversee testing 
• Measure success and iterate

So, ready to level up your beta game? Let’s do this.

Why do you need to run beta tests anyway?

For tech companies building new products, releasing a beta version marks a critical phase. Betas give select users early access to test out the product and provide feedback before its official debut. 

Through beta testing, teams gain valuable insights that allow them to pinpoint and rectify issues and build enhancements based on actual user interactions. This proactive approach minimizes the chance of launching an underwhelming product, enriches user experience, and sets the stage for a triumphant release.

The beta product hasn’t yet reached its final form – it evolves based on the feedback you gather. Once the product achieves the desired functionality and delights users, it transitions to its final version and is ready for a public launch.

How product betas drive adoption

For many product-led organizations, the prime strategic goal is driving adoption through superior user experiences. As these organizations envision growth and global expansion, they recognize the imperative of refining their product’s user experience before scaling. 

While eager to release their product, they often opt for a discreet beta test to validate the user experience. Without this crucial beta phase, they risk low adoption rates, decreased customer satisfaction, and potential attrition. 

In essence, the beta stage serves as a litmus test in the product journey, enabling companies to gauge user feedback and pave the way for a seamless and impactful launch.

Turning beta insights into marketing gold

Beta testing offers an exclusive window into real-world user interactions, preferences, and pain points. The feedback obtained during this phase provides product marketers with a clear understanding of the product’s value proposition, its strengths, and areas of potential improvement. 

Such insights are invaluable in crafting targeted marketing messages, positioning strategies, and even promotional campaigns that resonate deeply with potential customers. 

Additionally, by identifying and rectifying product flaws or integrating enhancements based on beta feedback, product marketers can ensure a more compelling and seamless product narrative, which translates to more confident product launches and campaigns.

What’s more, a well-executed product beta fosters trust and credibility in the market – two attributes that product marketers can capitalize on. Engaging early adopters and obtaining their endorsements or testimonials after a successful beta phase is a great way to gather compelling social proof for marketing campaigns. 

As if that wasn’t enough, beta testing allows for a better understanding of the diverse needs of customers across different segments and industries. This enables marketers to segment and tailor their campaigns more effectively. 

In essence, product betas not only ensure the readiness of a product for a broader audience but also empower product marketing functions with data-driven insights and narratives, setting the stage for more impactful and resonant market engagements.

How to successfully execute a product beta

Conducting a product beta involves five crucial steps:

1. Establishing clear goals and exit criteria
2. Engaging the right customers at the right time
3. Mapping out an action plan with essential milestones
4. Overseeing the beta
5. Measuring the beta’s success

Let’s take a closer look at each step.

Step one: Establish clear goals and exit criteria

Setting clear goals and exit benchmarks is a foundational part of product development. 

In a fiercely competitive market, it’s vital for businesses to craft products that resonate with users’ needs and wants. As such, the primary goals of beta testing typically include identifying any flaws in the product, understanding user pain points, and ensuring alignment with user demands. This allows for improvements based on users’ feedback before launch.

Secondary objectives, such as measuring customer satisfaction, attracting early users, and analyzing competitors, can further amplify your product’s success. 

To meet these aims and mark a project’s end, define clear exit benchmarks, like obtaining user feedback and plotting enhancement strategies. Prioritizing these goals enables businesses to foster growth, deepen customer ties, and outpace competitors. 

Here’s a handy template for you to use as you plan your next product beta:

Goals: Define goals to understand your customers’ key requirements and trustbusters

Primary goals:

• Detect product flaws and pain points throughout the customer journey, assessing the tangible effects of these issues.
• Secure customer approval for a new MVP, ensuring it satisfies core user needs while noting potential upgrades.
• Pinpoint key customer segments and discern factors motivating feature use.

Secondary goals:

• Measure customer satisfaction (CSAT) related to the new feature.
• Attract early users to expedite broader product acceptance.
• Recognize obstacles to adoption.

Exit criteria: Establish the exit criteria to confirm:

Core exit criteria: 

• Gather feedback from the top X potential customers, noting essential enhancements for general availability.
• Develop a concise roadmap highlighting necessary improvements for product and engineering teams.
• Rank elements deemed essential by both product teams and customers for a minimum viable product (MVP) and a minimum lovable product (MLP).

Additional exit criteria

• List priority (P1) and secondary (P2) suggested enhancements for the teams.
• Rank elements emphasizing scalability, utilization, and performance of the product.

The criteria above aren’t strictly about when to transition out of beta. Instead, they help define what successful beta completion looks like. It’s vital to have a clear vision or goal so you recognize the right moment to transition out of the beta phase.

Step two: Engage the right customers at the right time

Recruiting the right beta testers is crucial for gathering meaningful feedback. Here are some tips on engaging customers effectively:

• Reach out to existing users who have previously expressed interest in the feature during discussions. Tapping into this pool helps ensure the product aligns with customer desires.
• Draw from customer feedback sources, including reviews, in-app usage, and input from teams like sales and customer support, to engage customers who’ve previously expressed a need for this feature.
• Involve a diverse mix of customer segments, from small businesses to large enterprises, and across different sectors like education, government, and healthcare. This diversity ensures the beta truly represents all your users.
• Having a streamlined pre-enrollment process for the beta is key. This involves getting signed NDAs and updated account details from qualified, eligible users. This kind of organization makes finding and onboarding the right beta testers much simpler.

Step three: Map out an action plan with essential milestones

Before kicking off the beta test, three key milestones should be scheduled to keep things on track:

1. Launch meeting: This initial meeting with all stakeholders, including sales teams, officially starts the beta. In this meeting, you should verify the current status of the beta product, address any pending issues, and lay out immediate next steps.
2. Mid-point check-in: For beta tests exceeding four weeks, it’s a good idea to check in with stakeholders around the halfway point. This is a prime opportunity to assess the progress made so far, tackle any unresolved issues, gauge completion status, review new data, plan any necessary interviews or feedback sessions, and discuss steps towards wrapping up the program.
3. Conclusion meeting: Cross-functional participants including sales and product meet to wrap up the beta. Discussions center on results, product trajectory, and reviewing the defined exit criteria to determine if the beta met its goals or requires an extension. This is the moment to outline any modifications that may need to be made to the product and decide whether to transition into a new beta phase or prepare for a public launch. 

Defining these milestones upfront ensures all players stay aligned through each beta phase, paving the way for a successful launch.

In addition to these milestone meetings, product marketing, product,  engineering, and product operations teams should meet at least weekly, or perhaps even daily, to discuss the status of the beta. Meanwhile, overall status updates can be communicated to broader stakeholders via weekly emails.

For a detailed beta workback blueprint, check out the table below.

Step four: Oversee the beta

Establishing a dynamic tracking mechanism, like a dashboard or real-time report, is an efficient way to monitor beta customers, their status, product concerns, and feedback. By incorporating daily, weekly, and monthly views, you’ll gain a holistic perspective of the beta’s progress. 

It’s vital to ensure that engineering, product, and product ops teams also have access to this dashboard or report. This will help to handle requests and gather feedback effectively.

Step five: Measure your beta’s success

The below set of success metrics can be tracked during and after the beta.

Product/customer metrics

• Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Time and cost savings for product managers from early issue resolution
• Feature adoption rate
• Total beta customer count

Operational metrics 

• Average sales rep time on beta activities
• Time and cost savings from early detection of product concerns

Tech metrics

• Time taken by tech teams to set up a beta environment
• Engineering time and cost reductions from preemptive issue fixes

Key takeaways

Delivering an effective product beta paves the way for a stellar launch and superior user experience. Follow these tips to ensure your beta hits the mark:

Set clear goals: These will likely include identifying product flaws, securing customer approval, and understanding how customers use the product. 

Define exit criteria: These will signal when it’s time to transition out of the beta phase, ensuring the product is primed for a broader release. 

Engage users strategically: Prioritize existing and interested customers for optimal input.

Seek diverse feedback: Include varied segments and industries for comprehensive insights.

Stay coordinated: Launch meetings, check-ins, and conclusion reviews keep stakeholders aligned.

Track your progress: For smooth beta management, reports and dashboards are invaluable, providing a comprehensive view of customer feedback, beta status, and other vital data. 

Measure your success: Monitor satisfaction, adoption, and any other metrics relevant to your goals.

Enable iterations: Use feedback to refine the offering and optimize the experience.

Plan the rollout: A polished beta sets the stage for a triumphant launch and happy users!

The post From concept to completion: Navigating the beta launch journey appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Product marketing managers (PMMs) play a pivotal role in determining the trajectory of a product’s journey from conception to the hands of the consumer.

At the heart of this journey lies the art and science of experimentation, which provides a structured approach to understanding how users interact with a product, what they value, and where there might be room for improvement.

The essence of a PMM’s role is to act as a bridge, connecting the technical intricacies of product development with the ever-evolving needs and preferences of the market. This bridge is built on data, insights, and feedback, which are gathered through experimentation. 

Whether you’re fine-tuning a user interface, optimizing a new feature for better engagement, or gauging the potential impact of a complete product overhaul, experimentation strategies guide these decisions.

However, the realm of experimentation is vast and varied. From quantitative methods that delve into hard data and metrics to qualitative approaches that focus on user behavior and perceptions, each strategy offers unique insights. 

The challenge, and indeed the art, lies in choosing the right strategy for the right situation, ensuring that product features not only function seamlessly but also resonate deeply with the target audience.

As we delve deeper into this article, we’ll explore the nuances of various experimentation methods, their applications, and the impact they can have on shaping successful B2C products.

We’ll delve into: 

• Why experimentation is so vital,
• The benefits of experimentation,
• Key strategies, and
• Best practices.

Let’s go!

Why experimentation is so vital

Experimentation stands as a cornerstone in the world of B2C product marketing for several compelling reasons:

More informed decision-making

In the absence of experimentation, positioning decisions often hinge on assumptions, instincts, or anecdotal evidence. While these might occasionally lead to success, they are not consistently reliable. 

Experimentation, on the other hand, offers empirical data, grounding decisions in actual user behavior and preferences. This data-driven approach significantly reduces the margin of error, ensuring that product enhancements are genuinely aligned with user needs.

Enhanced risk management 

Introducing a new feature or making significant changes to an existing one can be risky. Without proper testing, unforeseen issues might arise post-launch, leading to dissatisfied users and potential damage to your brand. 

Experimentation acts as a safety net, allowing teams to test new ideas on a smaller scale, gauge their impact, and iron out any kinks before a full-fledged release.

Evolving with the market 

The B2C landscape is in constant flux, with consumer preferences, technological advancements, and market dynamics continually shifting. 

Experimentation allows product marketing managers to keep a finger on the pulse of these changes. By continuously testing and iterating, products can evolve in tandem with the market, ensuring they remain relevant and competitive.

Maximizing ROI 

Every feature development or enhancement comes with associated costs, be it in terms of time, resources, or capital. 

Experimentation ensures that these investments yield the highest possible return. By identifying which features resonate most with users, businesses can allocate resources more efficiently, focusing on areas that offer the most substantial growth potential.

Building stakeholder confidence 

For stakeholders, be it investors, board members, or even internal teams, seeing decisions backed by solid data can be reassuring. 

Experimentation provides this data, showcasing a commitment to methodical, user-centric product development. This not only builds confidence but also fosters a culture of transparency and accountability.

Enabling a feedback loop 

At its core, experimentation is about listening to users. Whether it’s through A/B tests, usability studies, or direct feedback, experimentation establishes a continuous feedback loop. This ongoing dialogue with users ensures that products are not developed in a vacuum but are shaped and refined based on genuine user needs and feedback.

In essence, experimentation is not just a series of tests or strategies. It’s a philosophy, a commitment to placing the user at the heart of every product decision, ensuring that B2C products are crafted with precision, empathy, and a deep understanding of the market they serve.

The benefits of experimentation

When it comes to building great products and getting them into the right hands, experimentation is key. Running controlled tests allows us to validate assumptions and make data-driven decisions about what features to build, how to take them to market, and how to provide the most value. 

This isn’t just about moving fast and breaking things – it’s about rapidly iterating to serve users better. By regularly experimenting, we can ensure our products, pricing, positioning, messaging, and more evolve with the market. And the benefits are clear…

• Enhanced product value: Experimentation ensures features align with user needs, increasing product value and user satisfaction.
• Increased revenue: Optimized customer journeys can lead to higher user engagement, retention, and conversion rates.
• Faster iteration: Experimentation provides rapid feedback, allowing for quicker iterations and improvements.
• Stakeholder alignment: Data from experiments can be used to align stakeholders on product marketing decisions.

Experimentation strategies

Now we’ve established the massive benefits experimentation can have for your organization and, more importantly, your customers, let’s look at some strategies and how we can wield them to build amazing user experiences.

A/B testing

Often considered the gold standard in experimentation, A/B testing involves presenting two distinct versions (A and B) of a feature, product, or message to separate user segments. The primary goal is to determine which version drives better performance based on predefined metrics.

• Application: Ideal for testing subtle changes like button colors, call-to-action text, or different layouts.
• Benefits: Provides clear, quantitative results on which variant performs better, leading to informed decisions and improved user experience.

Multivariate testing

An extension of A/B testing, multivariate testing examines multiple variables simultaneously. This helps understand the combined effect and interactions between different elements.

• Application: Suitable for complex pages or features with multiple elements that can be changed, like a landing page with varied images, text, and button placements.
• Benefits: Allows for a deeper understanding of how different elements interact and influence user behavior.

Feature flags

This strategy involves deploying a new feature but keeping it ‘hidden’ from the majority of users. Only specific segments (like beta testers) can access and test the feature.

• Application: Useful for gradually rolling out new features, especially when unsure of its reception or when wanting to mitigate potential risks.
• Benefits: Offers flexibility in feature deployment, reduces risks, and allows for iterative improvements based on early feedback.

Beta testing

A pre-release version of a feature or product is shared with a select group of users, typically known as beta testers. Their role is to use the feature, identify bugs, and provide feedback.

• Application: Commonly used for major feature releases, app updates, or entirely new products where extensive user testing is required before a public launch.
• Benefits: Helps identify and rectify technical issues, gather user feedback, and refine the feature based on real-world usage.

Usability testing

This qualitative research method involves observing real users as they interact with a feature or product. The goal is to understand their behavior, preferences, and potential challenges they face.

• Application: Suitable for any stage of product development, from early prototypes to mature products. Commonly used for user interface and user experience optimization.
• Benefits: Offers in-depth insights into user behavior, identifies pain points, and helps improve overall usability.

Surveys and feedback forms

These are the most direct tools for collecting user feedback. They can be structured with specific questions or open-ended to gather general opinions.

• Application: Useful post-feature release to gauge user satisfaction, gather suggestions, or after A/B tests to collect qualitative data.
• Benefits: Direct insights from users help in understanding user preferences, and provide a platform for users to voice their opinions.

By leveraging these experimentation strategies, PMMs can ensure that every product feature, message, and piece of collateral is not just technically sound but also aligns with user expectations and market needs. 

Through continuous testing, feedback, and iteration, you can optimize your entire user journey, driving success in the competitive B2C landscape.

Best practices

As you dive into experimentation, here are some core best practices to keep in mind. These tips will help ensure your experiments are set up for success.

• Start small: Before diving headfirst into large-scale experimentation, it’s essential to test the waters with smaller, focused experiments. These can be quick A/B tests or short feedback sessions.
• Be patient: The results of experimentation might not always be immediate, especially for long-term strategies or when observing subtle user behaviors.
• Analyze and iterate: Once an experiment concludes, the work is far from over. Data needs to be analyzed, insights derived, and then applied to iterate on the product features.
• Stay user-centric: Every experiment, regardless of its scale or objective, should always prioritize the user. Their needs, preferences, and feedback should be the guiding light for any experimentation strategy.
• Diversify your experimentation methods: While it might be tempting to stick to familiar methods, it’s crucial to diversify. Different strategies offer varied insights, and a holistic understanding requires a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.
• Combine data with intuition: While data-driven decisions are crucial, they should be complemented by intuition and experience. Sometimes, raw numbers might not tell the entire story, and your intuition can fill in the gaps.

By internalizing and acting on these key takeaways, you can navigate your experiments with clarity and confidence. Let these principles serve as your compass, ensuring that every aspect of your product marketing strategy remains focused, user-centric, and primed for success in the B2C market.

Conclusion

For PMMs in the B2C space, experimentation is not just a tool but a necessity. It offers a clear pathway to understand user behavior, validate product decisions, and optimize features for market success. 

By adopting and integrating these strategies, businesses can ensure that their products not only meet but exceed user expectations, driving growth and success in the competitive B2C marketplace.

The post Evolving with the market: The role of experimentation in B2C product marketing appeared first on ProdSens.live.