SERVICES
Design Product-Led Growth
To drive sales & sales efficiency
By creating experiences where prospects can directly see how your product or service benefits them, you can increase sales conversions, close sales faster, and create an engine of further growth.
Outcome: 5X free trial sign-ups, 25% increase in MOFU sales conversions
Example Steps:
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Define target users. Can be based on industry, job titles, tasks they're responsible for, etc.
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Identify use cases that a) are high-value and frequent b) ones you address more effectively than your competitors (ideally)
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Define & execute MVP of showing this value to prospects through solving these use cases
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Connect the experience to free-trial signups or other points in the sales funnel
Create & Leverage Ideal Customer Profiles
ICPs enable you to differentiate between potential prospect types, understand what will drive their behavior. and prioritize the ones that are most valuable to you. Identifying these helps focus Sales & Marketing efforts and create faster and more efficient sales funnels.
Outcome: 20-30% increase in sales conversions
Example Steps:
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Identify who your current successful/power users are
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Determine what factors they have in common
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Understand what value props work for them
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Determine where and how to reach them
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Craft marketing campaigns and sales motions to deliver for these segments
E.g. An ICP for a workflow automation tool might be Director of Operations in Supply Chain and Logistics Industry. They value automation and accuracy. Best content for them are case studies with quantifiable savings, etc. ICPs should also inform the product roadmap, design approaches, etc.
Define & Execute Product Strategy
(to drive adoption, engagement, traffic, performance)
Successful product strategies often meet at the intersection of user needs/wants and business objectives. And they may require a rethinking of the business. (E.g. a marketing automation platform today has to communicate how it will leverage AI for the client's benefit.) This section can apply to scenarios where a business is rethinking their product or design strategy, or one where the strategy is in place and the business wants help in executing it in ways that will maximize outcomes.
Case Study Sequence:
Outcomes: Increase traffic, engagement, video views, app downloads, and more.
(The example steps for executing this would depend on the strategy itself and other factors.)
Identify & Utilize Customer Journeys
Defining User Journeys helps companies understand user needs, pain points, and opportunities to serve them better.
Customer journeys can be used to:
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Build effective sales motions and marketing campaigns
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Create Sales playbooks
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Inform more effective design and execution decisions
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Inform resourcing and strategy for Customer Success teams
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and more.
Case Study: Sagewell Financial
Outcome: Led to user engagement "playbook". Indirectly led to doubling base subscription price with minimal drop-off in conversions.
Create Sales "Playbooks"
The purpose of creating sales playbooks is to make it faster and easier for sales teams to understand what segment or segments prospects may fall into, and then be able to to leverage specific goals, concerns, approaches, or content to move prospects through the sales funnel, In the end it's less effort for sales and yields higher conversion rates and faster times to close.
There are several ways to do this:
The more thorough option: Start from the beginning with identifying Ideal Customer Profiles and use cases, as described above.
The faster option: Identify patterns among people/companies that have bought products like yours. Identify patterns in who is making the purchase decision, criteria they are using to evaluate tools, most important needs, company demographics, etc.
E.g. The following criteria inform what features matter most to a company considering purchasing an ERP. Evaluation criteria (ROI over current state vs cost of product plus implementation), type of business (do they have manufacturing or supply chain components vs software or services), context of business (getting first ERP, moving from on-prem to cloud, etc). These yielded 4 distinct Prospect Segments with specific sales points, use cases, etc.
Find & Activate New Sales Opportunities
Every place I have worked I have discovered new sales opportunities. It often comes from seeing patterns in traffic and/or user behavioral data. But it can also come from past user research or current user research. Since I do both Design and Research--with a solid amount of PM as well--I can identify opportunities then plan, design, and project manage the creation of new, successful features.
Case Study: Arizona State Athletics
Outcome: Created automated ticket modules that drove 15% ticket sales increase
Example Steps:
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Identify user behavioral patterns in product data
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Confirm user needs/wants that seem present
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Design features to serve those needs and convert that behavior into concrete, measurable value
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Launch, track, learn, and extend the features that work
Increase Engagement With Sponsors & Partners
Plenty of companies want their users to engage with sponsors or partners. (E.g. a music festival website that promotes a sponsor who happens to sell water bottles and outdoorsy fitness products.) Instead of relying on standard and not-well-targeted ads or links, figure out what the sponsor has or does that can benefit users and determine when and how to connect them for maximum value.
Outcome: Drove 10X traffic to tv provider partners
Define & Deliver Freemium Upsell Opportunities
This can take the form of a free product with bells & whistles that users pay for. Or a free trial through which you hope to convince users to continue using and paying for the product after the trial expires.
Case Study: Yahoo! Fantasy Sports
Outcome: Increase Revenue by $1MM YOY for Freemium Features