What is product-led growth?
Product-led growth (PLG) is a business strategy that prioritizes attracting and acquiring customers through use of a product or service, rather than relying on traditional marketing channels. Famous examples include Slack, Figma, Zoom, and Warby Parker (yep, it can be physical products, too).
Product-led companies have something remarkable about their product: something that they do first (in the market, in true innovation), best (think about how Apple’s iPhone bested existing phones), or uniquely. The products tend to have something about the mode of use that generates interaction with others. They also have a habit of setting a new standard for what the experience ought to be—or what a category is. They become a regular part of their customer's daily lives.
Product-led marketing emphasizes the details of the product and using it over buzzwords and “benefits”. There’s usually a trial or freemium experience that encourages potential customers to have direct experience. Pricing tends to be clear and available without a conversation. In fact, the whole path to purchase tends to be optimized for self-service. It fits perfectly with the idea that “the web is a customer service medium”.
A rough opposite of product-led growth is sales-led growth, which relies on traditional marketing channels, like advertising and public relations, to generate leads for the sales team. In huge enterprise companies, marketers create strategies that resonate with decisionmakers high up in the org chart at other big companies. Those decisionmakers feel some urgency not to miss out on a trend that might improve the business.
There’s a good chance you’re looking at sales-led marketing when there’s no way to see the product on the first web page you find, all the feature information gets shoved into documentation, big suspiciously round statistics litter the page, benefits appear without clear features, and there’s no way to get pricing without booking a call. Sales-led growth often works well, and it’s how big money is made. It can work alongside PLG, but the tactics have different audiences and goals.
Sales-led growth seeks to communicate with decisionmakers, to generate and qualify leads. Product-led growth seeks to communicate with end users, get them into the product, help them have an "a-ha!" moment, and encourage them to share their good experience (or the work) with others.