What Are PLG Tools?

DEFINITION
PLG tools are part of a SaaS company’s tech stack that help make key operations smoother, from user acquisition to user retention. Because a SaaS company using PLG go-to-market strategy relies on its product to acquire customers, these PLG tools help make their product shine.

💡Understanding PLG Tools

A product-led growth model requires a shift from traditional sales and marketing strategies. For this reason, companies adopting PLG need a different set of tools to assist them with this new model.

PLG is not just limited to the product. A PLG company needs to understand the user journey, take care of user feedback, and put their best customer service and customer support forward. With so many moving operations involved, they need a tech stack consisting of PLG tools that equips them to implement the strategy.

The problem? There is a dizzying number of tools available today, which makes it difficult to identify the ones that fit your needs.

🖋 Takeaway

PLG tools are a necessity for a PLG company that wants to keep operations and team collaborations as smooth as possible. 

While selecting PLG tools, make sure you cover each and every step of the user journey and select tools based on that. This includes user acquisition, onboarding, retention, and more.

What Are PLG Tools?

PLG tools are apps and software that help PLG companies in their operations like marketing, sales, analytics, and more. 

As PLG strategy has many simultaneously moving operations, having a tech stack that makes it easier to manage is critical. In the absence of such tools, different departments work in siloes which leads to scattered information and data.

List Of PLG Tools

Here’s a list of tools according to the purpose of the tool:

Onboarding 

The onboarding experience is one of the most crucial steps in a PLG strategy for two reasons: 

1. It gives you user data you need to optimize the user experience 
2. The user gets familiar with the usage of your product 

You can use the onboarding experience to guide the users to their ‘aha moment’ in which the user understands the utility of your product for them.

Here are some tools you can use for user onboarding: Pendo.io, Lou, and Userflow.

User Feedback

From reviews to bug reports, user feedback helps you make your product better. This becomes even more important in a PLG GTM strategy as your product is the star. 

While selecting a user feedback tool, you need to check whether the tool aggregates the feedback received across all channels–from in-app to a G2 review and beyond. 

Tools for user feedback: Typeform, Refiner

PLG CRM

PLG CRM differs from a traditional CRM as the PLG model calls for integrated customer data, including users using freemium or free trial subscriptions. 

What’s more, a traditional CRM only incorporates the sales team. PLG requires every department to work together and includes a lot of data that different teams need. For example, both the customer success and the sales team need access to the in-product user data that they can use to solve a user’s problem but also upsell them.

Tools: Breadcrumbs

Product Analytics

In-product user data is the foundation of converting a user to a paid customer. For this reason, product analytics tools should be the main focus of your tech stack. 

This gives you insights into how a user is using your product, the most frequently used product, and where the user is getting stuck.

While selecting a product analytics tool, you need to make sure it’s easily accessible by every team, be it marketing or sales, as the product data is important to devise every strategy.

Best tools: Amplitude, Google Analytics, and Heap

Marketing Automation

Marketing is what attracts new users to your product. 

Marketing automation tools help you automate most parts of your marketing, from creating email marketing campaigns to social media marketing campaigns.

Best tools: Marketo and customer.io 

Customer Success

Like user feedback, customer success is geared towards providing the best possible experience to your existing users. Customer success tools aim at aggregating customer data to keep tab at customer health.

Best tools: Catalyst,  Velaris and Zendesk 

How To Select Your Product-Led Growth Tools

There are unlimited tools available for every need. Here’s how you can choose the right tools for your specific needs:

• Set goals early on: Before you choose a tool, make sure it aligns with your larger PLG strategy. Create an objective for every tool before including it in your tech stack. This way, you’ll know if the selected tools are contributing to your growth or not.
• Easy-to-use products: Most PLG tools will be used by different teams, from marketing to customer success. Select a tool that’s easy to use and can be learned easily.
• Fit for each stage of the customer journey: You need to have tools for every stage of the user journey–from onboarding to retention. Make sure you don’t have too many tools for one stage and no tool for another.