Customer Communities

9Law 5: Build on Your Advocates: Your Most Loyal Customers Are the Gateway to Success

By Remco de Vries and Kenneth Refsgaard

The rise of subscription-based software has made it easy for buyers to sign up for services and explore their capabilities. It has also paved the way for thousands of subscription-based solutions focusing on similar use cases. We have all seen the infographics of the marketing technology landscape showing a map of thousands of tools and services to make the professional lives of marketers easier. Some of them might be technology leaders that are redefining the space with important innovations. Still, most of them are probably similar in capabilities and the problems they aim to solve. So how do you stand out in the middle of an ocean of other tools, and, more importantly, how do you gain a competitive advantage?

Customers are in the market for a product because they have a particular problem they want to solve or an opportunity they want to pursue. It's important to deliver on the expectation that your product will help them do that. But how will they decide if that's the case as they make their purchasing decision? Product-led growth strategies have shown that an easily accessible trial combined with intuitive features can be a powerful and successful approach to growth, but it's not always sufficient. While a trial may demonstrate how the technology works, many SaaS products require some degree of change management and investment before you see actual ...