Product-led marketing and maintaining close friendships may seem like unrelated topics, but upon closer examination, there are some common points that can be connected naturally. Both require a strategic approach to attract and engage individuals, whether they are potential customers or potential friends.

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Aug 27, 2023
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Product-led marketing and maintaining close friendships may seem like unrelated topics, but upon closer examination, there are some common points that can be connected naturally. Both require a strategic approach to attract and engage individuals, whether they are potential customers or potential friends.
In the realm of product-led marketing, the goal is to attract a vast pool of potential users who are interested in your product while keeping customer acquisition costs low. This can be achieved through organic search/SEO and product virality. Companies like Airtable, Miro, Snyk, Webflow, and Zapier have successfully used these strategies to disproportionately attract users.
One common strategy used by these companies is the creation of free sidecar products that are built with marketing intent. For example, Snyk regularly updates its vulnerability tool, giving users a reason to come back and engage with the product. Additionally, Snyk incorporates user-generated content by asking visitors to disclose new vulnerabilities, creating a sense of community and collaboration. This approach not only attracts new users but also helps users get activated quickly and feel a sense of ownership over the product.
Similarly, templates can be used as a way to kickstart a community strategy, as seen with Miro's Miroverse. By sourcing templates from power users or allowing users to monetize their templates, companies like Miro and Notion foster a sense of community and incentivize users to engage with their products.
Another important aspect of product-led marketing is ensuring that the product documentation is easily accessible and offers real value to users. Similarweb, for example, provides immediate value to visitors by offering quick answers to their questions. This not only helps potential users but also nudges them to sign up for a free account to access even more actionable insights.
Now, let's shift our focus to maintaining close friendships. Research has shown that social network size tends to shrink as people age, particularly after the age of 65. This is because maintaining close friendships requires a significant investment of time and effort. In fact, it takes about 200 hours of investment in a few months to move from being a stranger to being a good friend.
Professor Robin Dunbar, who has dedicated his career to studying friendship, has identified the concept of Dunbar's number. This is the number of meaningful and stable relationships that one can have at any given time, including extended family and friends. The range of variation for Dunbar's number is estimated to be between 100 and 250.
Interestingly, Dunbar's research has also revealed that relationships are highly structured, and people do not see or contact everyone in their social network equally. Instead, the network tends to be clumpy, with different layers of relationships. Each layer is three times the size of the layer directly preceding it, starting from a core group of five close friends and expanding to larger circles of 15, 50, 150, 500, 1,500, and 5,000.
Now, let's connect the dots between product-led marketing and maintaining close friendships. Both require a strategic approach to attract and engage individuals. In product-led marketing, the focus is on attracting and retaining users through organic search/SEO and product virality. Similarly, in maintaining close friendships, the focus is on investing time and effort in building and nurturing relationships.
So, what actionable advice can we derive from these insights?
- 1. Prioritize quality over quantity: Just as maintaining close friendships requires investing time and effort in a select number of relationships, product-led marketing should prioritize attracting and retaining high-quality users who are genuinely interested in the product. Focus on attracting users who are likely to engage with the product and become advocates.
- 2. Foster a sense of community: Both product-led marketing and maintaining close friendships benefit from creating a sense of community. Encourage users to interact with each other, share their experiences, and support one another. This can be achieved through features like user-generated content, templates, and community forums.
- 3. Make it easy to engage: Removing friction is essential in both product-led marketing and maintaining close friendships. In product-led marketing, ensure that the product is easy to discover and use, with clear calls to action that guide users towards the desired outcome. Similarly, in maintaining close friendships, make it easy for friends to connect and spend time together, whether it's through regular meetups or digital communication platforms.
In conclusion, product-led marketing and maintaining close friendships share common principles of attracting and engaging individuals. By prioritizing quality over quantity, fostering a sense of community, and making engagement easy, both product-led marketing and maintaining close friendships can thrive. So, whether you're looking to grow your business or nurture your personal relationships, these actionable advice can guide you towards success.
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