Product-Led Growth (PLG)

Product-Led Growth solves a fundamental problem in B2B marketing: the gap between what salespeople promise and what customers actually experience. Traditionally, marketing generates leads, sales closes deals, and customers discover whether the product was worth it. PLG flips this: let the product prove its value first.

Think of it like a restaurant offering free samples at the counter instead of relying solely on menu descriptions and server pitches. The product becomes the salesperson. Slack, Figma, and Notion all grew this way—users could sign up, experience core features immediately, and expand usage without ever talking to a sales rep.

For marketing teams, PLG changes everything about how you measure success. Instead of tracking leads and pipeline, you track product adoption metrics: activation rate (how many free users become active), expansion revenue (how much existing customers spend), and viral coefficient (how many new users each customer brings). Your job shifts from lead generation to onboarding optimization and user education.

In practice, this means your marketing budget flows differently. Less goes to paid advertising and sales enablement; more goes to product analytics, in-app messaging, user research, and community building. You're optimizing the free trial experience like it's your most important landing page. You're creating self-serve resources—documentation, tutorials, templates—that replace sales conversations.

The practical implication: if you're evaluating AI tools for your marketing stack, PLG-native vendors often have lower customer acquisition costs but require strong product-market fit. You'll need robust analytics to understand where users drop off, and you'll need to think like a product manager, not just a marketer.