Introduction

Organizations can leverage growth in several ways. Traditionally, the conversation has oscillated between several marketing or sales functions that together promised the returns that the company was looking to make in the market. The well established animosity that users share for ads and the feverishly high costs of sales-led strategies have, however, has brought a paradigm shift to the dialogue. Though the term has been around for over half a decade, it has seen fresh interest in recent years. In the simplest terms, product-led growth is a strategy that puts the product on the driver’s seat to handle acquisition, conversion, retention, and expansion of its user base. 

Product-led organizations essentially redirect resources from exorbitant marketing and sales budgets back to the product to enable rapid, user-centric product optimization. Tethered to customer requirements and customizations, PLG companies empower their products to speak for themselves, in true show-don’t-tell fashion.

For many companies, however, product led growth still sounds like a gamble. While instances of the first product led companies that made it big are rampantly discussed, it might be more convincing to look at the stats closer to where we are in 2022. Consider the year 2019-20. Hubspot, ZenDesk, Wix, Zoom, Dropbox, and Twilio were among the lot who switched gears to become product led growth examples.
 

Now that we know what product-led growth can do for you, let’s dive right into the four popular frameworks on how you can implement it.

The 4 Framework 

1. Growth Loops
   
   The Growth Loops framework is a closed-feedback loop system designed to ensure every input goes through a series of predefined steps to generate an output that can be reinvested in the input.
   For instance, consider a potential customer who sees an ad for your product. They then proceed to the product page and complete the signup process. At this point, they share their experience with the product and recommend it to others in their circle. This starts a cycle of output, in this case, more signups.
   The Growth Loops framework has four stages. Let us look at these in the case of popular professional networking site LinkedIn.
   
   Input:  The first stage of the framework, it is the initial action that sets the loop in motion. In the case of LinkedIn, a user signing up on the platform would be the input
   
   Activation: This is where the user is nudged to introduce the platform to other people. In LinkedIn’s example, the platform suggests that the user sync their account with their contact list.
   
   Action: - Here LinkedIn suggests profiles, groups and influencers who you might like to connect with, based on your contact list and profile
   
   Output: - Having gained the user’s confidence about its utility through personalized suggestions, LinkedIn nudges the user to invite their contacts to the platform to share the beneficial experience.
   
   Once the framework reaches the output stage, the signups from the contact list are onboarded as new users, and the cycle  continues to repeat.
    
2. The Hook Model
   
   The Hook Model is a four-phase process that businesses can use to create products or services used habitually by customers. The model is employed to achieve voluntary, high-frequency engagement. At its core, the Hook Model is about creating a customer habit. Organizations derive a significant edge over their competitors once their customer becomes a habitual user of the product. Product teams that use the hook model can leverage it to create products that stick.
   Let’s look at the four stages of the Hook Model
   
   Trigger: The trigger is the action that prompts habitual behavior or usage by the user. This could be internal or external, and influences the potential user to come on board.
   
   Action: The second stage is the action that the user takes in anticipation of rewards.
   
   Variable Rewards: The problem that is solved as a result of the action made strengthens the behaviour cycle. Benefits of the Tribe (social rewards based on acceptance and connection), Rewards of the Hunt (quest for material resources), and Rewards of the Self (personal gratification in the form of mastery or self-realization) are some examples.
   
   Investment: This refers to the small efforts, or investments, that the user puts into using the product, that the brand leverages to create habitual usage out of apparently miniscule actions.
    
3. Fogg Behaviour Model
   
   The Fogg Behaviour Model shows that three factors must coincide at the same time for the behaviour to occur: motivation, ability, and trigger. When there is an absence of any action, it is because one of the three components is absent.
   The Fogg behaviour simplifies the understanding of behaviour. One thing to note here is that all three components should be present simultaneously for the behavior occurrence to happen. The three behavioural shift components are:
   
   Motivation: People should be motivated enough on improving their actions
   
   Ability: They must have will to behave
   
   Trigger: They must always be motivated or encouraged to engage in the behavior
   
   The idea that behavioral change can be controlled is central to the Fogg's Behaviour Model. Here the focus is on building a product that addresses any deterrent to motivation, ability, or trigger to the user, and work on proactively eliminating it to create habitual usage.
    
4. RICE Prioritization Model
   
   Probably the most widely used product management framework in the business, the RICE Prioritization framework is designed to help product managers determine which products and features to put on their roadmaps by scoring these items according to four factors. These factors, which form the acronym RICE, are reach, impact, confidence, and effort.
   The RICE framework can be leveraged to:
   
   Help product managers to take better-informed decision
   
   Help to minimise personal biases in decision making
   
   Help to defend priorities to another stakeholder
   
   The RICE scoring model that evaluates the ratio of the reach, impact, and confidence to the efforts it takes achieve the same. It helps product teams build a clear system for critically determining the relative importance or benefits of a variety of different concepts. 

Conclusion
 

Product-led growth frameworks, when employed effectively, help product teams create products that users adopt widely and use habitually. Turning users into product advocates subsequently reduces metrics like customer acquisition costs while improving the customer experience.