1. Squarespace

What I love:

• Show don’t tell through A+ storytelling—Using experiences and success stories from real platform users via their “Making It” blog. A great strategy to talk about the product, without talking about the product.

• Humanizing the brand through product marketing—A living portfolio of customer websites built using Squarespace, their “Made for Squarespace” showcase is product marketing at its finest.

• No pressure freemium to paid approach—Great use of email to nurture freemium model sign-ups into paid plans. Low pressure approach and scale that allows you to grow into higher plans as you get more comfortable within the product.
  

2. Loom

What I love:

• Educating users on the value of new features—What good is a new feature announcement with no context to what it means? A lot of brands nail the “what” but miss the “so what.” That’s what the Transcript blog does impeccably well. It answers three key questions: 1. Why we built this, 2. How it works, 3. Examples of use cases. Use this simple 3-step framework for future product announcements you release.

• Simple language, branding & imagery—For simple tools, don’t overcomplicate your messaging. Don’t get caught up in rhyming or clever taglines — be matter of fact and concise with the language you use.

• Infusing personality into the product marketing—Simple touches can go a long way. Loom nails a conversational yet professional tone. I like that they have branded their team as “Loommates” and use emojis in the copy. More of these “human” moments in your outreach is how you start building relationships with new and prospective users.

3. Evernote

What I love:

• User-first messaging—With a product used for just about everything, it can be easy to rely on features alone. But Evernote does a great job at speaking their user’s language, keeping messaging simple and focused on the end benefit.

• Branding user forum to build online community—A creative way to improve product adoption and connect users, Evernote’s forum is a hub for everything users need to learn, network and grow.

• Clean branding & UX in email design—The effort put into the email design shows an emphasis the brand has on a clean user experience. This builds into the psychology of product marketing—good branding subconsciously builds trust and inherent value in the solution.

4. Intercom

What I love:

• Gamification & community-building elements—Product marketing should be a major driver in building a user community. Intercom does a phenomenal job with their “Interconnected” forum. Here, they celebrate top contributors on a dashboard and incentivize then through a points system. They also give access to different groups to enhance their skills or request new features - “Product Wish List” and “Tips, Tricks & Workarounds”, to name a few.

• Leveraging internal teammates as thought leaders—They regularly share “trade secrets” and how the product process is led at Intercom. Using the “built for you” product log as a digital hub to provide a behind the scenes look for users to build trust and showcase their expertise.

• Weekly newsletters educate & entertain—Relationship building is often an overlooked opportunity in product marketing. You can be providing your customers with more value than you realize. At a minimum, get on a monthly product update cadence - highlight new enhancements, use cases, tips & tricks, customer stories.