5 Predictions for the Product Led Growth CRM Market
The CRM market is evolving. With the rise of product-led growth (PLG) companies, the way customers engage with and purchase software is changing. This is having a big impact on the CRM market, which is forecasted to be worth more than $64 billion by 2025.
That figure is very telling, but not just because of the sheer size of the market. It’s also a reflection of how much the PLG model has disrupted traditional CRM vendors over the past few years.
So, what does the future hold for the product-led growth CRM landscape? Let’s find out.
What Is PLG CRM?
Product Led Growth CRM is a new category of CRM that’s quickly gaining popularity among fast-growing startups. PLG CRMs are designed to help companies with a product-led go-to-market strategy manage their customer relationships more effectively.
So what’s driving the popularity of PLG CRMs? That’s what we’re going to cover in this discussion. We’ve outlined our top predictions for the PLG CRM market below so you can see where it’s headed in the coming years.
Traditional CRM vs PLG CRM
Product led growth management is crucial for growth
Before we dive into our predictions, it’s important to understand the difference between traditional CRM and PLG CRM.
The ‘last big thing’ in CRM was the transition from On Premise to Cloud over 20 years ago. As a result, traditional CRM vendors sell their software on a subscription basis. This business model has been very successful for them, but it does have some drawbacks.
For one, it is hard to get customers to sign up for a subscription before they’ve had a chance to try out the software. Traditional CRM software was designed with the assumption that all customer data is centralized in a single platform.
Today, however, dozens of software services exchange customer data with CRM platforms to power all aspects of a product led growth strategy. The current generation of CRMs was designed with sales-led business models in mind.
Over the past decade, companies such as Calendly, Zoom and Expensify have proven there are better economics in a product-led growth model. Operations teams struggle to make a round peg fit a square hole with traditional CRMs.
This is where PLG CRMs come in.
The next generation of CRM is designed to support product-led growth models. How customers use your product is a gold mine of signals for better understanding your customer. This is the foundation of PLG CRM companies.
PLG CRMs are designed with the assumption that customer data is distributed across many spreadsheets, data warehouses and applications. They are designed to use customer data wherever it sits, rather than simply orchestrating processes and workflows for sales teams.
Finally, PLG CRMs are typically offered as a self-service product priced on consumption, meaning customers pay for how much they use. This business model has a number of advantages. For one thing, it’s much easier to get customers to try out the software. And once they’re using it, they’re more likely to see the value in upgrading to higher consumption tiers.
What Are The Benefits of PLG CRM?
Now that we’ve covered the basics of PLG CRM, let’s take a look at some of the benefits it offers.
One of the biggest benefits of PLG CRM is that it helps you get started quickly and easily. With traditional CRMs, you often have to go through a lengthy setup process before you can start using the software.
With PLG CRM, you can get started immediately. This is because most PLG CRMs are designed to be used without any training or setup. You can simply create an account and start using the software right away.
Another big benefit of PLGCRM is that it’s very affordable. As we mentioned earlier, PLG CRMs are typically offered on a freemium basis. This means that you can use the basic features of the software for free.
As the product led growth movement continues to gather momentum, more and more companies are looking to their product data to drive growth. This is because product data provides a wealth of insights that can be used to improve the customer experience and drive conversions.
And as the importance of product data increases, so too will the investment in customer data. Companies will recognize that customer data is the key to understanding their customers’ needs and wants, and they will invest accordingly.
This is why customer data will be the key driver of growth in the coming years. By understanding their customers better, companies will be able to offer them the products and services they want, when they want them.
If you need more advanced features, you can simply upgrade to the premium version. This makes PLG CRM a very cost-effective option for small businesses and startups.
PLG CRM allows for the use of product data, customer data, and data orientation. As such, businesses can use product data to improve customer relations and sales.
In addition, PLG CRM can also be used to develop marketing strategies, optimize product offerings, and track customer engagement.
PLG benefits customer acquisition, engagement, and expansion. So it’s likely that this trend will continue in the years to come.
With improved customer success and engagement tools, it will be easier for PLG companies to scale their operations.
As more sales teams get acclimated to CRM systems that are designed specifically for PLG companies to refine product data, expect to see greater innovation and better results from this type of CRM software.
Customer success teams understand that in order to grow business, they need to nurture their relationships with potential customers.
CRM software provides go-to-market teams with the ability to track customer data, identify trends, and follow up with customers in a timely manner.
With the help of CRM software, go-to-market teams can:
Track Customer Data: By tracking customer data, go-to-market teams can understand customer behavior and preferences. This information can be used to segment customers, personalize messages, and create targeted marketing campaigns.
Identify Trends: By analyzing customer data, go-to-market teams can identify trends and opportunities. This information can be used to develop new products, improve the customer experience, and drive growth.
Follow Up with Customers: By following up with customers in a timely manner, go-to-market teams can build relationships and convert leads into customers.
CRM software is an essential tool for go-to-market teams. By tracking customer data, identifying trends, and following up with customers, CRM software helps companies drive growth.
Track Customer Data and Product Usage Data
By using PLG CRM software, businesses can automate many of the tasks that customer facing teams typically perform manually, such as logging customer calls, sending email reminders, and scheduling appointments.
This frees up the sales process to allow reps to focus on more important tasks, such as using data to identify which accounts are ready at churn risk, ready for upsell or cross-sell and build relationships and closing deals.
The future of PLG CRM is very bright. We expect to see more businesses adopt this type of CRM software as they recognize the benefits it can provide.
We also expect to see more innovation in the space as businesses strive to differentiate themselves in a competitive market.
5 Predictions for the PLG CRM Market
PLG is a fast-growing category of software that is quickly gaining popularity among businesses of all sizes. In just a period of five years, product-led growth companies have increased the public market cap from $21 billion to over $687 billion!
That’s some serious revenue growth, and it’s only going to continue as more businesses realize the benefits of the customer data platform.
This increase in value is a direct result of the success product-led growth companies have had in acquiring and retaining customers. And as you will see in our predictions for PLG CRM that enable PLG companies to scale, we’re confident this kind of success will only continue in the years to come.
Here are five predictions for the PLG CRM market in the coming years.
1. The number of PLG CRM vendors will increase
As the popularity of PLG grows, we expect to see an influx of new vendors offering their own take on this type of CRM software. This will provide businesses with more choices and allow them to find a product that better fits their needs.
2. More businesses will adopt PLG strategies
As PLG CRM software becomes more affordable and more widely available, we expect to see more businesses adopting this type of strategy.
PLG allows businesses to more quickly and easily scale their operations, making it an attractive option if you’re a PLG company.
3. The features of PLG CRM software will continue to evolve
As the market for PLG CRM software evolves, we expect to see vendors adding new features and functionality to their products. This will allow businesses to use software for CRM growth in even more ways to improve their operations.
4. PLG CRM will be design to be data-driven
While traditional CRM was built to streamline internal processes and workflows, PLG CRM will be architected around valuable account insights based on product and customer data.
5. The PLG CRM market will continue to grow
As businesses of all sizes continue to see the benefits of PLG, we expect the market for this type of CRM software to continue to grow.
This will provide even more opportunities for businesses to improve their operations and scale their operations more effectively.
How Can You Use PLG CRM Predictions?
What Does Your CRM Opportunity Model Look Like?
If you’re looking to stay ahead of the curve in the modern PLG-focused CRM market, then consider using our predictions. Here are five ways you can use them:
- Identify new PLG CRM players and trends early on
- Understand how your chosen vendor stacks up against the competition
- Determine how to use product usage data in your CRM processes
- Learn how to create actionable insights at an account or user level
- Stay up-to-date on the latest PLG CRM news
By keeping tabs on the product-led growth CRM market, you can ensure that your company is always ahead of the curve. With our predictions, you’ll be able to identify new players and trends early on, so you can develop strategies to stay ahead of the competition.
FAQs
Is Salesforce PLG?
Salesforce is an existing CRM that isn’t currently designed to support the needs of PLG companies. But they are certainly headed in that direction. In the past year, they have made several acquisitions that indicate their intention to move into the PLG space.
Who is CRM for?
CRM is for businesses of all sizes, but it’s especially beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses. CRM can help you better manage customer relationships, automate sales and marketing tasks, research product and marketing data, and track your performance.
Moreover, you can track key product events such as customer satisfaction ratings, customer churn rates, and product adoption rates.
Doing so will give you a better understanding of how your product is performing in the market and help you make decisions to improve its performance.
When Should You Not Use PLG CRM?
Nearly every SaaS company can benefit from PLG principles. However, if you are not ready to try out a PLG sales motion, then PLG CRM is not for you. PLG CRM requires a different way of thinking about your product and your customers. It’s important to have buy-in from all stakeholders before making the switch to PLG.
Looking to accelerate revenue with product led growth? Book a free demo of Immersa today.
