Virality doesn’t sound as fun as it used to with 2020 in our rear-view mirror. (Shudder!) However, it’s a word that every ad and marketing exec aspires to. After all, viral moments (tweets, images, videos, etc.) bring people together over a shared experience.
I mean, who could forget the ingenuity of Oreo’s social media manager during the 2014 Super Bowl?
When it comes to B2B SaaS product-led growth (PLG) companies, virality is a key trait. As Blake Bartlett of OpenView Venture Partners put it, “PLG companies have an inherent consumer-like virality component. They have invested heavily in user research, UX and UI design, and product marketing, focusing on building product features to engineer vitality.”
And B2B SaaS companies shouldn’t just lean into virality when they have an inkling their product is picking up steam through word-of-mouth. PR can support PLG companies, so they should lean into earned media to amplify virality with the following ideas.
Customer Testimonials
Getting a customer to go on record to explain just how much they love a product is what some might call, “the holy grail.” It’s true! When customers are willing to shout from the rooftops just how amazing a product is, an accompanying earned media placement is just…chef’s kiss! Virality is a product of a heavy emphasis on the user experience.
For example, Trucking company U.S. Xpress Enterprises Inc. went on the record with The Wall Street Journal to explain how (client) Paradox accelerated their hiring process. Another example: (client) Casted is an amplified marketing platform that just so happens to be used by (client) LogicGate. We pitched the story, earning a feature in Forbes.
Data
Statistics are eye-catching ways to drum up media interest for PLG companies because it shines a light on some sort of shocking fact. What kind of data could be leveraged?
Well, It could be pulled from the platform, a la Slack’s quarterly Future Forum Pulse. It could be publicly available data that a company analyzes. (Client) Valimail did this in its 2021 report on domain spoofing. Or, it could be data obtained through a survey of a company’s target audience. Our client referenced earlier, Casted, released the results of its survey of content marketers in January. The data revealed a shocking statistic that helped us secure placement for the report with #diginomica.
If your PLG company is experiencing virality, contact Lindsey Groepper to learn more about how PR can support your organization.
