Teams who promise to deliver amazing products faster and efficiently believe in open feedback system, whereas announcing new features to your users and collecting feedback is a lifeblood of your product.
Before you jump on announcing new features, with all that zeal, you put into embedding features. Keep these points in mind, which we’re mentioning below– along with examples to inspire you on how to announce your product feature.
In this blog, we’ll talk about how to announce your product feature in a way that it doesn’t sound like a feature fallacy that makes people want to use your product.
Let’s understand,
What’s an ideal product lifecycle?
Every product you build has its own purpose to solve. And precisely, SaaS products are totally niched down to cater to its customer. You add freemium plans, redesign the user journey, and optimize the self-serve motions.
But, still not working out for you!
What you need to understand deeply is
- What value are you providing?
- Pain points
- Main goals
The purpose of building a product cannot be fulfilled unless you’re rightly solving the problem with your product and for that, what works is: upgrading the features to engage your customers, that other businesses are not providing.
Product updates are very important in your product lifecycle. Basically, like taking one step higher for your product, but you never know rather it’ll be a hit show or failed one.
Updating your software and telling nobody is like having a red Mercedes covered with a black shed. You need to communicate your product feature announcement in the right way, it is important to get these product changes noticed and gain user adoption by the entire team and the company.
But how do you do it?
Many founders of a SaaS-based company have built a strong community over their social media and influenced current users to try new features and become a hotspot for new customers to try your product. This process is called building in public: The purpose of building in public is to increase transparency, create a sense of community, and generate interest in the product.
Founders upgrade a feature and put out every step in public, how they built it & how open they’re for feedback, and encouraging user adoption/ product adoption.
Other ways:
- Product demonstrations: Showing the new feature in action through a live demonstration or video can help customers understand how it works and the benefits it provides.
- Product tutorials: Creating a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the new feature can help customers learn how to use it quickly and effectively.
- Product documentation: Providing written documentation on the new feature, such as a user manual or FAQ, can help customers understand the feature and troubleshoot any issues they may have.
- Email campaigns: Sending an email to customers announcing the new feature and highlighting its benefits can be an effective way to generate interest and excitement.
- Webinars: Hosting webinars or online meetings to demonstrate and discuss the new feature with customers can be a great way to get feedback and answer any questions they may have.
Why should your customers care about product updates?
As a B2B SaaS founder of a collaborative workspace tool, it’s essential to communicate to your customers why they should care about product updates. Here are a few examples of how you can do that:
- Highlight the specific benefits of the new feature. For example, if you’re launching a new project management feature, you could explain how it will help teams stay organized and on track, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency.
- Use customer testimonials to demonstrate the impact of the new feature. Share stories from other customers who have already implemented the new feature and seen positive results.
- Show how the new feature aligns with industry trends and best practices. Explain how your tool is now even more competitive in the market and how it will help your customers stay ahead of their competitors.
- Offer training or support to help customers fully utilize the new feature. Provide resources such as tutorials or webinars to help them get the most out of the new feature.
3 major keys to SaaS feature announcement strategy:
1) Decide the dire need of the feature
Before designing a SaaS feature announcement strategy, it’s important to assess the level of importance of the new feature or improvement. Here are some questions to ask yourself when evaluating the importance of a new feature:
- What problem does this new feature solve?
- How will this feature benefit my customers?
- How does this feature align with my customer’s current needs and priorities?
- How does this feature compare to similar features offered by competitors?
- How difficult is it for customers to implement and use this new feature?
- How much effort and resources are required to roll out this feature?
- How will this feature impact the overall customer experience?
- How will this feature impact the business and revenue?
By answering these questions, you will be able to determine the level of importance of the new feature and how it fits into your overall product strategy. This will help you to decide on the best approach when announcing new product features to the right audience at the right time.
2) Do Not overload your customers with too many feature announcements and updates.
Minimalism is the way of product development. In a process to overwhelm your customer, never forget to provide simple yet thoughtful product features that will really make difference in the product’s success.
Schedule a demo with one of our experts to take a deeper dive into Churn360
Book a demo
Instead, focus on the most important and valuable features and target them toward specific segments of your customer base that will benefit the most. This will help increase the chances of adoption and ensure that your customers are not overwhelmed or fatigued by constant updates. By segmenting your customers and tailoring your feature announcements to specific groups, you can ensure that the message is relevant and valuable to each group. This approach will also help you to prioritize which features to announce and when based on their importance and relevance to your customer segments.
3) Sound genuine & consistent to your customer base.
Just like bringing a bunch of flowers or a sweet box to see your relative or friend, tag along visuals, data, webinar, images, videos, and graphics to help explain the new feature and how it works. This can help to make the announcement more engaging while whispering about new feature announcements to your customer.
Incorporate feedback and testimonials from your customers when announcing new product features. This helps to demonstrate that you have considered your customers’ needs and wants and that the new feature is a direct response to that feedback.
Offer support: Provide resources such as tutorials, webinars, or customer support to help customers fully utilize the new feature. This helps to ensure that the customer has a positive experience with the new feature and can get the most out of it.
Follow-up: After announcing the new feature, follow up with your customers to see how they are using it and if they have any feedback. This helps to build a relationship of trust and open communication with your customers.
Reasons to announce new product features to users
B2B SaaS customers are highly fragile and sensitive when it comes to the solutions they’re using. And once they do not get what they’ve signed up for, they get very cranky to even come back to your product. In such scenarios, it is very important for your customers to stay connected with the product lifecycle and changes made to them.
Here are some reasons why you need to communicate product changes to users:
- Transparency: By keeping users informed about changes, you’re being transparent about the development and evolution of your product. This helps build trust and loyalty among your customer base.
- User Engagement: By communicating changes, you’re keeping users engaged with your product. This encourages them to give feedback and suggest improvements.
- Improved User Experience: You’re helping the customers to make the most of your product and improving their overall experience.
- Improved Adoption: Customers learn how to use new features and improvements, which improves adoption and satisfaction.
For example, let’s say that you’ve added a new feature to your app that allows users to set reminders. Communicating this lets your users know about the new functionality and use your product more effectively. This helps to improve their experience and satisfaction with your product.
3 Product Feature Announcement Examples to make your game stronger
1. Notion promoting team plan feature
Notion, a productivity, and organization tool, is known for its unique and creative approach to announcing new product features.
With its strong mobility over social media and ambassadors spilling all the time, notion templates make the team transparent. Notion also uses animated explainer videos when announcing new product features. These videos are usually short and use animation to explain complex features in an easy-to-understand way.
2. Canva has proved how simplicity can have a second chance
Canva, a graphic design tool is known for its user-friendly interface and wide range of features.
They often release interactive tutorials and demos for new features when announcing new product features. This allows users to explore and learn about the feature in a hands-on way. They are usually short videos with clickable elements that allow users to interact with the feature.
3. Hackathon’s winning idea turns into Document360’s latest feature
In 2017, the internal Hackathon led to the innovation of a whole new product for Kovai.co. The 2022 Hackathon resulted in the innovation of a brand-new feature for Document360. The feature is called “Health Check Metrics”, the feature helps a writer understand the quality of their content
TakeAway
“The natural state of every product feature is nobody using it” – Andrew Chen
But to combat the feature death is to announce rigorously about the new feature. The mantra is to engage & re-engage!
It is important to break the fallacy that if you add new features, you will get more customers instead of focusing on providing real value and communicating with your customers.
