How PLG-Focused Product Design Helped The Juice Increase Stickiness

Through product management, product design and product marketing, we helped startup The Juice redesign their product to align with a product-led growth (PLG) strategy.

The Juice, a content curation platform and modern distribution channel, helps marketing and sales professionals reach the ideal audience by providing relevant, trusted resources. With The Juice, brands reach compatible audiences easier, with no additional work on their end.

Problem

The Juice had a product management and design talent gap, so they struggled to identify which features should be prioritized and built. Because of this, The Juice’s engineering team defined and developed features. After development, the engineering team shared the fully built feature with the designer who then applied a design. 

This process called “exploratory engineering” prioritizes development capabilities over user experience, creating gaps between the product and user needs. 

In short, the existing product was not the right product for users.

To design a valuable product, The Juice needed a fractional product team to fill their product management and design talent gaps. 

Enter Innovatemap. 

The Innovatemap team that partnered with The Juice included:

• Spencer Abrams (Senior Product Manager)
• Lacey Lavies (Executive Partner, Product Strategy & Client Experience)
• Jon Moore (Principal, Product Design)
• Leanna Adeola (Principal, Product Marketing & Brand)
• Lauren Shomaker (Product Marketer)
• Izsadora Johnson (Associate Product Designer)

Solution

Product Management & Product Design

To make The Juice’s product more valuable and usable, we redesigned the entire application and interface from start to finish. 

We started with an onboarding flow that introduced new users to The Juice’s value. After signing up, a new home feed shows users newly created content, curated for them based on their interests. Then, they can search across thousands of resources in a multitude of different categories.

We prioritized and added new features that align with The Juice’s business strategy. Now, users can invite their colleagues to enjoy the platform. They can review recommendations for brands and creators who align with their interests, and they can preview applicable brand insights by tracking their content in The Juice.

Now, The Juice: 

• Is more personalized.
• Offers easier access to the right type of content.
• Features targeted follower recommendations.
• Looks and feels more modern.

We built product-led growth into the fabric of The Juice. 

After in-depth conversations about The Juice’s business goals, they wanted to leverage users to grow the user base. So we prioritized PLG elements in the product. 

“For PLG to be successful, it takes both sides of the house, product design and product marketing,” Jon explained. “Locking a feature or adding a badge is easy, but it’s not enough. You have to tell users why it’s locked and get them excited to unlock it, and that’s where product marketing becomes invaluable.”

Driving interest and adoption is key to PLG. Current users must want to use the product more and tell others about it.

“PLG comes out in both the product and marketing materials,” Leanna said. “The product design, in-product copy and messaging — it all works together to drive adoption and improve retention.”

Product Marketing

Because of their PLG strategy, we refined The Juice’s product marketing foundation to support the company’s focus on ARR and member acquisition. 

To clarify The Juice’s value to buyers, we:

• Identified target buyer personas.
• Created company-level positioning and messaging framework.
• Crafted foundational statement and key benefit pillars.

Before staking their claim in the market, we helped The Juice identify two primary audiences: brands and members. 

“We prioritized the most important audiences and discovered the words that resonate best with them so The Juice can have more impact,” said Leanna. 

Then, we crafted persona-based positioning and messaging that speak directly to buyer pains.

The Juice’s foundational statement and benefit pillars articulate who they are, the audiences they serve and the value they deliver to both personas.

The Juice wanted to be clear about the value they offer so there’s no question about why buyers should join. With a feature-rich platform, their foundational statement, positioning and messaging clarify how The Juice equips brands and members to solve their problems. 

Armed with a consistent, repeatable and scalable framework, buyers instantly understand what The Juice does, who it’s for and why it matters. 

Impact

Our partnership with The Juice had immediate and measurable impact. 

“Since implementing the changes, we’ve already seen a 25% increase in the number of brands an average user follows, which is great for stickiness and engagement,” said Jonathan Gandolf, Founder & CEO of The Juice. 

If a user doesn’t follow brands when joining, the algorithm must guess what content they should see. When the product encourages users to follow brands earlier, The Juice can curate a personalized digest of content that maximizes value and impact for the user. 

Retention and engagement are key PLG metrics because more usage means more user value. Increasing these metrics leads to notable growth, which earned The Juice a 2023 TechPoint Mira Award nomination.

“Seeing 25% growth in average user follows means The Juice can prove their value to users quicker and more frequently,” Spencer added.

Want to pursue product-led growth? Find out how our product management and product design experts can help build the right product for your users.

See our work with The Juice