How to use microproducts as your marketing assets

Defining a Microproduct

What is a Microproduct

Microproduct is a small solution that solves a tiny pain of your persona. Say a business owner is looking for a marketing agency. In this case, a relevant microproduct would be:

• a spreadsheet template with marketing budget or activities planning

• audit of current marketing setup

Microproducts display attributes like:

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• Limited by features or usage capacity

• Meant as a product entry for upselling the main solution

• Either free or costs no more than 5% of your main product

A Test Drive for Purchasing Experience

Microproducts solve 2 goals:

• They capture a pool of your potential personas

• They provide a purchasing experience as a benchmark for upselling

Let’s focus on the second point. It’s harder to decide on the big purchase because its consequences are too uncertain. What if the product/service sucks? What If I will regret this purchase?

Selling a microproduct builds trust with your brand. You’d basically have your persona experience the consequences of a purchase. This is sort of a safe space for customers as it reinforces feelings of satisfaction rather than regret. This experience assures your persona that buying a more expensive product would produce the same results and feelings if not more.

Product experience is a hallmark of PLG tactics. Instead of promising practical consequences in marketing assets, PLG products offer to experience the value firsthand. The positive experience then leads to a paid plan conversion. In this sense, the trial is a microproduct for SaaS.

Should Microproducts be Free?

Free microproducts typically come in a form of a content upgrade:

• PDF guide download

• Spreadsheet template

• Checklist

This is a common practice for marketing-led products. When you produce free but gated content to convert inbound leads.

Paid microproducts are unbundled features or solutions:

• A 5-day lecture session for education courses

• Audits for service agencies

Note that although SaaS trials are free, they are more of an unbundled feature.

You’d think that microproducts need to be free for a better conversion into users. But free use is not associated with a purchasing experience.

In this case, it makes more sense to keep the free microproducts at the top of your funnel. Once exchanged for an email, you can proceed to sell a paid microproduct or a trial.

Microproduct Examples

Website Scanners

Semrush has a free SEO audit for websites.
The full product provides a toolkit for SEO marketers.

Ahrefs offers a suite of free products in exchange for emails:

Pentest tools scans websites for common vulnerabilities:

Content Upgrades

HackenProof offers a full guide on an article that’s part of the guide:

They also have a PR calculator. It’s a spreadsheet that calculates the budget according to set goals like impressions and publications:

Omniscient Digital hosts webinars almost every week:

Usage-based Trials

Mega (a successor to Megaupload!) has created a free usage ceiling for their cloud storage. If users like the product experience, they’ll likely upgrade to a paid plan once they’ll reach 20GB:

Notion’s free plan covers all basic features. The ceiling is set at a number of collaborators. When you use Notion for personal management, something seems off when you don't use it for work:

Ahrefs once had a paid 7-day trial for $7:

Audits & Consultations

Momentum offers a free marketing audit:

Wirtek consults on developing a software product:

How to Create a Microproduct for Your Business

How to Create a Microproduct for a Service Company

Identify the first stage of your main service. For example, most services begin with some sort of preparation step:

• review

• audit

• planning

• consultation

Now position this stage as a standalone microproduct and offer it to your new customers. Try to test free vs paid pricing to see how it impacts your main conversion.

How to Create a Microproduct for a Product Company

1. Research how much value each feature provides to your user

2. Identify the “cheapest” feature, the one with the low value

3. Make this feature a standalone product

Microproducts for SaaS are connected to trials. You can set up your microproduct in a way that would offer high-value features in exchange for a subscription or usage-based plan.

When setting up your trial, it’s also recommended to follow the practice of reverse trials. This is when users start with a time-limited trial and then become freemium users after the trial.