Brynne Burgess on the value of in-product surveys, how Sprig solves its own pain points, and SaaS Marketing in 2023
Product State Q&A
Brynne Burgess is the Director of Growth Marketing at Sprig. She previously held Marketing roles at EVERFI, DXC Technology, Oracle and Rosetta Stone.
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EC: How do you explain the value of in-product user research studies?
BB: As with most things in life, context is everything. In-product research lets you reach the exact right user at the exact right moment in their product journey, giving you the feedback that you need to make decisions quickly.
I think about in-product surveys as an early warning system. When you pair in-context surveys with A/B tests, you change your level of understanding.
It’s a real unlock to go from knowing what a user did to understanding what action they took and why they did it.
It’s really kind of magical.
EC: How does Sprig lead by example when it comes to user research, and how do you approach solving your own pain points?
BB: We face a lot of the same challenges that our customers do. We want to move fast, but we want to do so with conviction. Sprig gives us the power to achieve both of those goals.
We recently spent a lot of time working on our website homepage. After many explorations of what the new marketing homepage could look like, we got to a place that product, design, marketing, and our executive team was happy with, but it was a pretty significant departure from where we started. We changed the messaging, cut down copy, and updated the design. If you could change it, we did.
And then we got nervous, had we gone too far?
Using the Sprig and Figma integration, we set up a concept test comparing the new version of our site to the existing version. Next we recruited users from our marketing site, using Sprig’s in-product integration, and social media to understand how the updated design was resonating with our target audience.
In two days, we got 120 responses and the confidence to move forward with our updated designs. But there was still time to iterate. We let the Sprig AI dig into our open ended responses and identified some gaps. A third of our responses still did prefer the old site, but when we looked at their open ended responses as to why they preferred it we saw we needed to add more information in a few key areas.
In-product user research makes it possible for us to make decisions that are fast and well-informed.
EC: You’ve been part of Growth, Demand Gen, Marketing Ops and Event Marketing teams. What are some of the most important teams, roles and functions every SaaS Marketing org should have in 2023?
BB: I love this question. 2023 is going to be a really interesting year for SaaS marketing teams. We’re going to need to get creative.
The idea of growth at all costs is long gone. Marketing teams are going to need to focus on organic, efficient growth and strong conversion funnels.
Staffing should mirror that.
A few roles are going to make the difference:
Community - Teams will need to lean into their champions and keep them close. How are you engaging your current users and customers and turning them into super fans?
Micro Content - High-quality long form content still has its place, but I am a firm believer that you should have a role on your team that is focused strictly on making micro content. It’s been a great way for us to test new campaigns and content ideas. When you do have conviction that your campaign will resonate with your audience you can use micro content to drive traffic to those meaty, high-value pieces. Content creation is an investment and micro content reduces the risk.
Growth Loops - Demand Gen teams will need to focus on efficiency by shifting their focus from one time campaigns towards tactics that are built for compounding growth.
Ops/Analyst - In a world where efficiency and conversion is the focus, you need to make sure what you are doing is working. With more organic and word of mouth growth this gets more difficult. An ops hire is one of the best investments you can make.
As for product marketing, this role is even more important than ever before. As your users’ environment, business, and teams continue to change so will the way that they use your product. Product marketers need to stay in lock step with their product teams and make sure that they still have product-market fit.
We have a great template that they can try for free that seamlessly surfaces opportunities to increase traction.
