amount of time The time it takes for a consumer to perceive and experience the value the product offers is known as the time to value (often referred to as TTV). In a sense, TTV is inversely related to adoption and inversely to churn – the less time it takes for a user to discover the value of your product, the more likely they are to adopt the product and the less likely they are to churn.
Cyber security products are known for having a long time to pay for themselves. This is because historically, products in the space have fallen into one of three buckets.
- Sales-driven, B2B enterprise-focused tools. Companies in this category require multiple demonstrations, sales calls and pre-qualifications before being granted access to the device. Then, after the sale is closed, onboarding or setup (usually with white glove service) must be completed before the consumer can see the value of the product.
- Marketing-driven, B2C tools. Companies in this category use fear-based marketing tactics to sell a “sense of security.” While a person may not know the value of a product right away, strong marketing can convince them that the device is safe.
- Open source devices. Unlike the previous category, the products that could be classified under this bucket were open, transparent and accessible. However, time-consuming manual deployment, configuration, and configuration are often required before the product’s value is realized.
However, this has been changing over the past few years due to the widespread adoption of SaaS and its product-led approach. People and companies are not willing to wait months before they start seeing returns on their investment.
Introduce new users to your product slowly rather than pouring out tons of information about all your best features and capabilities.
The sheer number of vendors in the space, marketing buzz and reliance on expert advice have made cybersecurity buyers cynical when evaluating new tools. One of the best ways to break this pattern of cynicism is to show users that you can accomplish something in five minutes that would take them a few weeks. A short TTV is a powerful argument to get people to spend more time exploring and evaluating your product.
Companies can take four steps to increase adoption of PLG’s cybersecurity products:
- Increase the likelihood that people will try a product.
- Keep it simple to get started.
- Help users quickly understand the value of the product.
- Measure and learn.
Increase the likelihood that people will try your product
Create trust with transparency
The most obvious area to focus on when it comes to TTV is the onboarding experience, but you need to build trust before you even get on board.
Try to eliminate fear and ambiguity by being clear about your product, functionality, and pricing to make it easier for a customer to take action. The easiest way to expose functionality is to make technical and support documentation easily accessible from your home page.
