Irrespective of whether you are a start-up or an established B2B SaaS company, one thing that you need to keep in mind: products never remain static, and features keep changing over a while. 

Certain changes occur through a series of pivots, while others result from slow and steady development. 

The only thing that needs to be taken into account is change is inevitable. 

Certain companies try to post these features by announcing them on their blog, but before long, it becomes outdated. So, whenever your prospective buyer reads the blog, it becomes confusing whether the features mentioned there are current or old. 

This ultimately causes harm to the conversion rates for their trials and demos. 

And this is just because the company decided to use blogs to announce the new features.  

In this write-up, we will discuss some of the best practices that B2B SaaS companies need to follow while announcing their new product updates. 

Reasons to communicate product changes to users 

It is important to communicate well with the users. Right communication can lead to positive reactions, reduced negative notions about the product, and better adoption rates. Early communication can help with the following pointers.

To reduce friction

The human tendency is to resist change. Communication can help with change management. You can encourage customers to try the product and thus reduce friction. Everyone is used to things working in a certain manner. If this changes, one can feel depressed. Failing to communicate early is a sign of distrust.

To prepare for the arrival

Customers may not notice that the product features are new. In this case, communication helps impart value and encourages discovery. You can explain what is in the product reveal and get things started.

To engage users in a better manner

By communicating product changes, you can engage users in a good way. You get a better idea about what communication works for them and why. This helps you plan your communication strategy. This will create buzz and help users get more questions on the product.

To give better clarity on what is happening

You can prepare users for new product features by communicating in advance. You can control the narrative and get a better response from them. You can send a mail explaining the problem and what solution was developed.

Use product education as a key to announce new product features 

Product education is everything you do to teach your customers about the product- the features, benefits, and how to use the product for your own benefits. Product education is all about raising awareness, sales, marketing, conversion, customer onboarding, cross-selling, upselling, customer expansion, and customer retention.  Product education can help announce new product features.

A practical example of a new feature announcement 

Let’s take the example of SmartKarrot’s augmented intelligence feature. The augmented intelligence feature of SmartKarrot is a blend of artificial intelligence and automation to improve outcomes. Through a survey, the problems faced by customer success executives was outlined. Post that, the feature announcement came out. The features of the product became known along with their benefits.

Announcing new features to different target audiences 

1. Existing users (in product engagement) 

Engaging existing users about new features is hard. It would help if you told them how the features work, what it is about, and how it fits into their existing workflow. Raising awareness of new products and new features can be quite a task. You can send an email mentioning the product features. In-product engagement can go out with communicating as per user journey. Existing users need to be aware of the product to adapt to it accordingly.

2. Potential customers and lapsed users 

For announcing new features to lapsed users and potential customers, you need to work on the sales and marketing part. By answering three simple questions, you can find your target customers.

• who needs this new feature
• which channel is best for whom
• what features can be helpful to them

Blog posts, emails, social media, forums, and other mediums can help get new users on-board.

Tips for announcing new features to your B2B SaaS product users 

Here are some useful tips for announcing new features to your B2B SaaS product users.

Integrate them in a knowledge base or help desk 

Most help desks cannot track their visitors’ behavior since they are not hosted on the company website. You can integrate saas help desks with new features. So, all users are aware of new features and how they synchronize with their work.

Send emails to your customer list 

Insert product features in emails to customers. This will help manage the new product updates and intersect a segmented audience. You can have a pain point versus solution post in your email. It will help understand the products better.

Integrate feature announcements as a part of pain point content

Write updates based on pain points to integrate new features in the announcements. You can perform a Google search of major pain points and link them with how your features solve that problem. This is a great way to announce new features and see higher conversions based on that.

Final Words 

It is important to keep your customers informed about any changes in your product that they already use, love, and rely upon.

By communicating early and often, they are always well informed about what they can expect from the product. And the best ways to utilize what is new in your product. 

Also, make it a point to make your communication with your customers a two-way street.

If they do not like the changes in your product features, at least give them a chance to voice their opinion. This way, they will always be open to receiving the new features update from your product. 

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