Measuring Success With the Promise to Product Fit

You may be familiar with Product Market Fit (PMF) which is critical especially in the early days of a company. As the company scales, another concept becomes important. I call it the Promise to Product Fit. In short, it is about how well the customer's product experience meets the promise made.

Here are some examples of ads with strong promise claims:

• "Lose 10 pounds in one week with our weight loss program!"
• "Become fluent in a new language in just 30 days with our language learning app!"
• "Our teeth whitening strips will give you a brighter smile in just 5 days!"
• "Get rid of your acne for good with our acne-fighting skincare line!"

All of these ads make a strong promise that is appealing to the reader. These will likely generate clicks. The next step is to evaluate how consistent these claims are with the actual product experience.

How many companies truly deliver on this promise? Unfortunately very few. The metric of success for the promise is usually the Click Through Rate (CTR) on a post/ad. Many marketers rightfully watch this CTR metric very closely. They usually also monitor the Cost Per Lead (CPL) as a key top of the funnel metric.

But what happens when people make the leap to download the app or sign up for the product? Does the product deliver on the promise they were made? Odds are that there is a big disconnect.

At the last few companies I have been at, I noticed this happening and we called this the “promise to product fit”.

As a consumer, think about the last few promises brands made to you. Think of a few where you were very disappointed. And a few were you were happy that the product performed to the promise they made and therefore to the expectations you had.

At a past company, we had a marketing team that had monthly goals for number of leads and cost per lead. They were amazing at hitting these targets. However, very few of these leads converted to paying customers. Analyzing the funnel indicated that the gap was in the activation rate. These leads were coming in with a certain expectation that did not match their product experience. And we never saw them again.

At your own company, do a quick audit from your customer’s perspective. What’s the first place that your company is making a promise to the customer? Now go through your new user flow and critically evaluate whether you are delivering on that promise.

For an even more unbiased perspective, consider using services like Usertesting.com that give you insights directly from your users going through the entire flow from ad to landing page to the product experience for the first time.

Your week 1 retention metric can be the quantitative key indicator to monitor progress that you make in the journey. Your customers will thank you for delivering on the promise that drew them in.