Are you curious to know how to announce your product updates?
Product updates and releases are hard. To stand out, you need to find the right mix of personal and professional. You need to provide enough information about the update so that people will feel comfortable updating, but you don’t want to give everything away before you release it.
Announcing your public changelog to your users has 3 advantages:
- Allow your users to be up to date about the product updates and deepen your relationship with active and inactive ones.
- Improve your clients loyalty by listening to their needs, and results considering what they get out of your product, service or software.
- Keeping track through a public changelog means you care about their success considering how far you are coming from.
But how do you deliver the message to your audience? When is the right time? What strategy can you adopt? What should you definitely avoid? We got you covered!
Why must your user absolutely consult your product updates?
On the one hand because your users need a particular feature and they are just waiting for one thing, that you finally publish it on your site. Or simply to reassure your leads by showing them that you are constantly updating your site.
1. For a specific feature
Let's say your users are already registered on your application for some time, they are waiting for your site to be updated and they can see the improvements or bugs to see that you are working directly on it. Your users are probably waiting for a new feature they sent in the feedback board. If your customers consult your product updates, they will be reassured and continue to use your application. As soon as you release a new feature or fix a bug, inform them via a changelog, thanks to Upfeed this will send an email to the users who voted for this feature, you don't have to do anything on your side. Long live automation, right?
2. Social Proof
When it comes to reassurance or social proof, you need to reassure your leads and new users that your application is kept up to date. If you set up a feedback board for your users to vote, add new features and it helps you go in the right direction to develop your application it will undoubtedly reassure your new users, it's a good idea to have a feedback board in place. More real social proof = more sales on your product.
Where and how to announce product updates? (5 examples)
Let's go to the crucial step of the heart of our topic. How and where to announce your product updates? There are several ways to create a changelog and we will see how to announce them in the best and simplest way.
1. Changelog page
The easiest and quickest way to do this is with a changelog page. Create a dedicated space to announce your latest product updates.
The best tools to create a changelog:
How to create a perfect changelog page to showcase product updates:
- Customize your page (make it yours, add a logo, colors…)
- Add visuals (video, image)
- Don’t make your changelog page boring
- Create your changelog by bullet point
With Upfeed you can manage and edit the tag dedicated to your updates. You can also customize your changelog page and make it public by connecting your domain so that your users stay on your domain name (ex: changelog.youdomain.com) and customize it with your brand colors.
2. Video Demo
Users care about what those new features can do for them, but they’ll only proceed to try out the feature if you show them how. A picture is worth a thousand words, you might say. Then a video is clearly worth making if the feature you are promoting is worth it.
How to create a perfect demo video to showcase product updates:
- No more than 3 or 4 steps.
- Create a demo for each feature to make it more digestible.
- Don’t sell it, show them the value.
- Don’t lecture them by over informing them or steal the surprise. Let them explore and discover some of the cool and fun parts.
- And what’s even better? Everyone in the team can do it!
The best tool to create a video demo:
An example from Hubspot to display their product updates in a video demo:
They call their product updates the HubSpot Monthly Product Digest Videos
3. Webinar
It is one of the most engaging tools nowadays, and it is everywhere! Everyone is demanding webinars and enjoy it a lot. Make it public or private, it is your call! But webinars are great for :
- Putting a face on your company, service, product which leads to building customer relationship
- Showcase the value of your SaaS
- Establish your authority in your industry or sector
The best tools to create a webinar:
4. Email
Email is always a good way to communicate with your users. It allows you to convey a message to your users by segmenting them easily thanks to your filters.
An example from Circle to display their product updates with Email:
- The e-mail is sent at the beginning of the week (on monday)
- One feature = one bullet point
- The gifs are present to announce the big features
5. Walkthrough guide
Introduce the new feature when they log by creating “Step-by-step guides” with a checklist that users won’t miss out on any of the latest additions.
6. Blog post
Creating a blog post to announce its latest features can be a bad idea unless it's well done. You probably need to write several articles on your website, if your content is not clearly arranged and classified, your users will not want to take the time to read your changelog.
You must absolutely create a dedicated category to announce your last product updates. Think about adding visuals / videos to illustrate your blog article and highlight your top features.
How to create a perfect blog post to showcase product updates:
- Abuse of visuals (GIFs, Images…)
- Brand your product updates
- Write your latest updates by skipping lines
- Don’t sell it, show to your customers the value of your features
- A feature = A bullet point
- Don’t make it boring, please
An example from Abyssale of a blog post to announce product updates:
- They brand their changelog with the name of a fruit.
- They publish a lot of visuals detailing the features
- They split their releases into several categories (What's new, integrations, improvment & bug fixes)
Make your product updates sexy
In short, your product updates need to make your existing users or leads dream. Your changelog page doesn't have to be a sales page, it just needs to highlight your latest product updates in a simple and beautiful way, that's all. Don't make it boring, don't make it complicated, make your users dream.
This can be through a dedicated changelog page, visuals, a video demo, a webinar, or all combined, depending on the size of your company.
Try Upfeed today and create your changelog page. Make your changelog public for free for your users.