Gamification

We recently launched a new feature in Buffer called “Streaks.” Your streak grows every week you post to social media. If you miss a week, your streak resets.

It’s very simple gamification.

When I first heard that we were adding it to our product, I was concerned.

Why add gamification when we have so many long-standing feature requests to tackle and other opportunities to pursue? Aren’t there more useful ways to retain users?

But as I learned more about it, I started to understand this wasn’t just a retention hack.

There’s good gamification and bad gamification. Good gamification helps people achieve their goals. Bad gamification distracts people from their goals.

We were heavily inspired by Duolingo and the way they’ve implemented good gamification. Streaks are a core feature of their product and help their users build positive learning habits.

One of the most common themes we hear from our users is, "I struggle to post consistently.” Having a motivator like Streaks aligns with their goal of posting regularly.

Understanding this pain point helped me position the feature as a “personal trainer for content creation” as opposed to a reward mechanism. It’s not quite as pushy as Duo but it’s not just a dopamine hit either.

If your product requires the formation of a new habit, then I’d encourage you to explore how gamification can help your users achieve their goals.

A new homepage

I briefly mentioned this in my last newsletter: Our new homepage is officially live. Check it out at buffer.com, and let me know what you think.

Buffer is a product-led company and our homepage plays a critical role. It must elegantly guide visitors from initial interest to that crucial first click of the signup button. It essentially functions as an entire sales team compressed into a single page.

Here are a few heuristics I used when working on the messaging.

Aim for clarity, not consensus.

There were plenty of stakeholders involved in the copy of the homepage, including:

• me

• our director of growth

• our head of brand and comms

• our marketing designer

• our senior design manager

But we did a good job of avoiding “copy by committee” and instead honing in on the right copy.

FWIW, I think five people is the absolute maximum number you’d want to work on copy. Two or three is ideal but not always realistic for high-profile marketing assets.

Sell the product and the outcome

Amazingly, this is a somewhat controversial approach.

You may have heard the phrase, “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill; they want a quarter-inch hole.” This decades-old quote from a Harvard Business School marketing professor was popularized among product marketers who latched on to the concept of selling outcomes instead of products. It became a product marketing faux pas to talk about features in your pitch.

The quote sounds clever but it’s also very context-dependent. Back then, software products were newer and the outcomes of using software were poorly understood. There was also less competition. It made more sense to talk about outcomes.

Today, nearly everyone knows that using software will save you time or money, or become better at your job. Customers don’t want generic platitudes, they want to know how your solution is different from the dozens of other options available.

Throughout the homepage, we tried to strike a nice balance that covers:

• What the product will help you achieve

• How it will help you achieve it

• Why it’s different to other solutions

Leverage data as social proof

Social proof is a staple of any SaaS homepage, often in the form of logos or testimonials. These have become so standard that I usually skip over them.

One point of differentiation Buffer has as an incumbent compared to the startups challenging us is the depth of our user base. We have hundreds of thousands of users sharing millions of posts every month.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I believe that data can be too.

This also aligns with our down-and-wide strategy. We aren’t targeting Fortune 500 logos, we’re targeting small businesses and aspiring creators.

Feedback from LinkedIn

I shared a screenshot of the homepage to LinkedIn and asked for feedback. Here are some of the comments that I found interesting:

PMM tools

Buffer recently introduced a $250/year AI tooling stipend for all staff. This has me reflecting on my current marketing stack and whether I should explore other options – not just for AI tools, but for everything I use.

Here's my current toolkit, including company-wide tools at Buffer:

Content Creation & Design

• Canva: Social graphics

• CapCut: Social video editing

• Descript: Video transcription

• Epidemic Sound: Video music licensing

• Telestream: Advanced video editing

• Unsplash: Stock photography

• Viggle: Meme video creation

Analytics & Customer Insights

• Ahrefs: SEO and keyword research

• ChartMogul: Revenue analytics

• Mixpanel: Product analytics

• Typeform: User surveys

• FeatureOS: User feedback and changelog management

• Grain: Customer interview recordings

Communication & Collaboration

• Buffer: Social media scheduling

• Customer.io: Email and in-app messaging

• Figma: Design collaboration

• Notion: Asynchronous documentation

• Slack: Real-time communication

• Zoom: Video conferencing

AI Assistance

• Anthropic: AI writing and analysis

• OpenAI: AI content generation

I'm always looking to optimize my stack – if you have any tools you swear by, as always, I’d love to hear from you.