Three plays from one earned tier
An earned tier starts as one recurring reward. Add campaigns and achievement rewards and the same mechanism covers acquisition, launches and activation. All three are paid in product rather than in ad spend.
The recurring reward, campaigns and achievements.
Recurring rewards keep your users posting
Your most active users are the ones who use up their allowance. On a free tier they wait for the reset or leave. On an earned tier they post about the product, earn more, and can do it again after an interval, so every engaged user becomes a regular voice to people who do the same work they do.
Campaigns put your users behind a launch
A launch usually goes out from one account, which is yours. A campaign puts a special reward on posting about the new thing for a week or two, so the announcement comes from the users who just tried it, all in the same few days. Pay it in something only paid plans can touch and the campaign doubles as a trial.
Achievements pay users to go further
Most users abandon the onboarding checklist halfway. Put a one-time reward on the steps that predict retention, such as the first automation that ran or the first use of a feature they had been ignoring. Users go further into the product because it pays to, and each step arrives as a public post about it.
Which play for which goal
| The goal | The play | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| A steady top of funnel | The recurring reward | Active users post on a regular interval |
| A launch that lands | A campaign | Users announce it, all in the same week |
| A new segment | A campaign on one use case | Posts reach that segment’s own network |
| Free-to-paid conversion | Rewards paid in paid features | Free users work inside the paid product |
| Activation | Achievements on the steps that retain | New users reach them, and show it |
| Feature adoption | A campaign, then an achievement | A swell at launch, discovery after it |
| Win-back | A campaign | Lapsed users get a reason to return this week |
Go-to-market goals, and the earned-tier play for each.
They compound
Launch a feature with a campaign for the noise and an achievement so everyone who signs up later still finds it. Acquisition, launches and activation are three lines in most growth budgets. Here they are one, and it is the allowance a free tier hands out for nothing.
What stays the same
Every rewarded post says it was rewarded, and none is paid for being positive. A campaign can ask for posts about the new feature, and it cannot ask for posts that like it.