Learn how Grammarly created a unique system for converting their digital relationships from Sign-up to Upgrade and re-buy
In this case study, we depart from analysing growing brands and look at a household name that has created a unique system for converting their digital relationships from Sign-up to Upgrade and re-buy. The Grammarly business story is quite interesting, as they started as a paid enterprise offering, and over a decade, grew into a freemium consumer product (“How Grammarly Quietly Grew Its Way to 6.9 Million Daily Users in 9 Years” 2017). Although Grammarly is now a household name, they continue to put tremendous effort into ensuring that they remind their users of their value. Their consistent, personalised and evolving system for doing this is a pivotal component of their incredibly high retention rates.
Grammarly’s headline in Google is “Grammarly: Free Online Writing Assistant”. They draw you into using their tool through a zero risk, simple installation process of the free version of their product as a browser add-on. Grammarly activates a weekly summary of Grammarly Insights sent to you by email as soon as you sign up. The weekly update provides you with basic stats about how many words you checked, how many mistakes Grammarly corrected for you, and how you compared to other people using Grammarly – they have turned email writing into a competitive sport. Each email is also a subtle reminder of the value you are leaving on the table by not upgrading, in the form of “mistakes that we found, that you can unlock by upgrading”. Their system creates the ultimate FOMO and makes it effortless to upgrade to get the big reveal.
As you use Grammarly, you are introduced to extended useful features in-situ and through their weekly email updates. The feature reveals are relevant to the way you use Grammarly and so are extremely useful. Grammarly has successfully turned their email marketing campaigns into a trusted relationship.
Grammarly’s strategy to convert users into paying customers is one of the best in market. It has helped them double their revenue and active users each year since the business started in 2008. Their approach is worth deconstructing, understanding and applying in your business.
The approach taken by Grammarly works because:
Grammarly has evolved a perfect balance between utility in their offering and a reminder of their utility – or how they make your life better – through their personalised weekly newsletter delivery. While they set the Gold standard, you can learn from their example and apply it in your own business: