Promoting product updates is one of the most underrated growth levers in SaaS. When users discover new features at the right moment, they engage more, retain longer, and are far less likely to churn. AnnounceKit is a tool that helps product and marketing teams deliver in-app announcements, changelogs, and feature updates directly to their users — without relying solely on email or social media.
In this article, we share how Outwrite — an AI writing assistant with over 1 million users — used AnnounceKit to promote their product updates more effectively. We also cover the channels, best practices, and common questions that every SaaS team should know about promoting product updates.
What Are Product Updates?
A product update is any change, improvement, or new feature added to your software product. It includes bug fixes, UI improvements, new integrations, performance enhancements, and major feature launches. Product updates are a signal of progress — they show your users that you are actively investing in the product they rely on.
Product update announcements are the communications you send to inform users about these changes. Done well, they drive feature adoption, reduce churn, and reinforce trust. Done poorly — or not at all — they leave users unaware of value they are already paying for. Research from Pendo and similar product analytics firms consistently shows that a significant portion of paid features go unused simply because users were never properly informed about them.
For SaaS teams, the distinction matters: the update itself is the engineering work, but the announcement is the growth lever. Both require attention, and most fast-growing teams treat them as equally important parts of the release process.
Outwrite couldn’t communicate product launches efficiently
Outwrite was about to launch its AI-powered paraphrasing tool and wanted to get it in front of as many users as possible.
Their main way of communicating product launches at the time was via email. However, email marketing has several limitations, like the ability to unsubscribe from further communications, or emails ending up in the trash.
Therefore, Stacy says they wanted a more efficient way to communicate with users, particularly one that could reach people while they were using Outwrite’s editor.
They needed a way to show the value of their product
Showing the value of a product is as important as the product itself. In Outwrite’s case, they had several powerful features that weren’t being utilized because people simply weren’t aware of them.
For instance, while Outwrite’s grammar corrections automatically show up as colored underlines on a user’s document, a user has to highlight or double-click on a sentence to use the paraphrasing tool. This makes it much harder to discover.
“Many people were cancelling their Outwrite subscriptions because they didn’t see enough value in the product.”
STACY GOH, GROWTH MARKETING MANAGER AT OUTWRITE
Outwrite’s paraphrasing tool is one of their most useful paid features. So people need to be introduced and informed about it in the most efficient way. If fewer people knew about it, fewer people would start a free trial of their premium plan.
In order to improve their communication process and show the value of their product, Outwrite considered introducing an in-app notification system. They looked into notification platforms like Beamer and ProductFeed and considered building their own solution.
But they decided that building their own solution would’ve taken up too much of their developers’ time, particularly if it didn’t end up working.
They decided to give AnnounceKit a shot with their product updates
Stacy previously worked on a mobile app product where they’d use push notifications to promote new features and other updates. She wanted to do something similar with Outwrite’s web app as roughly 9 in 10 of their users are on desktop.
“If you get a message about a new feature while you’re actually using the product, you’re more likely to engage with it.”
STACY GOH, GROWTH MARKETING MANAGER AT OUTWRITE
After deciding not to go with their own solution and other changelog tools, they decided to give AnnounceKit a shot as it seemed relatively cheap and easy to implement.
“It came with a 30-day free trial, which was sufficient time to test a notification system and figure out if we actually needed one,” says Stacy.
It was an early sign that they were onto something good
After they launched their paraphrasing tool, they needed a way to present it to their users and now they had AnnounceKit.
Stacy says that their AnnounceKit post about the paraphrasing tool did pretty well and she was surprised how many people reacted and left positive comments when compared to their social media distribution.
All of these reactions and good feedback gave them a sense of something good happening.
AnnounceKit proved to be a useful tool for collecting qualitative feedback
Stacy said it was difficult to measure the impact of a changelog tool on the use of the paraphrasing tool and other new features in quantitative terms.
However, words can be more powerful than metrics.
“This new feature is really helping me. Thanks, Team.” “I love this feature! It needs to be ported to the extension!” “I don’t like that we can’t use it without a different plan.” are examples of feedback Outwrite received.
AnnounceKit enabled them to collect a significant number of comments from their users and improve their paraphrasing tool based on this feedback.
AnnounceKit is more engaging than social media or email with new feature updates
After they started to use AnnounceKit, Stacy realized that it reduced reliance on email marketing to promote new features; it’s much quicker to write and publish an AnnounceKit post than a blog article.
People are engaging with AnnounceKit content months after it’s been published — something you wouldn’t get from an email or social media post.
STACY GOH, GROWTH MARKETING MANAGER AT OUTWRITE
Stacy says that she also liked how AnnounceKit came with the option to segment posts. They have a variety of users (paid vs free, students vs professionals), and don’t want to show the same message to all of them.
Outwrite benefits from several features of AnnounceKit
Outwrite uses Slack Integration to get notifications about user feedback in Slack, Localisation to write posts in different languages, and most importantly, they use badges if someone hasn’t viewed a new post.
Badges play a major role in encouraging people to view our What’s New feed.
STACY GOH, GROWTH MARKETING MANAGER AT OUTWRITE
Outwrite has recently launched multilingual support and AnnounceKit allows them to write French and Spanish versions of their announcements with ease.
We lastly talked about how she found our customer support. She says, “I don’t think we’ve had any contact with the AnnounceKit team, so I guess that’s a good thing?”.
That is exactly what we aim for with a clean and smooth user experience!
How to Promote Product Updates Across Different Channels
As Outwrite’s experience shows, no single channel is enough on its own. Different users are reachable through different touchpoints, and the best SaaS teams build a multi-channel announcement strategy. Here is how the most common channels compare — and when to use each one.
In-app announcements are the highest-engagement channel for product updates. Because the user is already inside the product when they see the message, context is perfect and attention is at its peak. Tools like AnnounceKit let you embed a “What’s New” widget directly into your app, complete with unread badges, segmentation, and reaction tracking. In-app announcements are ideal for feature launches, UI changes, and anything that requires the user to take immediate action or change their behavior.
Email newsletters and product digests remain valuable for reaching users who are not actively logged in. A well-timed monthly or quarterly product digest keeps your broader user base informed — including free users, churned users you want to re-engage, and stakeholders who do not use the product daily. The limitation is deliverability: open rates for product emails typically range from 20–35%, and unsubscribe risk is real if you email too frequently. Reserve email for major releases, not every minor fix.
A public changelog serves a different audience: power users, developers, and prospects evaluating your product. A publicly accessible changelog at a URL like announcekit.app/blog/changelog signals transparency and active development. It also captures search traffic from users researching your product’s release history. AnnounceKit makes it easy to maintain both a public changelog page and an in-app widget from the same content source, so you write once and reach both audiences.
Social media (LinkedIn, X/Twitter, and product communities like Product Hunt) works well for major launches but has limited reach for routine updates. Organic social posts reach only a fraction of your followers, and the feed moves fast. Use social media to amplify your biggest releases and drive traffic back to your in-app widget or changelog — not as your primary announcement channel for day-to-day updates.
In-app tooltips and onboarding flows are a complementary layer. When a user encounters a new feature for the first time, a contextual tooltip or coach mark explaining the feature drives adoption at the exact moment of discovery. This works especially well for features that are hard to find, like Outwrite’s paraphrasing tool that required an extra click to activate.
Best Practices for Promoting Product Updates
Learning from teams like Outwrite, as well as the broader SaaS industry, a few principles consistently separate effective product update communications from announcements that go unnoticed.
Lead with user benefit, not technical detail. “We rewrote our rendering engine” tells users nothing useful. “Your documents now load 3x faster” tells them exactly why they should care. Every product announcement should start with the user’s perspective: what can they do now that they couldn’t do before, or what problem does this solve for them? Outwrite’s most effective AnnounceKit posts focused on what users could accomplish with the paraphrasing tool, not how it was built.
Time your announcements strategically. Announcing a feature before it is polished creates frustration. Announcing it too long after launch means you miss the window when users are most curious and engaged. The sweet spot is within the first 24–72 hours of a feature going live, when you can also gather early feedback and iterate quickly. For major releases, consider a staged announcement — a teaser to build anticipation, then a full announcement on launch day, and a follow-up post 30 days later showing early results.
Segment your audience. Not every update is relevant to every user. A feature for enterprise customers should not be pushed to free plan users who cannot access it — this creates friction and disappointment. AnnounceKit’s segmentation lets you target announcements by user plan, role, location, or any custom attribute you pass from your app. Outwrite used this to separate messages for paid versus free users and for different language audiences, which kept their announcements feeling relevant rather than generic.
Make it easy to react and give feedback. The most valuable output of a product announcement is not just the click — it is the user signal. A user who leaves a comment saying “I’ve been waiting for this” or “this doesn’t work the way I expected” gives your product team information worth more than any A/B test. Build feedback collection into every announcement: AnnounceKit’s reaction and comment features turn a one-way broadcast into a two-way conversation, just as Outwrite discovered when they collected dozens of candid responses to their paraphrasing tool launch.
Maintain a consistent cadence. Users who see regular product updates develop a habit of checking your “What’s New” feed. Teams that announce sporadically — only for major releases — lose this momentum. Aim for at least two to four announcements per month, even if some are minor improvements or bug fixes. A consistent signal of progress is itself a retention tool: it reinforces that your team is actively working to make the product better.
Frequently Asked Questions About Promoting Product Updates
What should a product update announcement include?
A strong product update announcement should include a clear description of what changed, the user benefit in plain language, and a call to action (such as “try it now” or “see it in action”). Optionally, include a short visual — a screenshot or GIF — to make the update tangible. Keep it concise: the best announcements are under 200 words and front-load the most important information so users can skim and decide quickly whether the update is relevant to them.
How often should you announce product updates?
Most SaaS teams find a cadence of two to four announcements per month to be sustainable and effective. This keeps users informed without overwhelming them. Some teams publish weekly digests; others save announcements for meaningful changes only. The key is consistency — irregular communication trains users to ignore your channel. Even minor improvements like performance fixes or UI polish are worth acknowledging, as they demonstrate active development and care for the product experience.
What is the best channel to announce product updates?
In-app announcements consistently deliver the highest engagement rates because users see them in the context of actually using your product. A tool like AnnounceKit — which embeds a “What’s New” widget directly into your app — is the most direct way to reach active users. Email works well for inactive or free users you want to re-engage. A public changelog captures search-driven traffic and builds credibility with prospects. The most effective teams use all three in combination, with in-app as the primary channel.
How do you measure the success of a product update announcement?
Key metrics to track include view count (how many users saw the announcement), reaction rate (how many engaged with an emoji or comment), click-through rate if you included a link, and downstream feature adoption (did usage of the new feature increase after the announcement?). Qualitative feedback — comments and reactions — is often more actionable than raw view numbers, as Outwrite discovered. If users are commenting on an announcement, you have achieved something most email campaigns never do: genuine engagement with your product communication.
What is the difference between a changelog and a product update announcement?
A changelog is a structured, chronological record of all changes made to a product — it is the full history. A product update announcement is a specific, audience-facing communication about one particular change or release. Think of the changelog as the archive and the announcement as the active communication. Many teams maintain both: a public changelog page for users who want to browse the history, and in-app or email announcements for actively notifying users about changes they should know about right now.
Should product updates be announced to all users or specific segments?
Segmenting your announcements by user type almost always produces better results than broadcasting to everyone. A feature available only to paid users should not be shown to free users who cannot access it — this creates confusion and frustration. Similarly, updates relevant to enterprise teams may not be meaningful to individual users. AnnounceKit’s segmentation feature lets you filter announcements by plan, role, region, or any custom attribute, ensuring each user sees only the updates that are relevant to their situation. Outwrite used segmentation to serve different language audiences and separate paid versus free user messaging, which kept their communications feeling personal rather than generic.
