Driving Growth for an eSignature Platform
How We Made a Cheaper eSignature Platform Competitive—Without Spending on Brand
Introduction
The eSignature market is held by a small number of well-resourced incumbents with years of brand equity behind them. This platform offered a simpler, more affordable product but had no meaningful presence in that market. My role was to build it: increase visibility, grow a user base, and open international partnerships.
The Challenge
Communication was the platform’s core problem. Potential users and business partners encountered it without a clear frame for evaluating it against the larger, more familiar alternatives. The value proposition was there. The vehicle for it was not.
International expansion added a second layer. The team wanted to move beyond the existing market and establish positions in new geographies, which required both direct outreach and credible partnership signals before any of that would carry weight.
Content and Campaign Strategy
The first strategic decision was to make the comparison direct. Rather than positioning the platform on its own terms, we built content that placed it against category leaders, foregrounding the cost and usability differences. Potential users already knew the incumbents. The content met them there.
On social media, we ran engagement campaigns targeting competitor audiences through hashtag strategies and participation in relevant conversations. The aim was to intercept users already considering a digital signature product and give them a reason to evaluate this one.
We ran A/B tests across Facebook and Instagram to sharpen the approach. The tests covered messaging and creative combinations. The results drove iterative changes to both, and over time the signal became clear on which framings converted and which did not.
A separate initiative offered free access to charities and educational institutions. It ran as a proof of concept for the platform’s broader social value, but the conversion data was what mattered: above-average rates compared to paid campaigns, with a high proportion of those users remaining active on the platform long-term. The campaign also gave the platform a credible story for institutional outreach that a standard acquisition campaign would not have produced.
Business Development and International Expansion
With initial traction established, the focus moved to international business development. We identified startup communities and educational institutions as the most accessible entry points in new markets, targeting geographies where demand for digital tools was growing faster than established players were moving to serve them.
Outreach across international hubs produced partnerships with educational institutions and technology companies. One introduction led to a signed memorandum of understanding with a major edtech firm, which embedded the platform as a core tool in their language-learning programme. The MOU gave the platform a reference-point in a new sector and a repeatable template for subsequent partnership conversations.
Results
The competitor comparison content and social campaigns brought the platform into conversations it had not been part of before. Users evaluating larger alternatives began to encounter it in organic contexts and engage with it on its own merits.
The charity and education campaign produced above-average conversion rates. Users acquired through that route showed above-average retention, and the initiative demonstrated the platform’s ability to serve institutional users at scale rather than only individuals.
Business development work opened partnerships in the education and technology sectors across multiple international markets. The edtech MOU established a foothold in a new vertical with a named partner and a signed agreement, which made the next round of outreach materially easier.
Conclusion
The position the platform reached was built in two phases. The first was perception: making the product legible to users who already knew its competitors. The second was reach: using partnerships and institutional outreach to extend into markets and verticals that content alone could not access.
The comparative content gave the platform credibility in conversations. That credibility made the partnership conversations possible. Each phase created the conditions the next one needed to work.