AMA: Attentive Director of Product Marketing, Candice Sparks on Product Launches

For a new product or feature I always start out with a simple messaging framework (there are a ton of great ones out there for you to leverage)! At the very least, your product messaging framework should include your value proposition, target audience, and a statement about what differentiates you from the competition. To dive deeper into the differentiation, I always pick 3 market trends and 3 pain points our target buyer has and then describe how our product uniquely solves these pain points or addresses these trends. This can be a rather in-depth document that I'll use to help create our comms from content, PR, SDR outreach etc. I then also have a simplified exec version that provides a more high-level view of our messaging so a sales rep, executive, or anyone at the company wanted to quickly read our messaging they would have access to this presentation.

That is something I think every PMM team struggles with! From an internal perspective, one thing that has really helped with this is having a tiger team of cross-functional leaders (PMM, PM, PMO, Eng, Sales) that meets bi-weekly to discuss roadmap items and any GTM launch dependencies. We use Jira to track any date changes and can see how often we're missing dates. I always want to make sure that PMM is not the cause of missing a launch date so I will work to ensure our content and comms are ready to align with when PM is comfortable to launch so even if the product launch date gets pushed back we're ready to go. From an external perspective, its really important to not provide concrete dates to your customers if your organization has a tendency to move launch dates. Providing your customers a sneak peak into your roadmap and providing quarterly dates is a good way to hedge against any roadmap changes. If theres a specific launch a customer is really looking forward to, encourage your customers to participate in your betas as a way to get early access.

Here are some of the core steps I'll take leading up to a product launch. Depending on the type of launch these may be more intensive or unnecessary. 1. Create a pre-launch brief and set up weekly/bi-weekly meetings 2. Define your stakeholders using RAPID (Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, Decide) framework 3. Complete your messaging/positioning framework and get stakeholder feedback 1. Test your messaging with your beta customers or a customer advisory board 4. Outline your marketing program to support your launch and assign the deliverables (press release, webinar, email communications) 5. Set up sales enablement and training. Define the deliverables needed such as an update to your sales deck, a demo video, help center article, etc. 6. Create communication strategy for internal stakeholders (weekly exec program readouts, company all hands)

This is entirely dependent on the tier level of your product launch. How you treat a tier 1 launch vs a small feature update will ultimately change how you approach your post-launch needs. For any product launch a few key activities I include in post-launch are: * Set up a post-mortem meeting to discuss what went well pre-launch and during launch * Analyze and report on your key metrics you outlined as important during your pre-launch phase (product usage, CSAT, attach rate, etc.) * Identify any opportunities for customer case studies, testimonials, reference for your new product * Review the sales effectiveness - listen in on Gong calls to hear how your reps are pitching the product, analyze deal velocity and conversions Lastly, you need to continue to market your new product. A launch is only just the beginning of a products lifecycle and during your pre-launch phase you should identify ways in which you are going to continue your post-launch momentum to drive awareness and adoption of this new product.

Impact means something different for every launch and these KPIs/success criteria should be defined in your product launch brief. For example, does impact mean customer adoption, customer satisfaction, press coverage, etc. At a high-level there are a few tactics you can deploy when planning for the greatest impact: * Bundling of features: Is there an opportunity to hold back a release of a product to bundle with several other new features that allows you create a bigger story and launch a more complete product? * Customer testimonials: Can you leverage customer case studies and quotes with quantifiable impact from your beta phase that you can use in your launch content? * Events: Can you time this release alongside other company events (user conferences) or major holidays. * Partnerships: Is there an opportunity to jointly announce something through a partner to double the exposure? * Product readiness: Ensure that your product is sufficiently developed and tested before the launch. Aim for a stable and polished version that meets the desired quality standards. Rushing a premature launch may lead to a negative user experience and hinder the potential impact. * Competitive landscape: Analyze your competitors' product release schedules to avoid launching too close to their major releases. Launching in a less cluttered environment, where your product can stand out, can increase its impact. However, consider the balance between competition avoidance and maintaining a sense of urgency to capture market attention. * Internal readiness: Ensure your organization is adequately prepared to support the launch. Coordinate with cross-functional teams, such as marketing, sales, customer support, and operations, to ensure seamless execution and a consistent customer experience.

I use a tiered framework that defines the different tactics and strategies deployed for each type of launch. I first start off by defining the type of tier by whether its a: * new product/service (differentiator or evolving our narrative) * new feature (getting us to competitive parity) * updated feature * internal update Then based on the above I will outline the timing required for this type of launch. It could be anywhere from 8+ weeks to 1 week. Here's where you will include all your launch tactics and who the driver is (PM, PMM, Tech Writing, Sales Ops, etc) Next is to define who the intended target audience is. For a tier 1 product launch it may be new customers and existing customers vs. a tier 4 internal launch it'll be your internal teams (CSMs, solution engineers). Lastly you'll outline your desired outcomes or the KPIs you'll track against. For a tier 1 launch it could be new revenue and for a tier 4 internal launch it could be improving process inefficiencies. There are great examples of this and if you'd like my spreadsheet I use, please message me directly!