After an initial product launch, how do you think about the subsequent, smaller launches/updates? How does the strategy/channels/process change? How do you identify where smaller launches can be bundled into a bigger story?

First, every small subsequent launch is another chance to make noise for that buyer persona. So, it's a great thing that the product team continues to ship more features for that product line. We usually use every subsequent launch to highlight a different customer story, do another customer video, and fire up the sales team.

Second, I often find that PMMs will take the product/eng identified "scope" for a smaller release and try to make that into something – rather than being involved in the conversation to define the scope. Like you mentioned, bundling features into a bigger story is the key here. It's often too late when PMs are handing over a finished feature. Instead, PMM should be involved in the conversation early to propose a few different ways that a feature can be positioned or grouped.

We do the simple Amazon exercise of "What would a press release look like?" to imagine how different groupings can change the positioning/messaging of a launch. I can't say that there is a scentific way of knowing which features to bundle together – it comes down to whether the story is rational and compelling. Sometimes it focuses on a particular audience, sometimes it anchors on an industry-level shift. However, if you think your bundling proposal can pass the Press Release test, then you have something there worth talking about. 

Great question; it gives me a chance to describe a concept we use at ActiveCampaign called launch size. Each of our PMMs are partnered with 2-4 PMs, and they all focus on the same product area. As the PMM meets regularly with their partner PMs, they learn about new builds/releases that are planned or in progress. The expectation is that the PMM knows about every upcoming release in their product area, large or small. And the expectation is that the PMM tracks every upcoming (and recent) release in our product launch tracker, to provide visibility (and historical record) for internal stakeholders.

The PMM is responsible for assigning a launch size to every upcoming release in their product area. The launch size assigned to a release determines the level of go-to-market support that the PMM and members of the launch team will provide for the release. Think of launch size as the “service level” for a release — the PMM is setting internal stakeholders’ expectations about how much marketing muscle they’ll put behind the release. Launch size relates closely to how impactful the release is for customers, and how strategic the release is for the company. The launch sizes are simply t-shirt sizes: XS, S, M, L and XL.

At ActiveCampaign, we use a Product Launch Handbook for PMMs. One page in that handbook lists, for each of the launch sizes, the required deliverables and the optional deliverables to consider for that launch size. As you might guess, the list of required deliverables for XL is much longer than the list of required deliverables for S.

When talking with stakeholders in Marketing, Sales, Product and other functions, we take every opportunity to mention that “this release is an S” or “that release is an L”, and we’re careful to make the distinction between “release” and “marketing launch”. It helps to create a common language, and avoid misunderstandings about which releases we’re prioritizing. Gradually, internal stakeholders begin to get comfortable with the notion that some releases will get a lot of go-to-market support, some releases won’t get much go-to-market support at all. That also helps us get everyone on board with the idea that, for example, sometimes the marketing launch for a release will happen a week or two after or a week or two after the release, and sometimes a handful of XS, S and M releases will be bundled into an L or XL launch.

At ActiveCampaign, we look for opportunities to up-level the message, highlight an entire product line or solution instead of a particular new feature, and repeatedly hit on our key company messages relating to the importance of Customer Experience Automation (CXA). For example, we recently had a release of Mobile Campaign Reporting in our mobile apps. We used that release as an opportunity to showcase our mobile apps as a whole, and to make thought-provoking statements in the market about the role of mobile and how it ties to customer experience. 

These kinds of approaches can make a product launch more impactful, though I will note that it’s important to find a balance between up-leveling the launch message and grounding the news of the launch in the actual capabilities of the product and the company. You don’t want to up-level the message so much that you end up with marketing fluff, or with messages that confuse customers about what you really offer.

So, as you’re looking over the array of releases planned in an upcoming time period, ask yourself:

1) What is the customer value with each release? What are the company goals for each release? Are we clear, and are internal stakeholders clear, on which releases we’re going to prioritize for go-to-market support, and which releases we aren’t?

2) Are there groups of releases that are similar to each other in some way? Even if those individual releases aren’t particularly noteworthy by themselves, would the news of their launch be interesting to customers if they were bundled together? If we did bundle them into one larger marketing launch, what would the thematic message be for that launch? How could that thematic message be expressed as a thought-provoking point of view, rather than merely a message of “we’re releasing several enhancements that are similar to each other in this way”?

I’ll say a little more about that last thought. I really believe that the companies that stand out in the marketplace are the ones who boldly express thought-provoking (and sometimes even a little controversial) points of view. A product launch is a great vehicle to make those kinds of statements, and to back them up by demonstrating how the company is developing its products based on that point of view.

The biggest change between an initial product launch and subsequent smaller launches comes with how you move between truly top-of-funnel tactics into more mid or lower funnel engagement. In an initial launch you're trying to tell people that this new thing that you could have never imagined now exists. I called out PR being a huge lever that I'm a fan of in an initial launch, but the real impact of that channel can only come one time when something is "news." 

Smaller launches getting bundled into larger stories also starts with your business objectives and how much cut-through you're hoping to achieve. There are moments when a high-level narrative can be supported more from a bundle of features that likely wouldn't stand alone if they were all separate. 

When bundling (or not), I would ask myself:

1. What are we trying to achieve?

2. What are the products, features, proof-points at my disposal?

3. Are the products, features, proof-points strong enough individually to support what we're trying to achieve? 

4. If not, you may want to bundle into a larger story that can make more of a splash.