How do we ensure adequate demand for our product launch?

I think adequate demand for a launch comes down to ensuring all of the planned activities for the launch are actually enough to deliver what’s expected and needed for the business. Sounds like you might already have top-down targets for what the business needs to deliver on that launch, so now it’s about ensuring when you roll up a bottom-up forecast from all of the tactics planned, you think you’re in a good position to deliver what’s needed. You can create a bottom-up forecast for pipeline, bookings, etc using past performance for similar tactics applied to your expected audience sizes in this launch.

In case you don’t have any top-down guidance, a good way to set expectations is to still do that bottom-up roll-up and establish success metrics and estimates for what you expect to deliver in advance of the launch. Deciding how you’re going to measure impact and what you predict you will deliver is key to aligning on in advance of the launch, so that it’s fairly evaluated. I’d suggest making sure stakeholders in the launch are bought into this expected performance, so you can make sure everyone is aligned on expectations upfront. In case anyone thinks what’s forecasted is not enough, you have the chance in advance of the launch to reevaluate the planned tactics to ensure they have a fighting chance at delivering what’s actually needed to be deemed successful.

The cost of selling to a prospect is (typically five to ten times) more significant than the cost of selling to an existing customer. To that end, why do most product launch teams concentrate the majority of their efforts on prospects versus the low-hanging fruit – current loyal customers? Don't get me wrong; we all need to grow our business with new logos sustainably, but don't do so at the expense of retaining customers, upselling customers, and cross-selling customers. 

Driving a pipeline of prospects by obtaining x net new MQLs by x date that result in x SQLs and $x in new opportunities is essential. A combination of inbound and outbound programs will help prospects with no prior experience with your company become aware of your corporate value proposition. If it resonates, they will enter your funnel to learn more about your offering via various campaigns and content assets that take them through the funnel. This process takes time to produce relevant leads. 

In parallel, for those loyal customers that already have a relationship with your company, segment this group as a highly targeted and segmented contact list will help tailor the new offering. The more you know about your customers based on demographic data (product ownership, contacts, roles, responsibilities, campaign engagement history), behavioural and usage data (support requests, training history, product usage, intent info) and strategic data (advocacy history, their key metrics and corporate objectives), the more relevant the sales program and campaigns. 

For each customer group, note the number of accounts and potential revenue. After that, utilizing predictive analytics apps like 6sense, Lattice, etc. uses internal and external data to identify specific products to upsell and cross-sell scored upon their likelihood to close. Based on this profile, allocate them into one of these ABM programs below:  

• Upsell to increase wallet share by targeting an existing buyer at a customer account and getting them to upgrade. 
• Cross-sell to expand the customer account by capturing new buyers in the existing account with your new offering. 
• Retain target accounts in jeopardy and can be saved with this new product (cloud vs. on-prem) that addresses the current dissatisfaction. 
• Win back lost accounts with your new product. 

Make sure sales, marketing, finance/ accounting, and operations are on the same page as you classify accounts before utilizing ABM programs. (agreed-upon definitions for what defines an account and which accounts are key) This ensures accounts are not subject to multiple (and conflicting) campaigns. 

Furthermore, product marketers need to ensure offers, tools, and content are nuanced and unique for these ABM programs versus generic launch materials for the market as a whole. Developing and delivering content that helps existing customers to understand the value in buying new or upgraded products is a must, especially for a 1-year-old customer versus a 5-year-old customer.  

Long/ short – by getting a better view of current customer data, creating predictive models, employing ABM programs aligned to the account profile, and creating unique content and offers for existing customers increase the likelihood of your product launch success versus weighting efforts to net new logo acquisition.

When a launch objective includes revenue, start there and work backwards. For a revenue example of $10M, I'd estimate the close rate of an average deal and the average deal size, and do the math. If I expect the close rate to be 20% I will need a pipeline of $50M. If the average deal is $50K I know I will need 200 deals. 

If the math tells you the launch objective is unreasonable, change the launch objective. 

The next step is to collaborate with colleagues in demand gen to develop the strategies and tactics to build $50m in pipeline with the resources available. There is no silver bullet. Start with a reasoned marketing mix and put in place the measurement to track progress. Do more of the things that work and less of the things that don't. 

If you don't define launch objectives now would be a good time to start. Here's an article I wrote on launch objectives that might help.