how do you treat iterative releases different than launches?

An iterative release can still count as a launch, just likely a small launch (in case you’re curious about the tiers we use at Zendesk to determine size, just talked about that on this question https://sharebird.com/ama/zendesk-director-of-product-marketing-teresa-haun-on-product-launches?answer=DjEBP934m2). It comes down to whether you want to go ahead and announce iterative releases as they’re ready or if you want to wait until enough are done to make a bigger announcement together. I’ve done both before but do tend to like making some noise about an iterative release to share what’s coming and to start to build interest and excitement for the longer term vision. To do that, Product and Product Marketing need to have enough confidence about what’s coming next and when, so they aren’t painting a picture for development that won’t actually happen. When we do have this confidence though, the build up can be very effective. Often I think it gives more attention and promotion overall to those collective iterative releases than they would have had if they were all saved to just announce in one big moment together. They still ultimately get that big moment when all of the pieces are ready, but they also got lots of little ones along the way and built more interest and anticipation for those pieces coming together.

Not every launch can be treated equally!

There's only so much attention that you will get from your reps, internal stakeholders and external audience. You have to prioritize.

So think about 3 tiers.

Tier one is a new product or a new solution or an acquisition. You would do that once, twice, maybe three times a year.

Tier two is a significant product or customer momentum… same two, three times a year.

And then the Tier three is the seasonal release where you can do that as frequently as once a month if your product team happens to ship product that fast!

You would then have to allocate the resources to those tiers. For example, if it's a tier three, you're not going to do a press release, but you would do release note and a product newsletter to your install base.

So it really depends what the goals are, who the audience is, what’s the timing.

There's a lot of resources about what should be included in each tier. There's that webinar that actually gives you the Bill of material for each tier: “Building the ultimate playbook launching new products”: https://info.gainsight.com/product-led-bootcamp-growth-webinar.html

Also check out this upcoming talk: https://www.winlossweek.com/how-launching-a-b2b-product-is-like-conducting-an-orchestra

Launches are exciting moments in time designed to raise awareness and have a big impact on delivering against a vision. They highlight news and shiny new products. Iterative releases are typically smaller-scale improvements and more oriented around product adoption and use. Often combining iterative releases into a bundle or theme can give them greater mindshare with customers. For smaller releases rollouts via in-UI content or help files might suffice.

For iterative releases, I spend the most time around developing and optimizing the operational rhythm. It's about effectively managing velocity and continuously refining workflows.

For launches, I spend most of my time on the positioning, messaging, and hero assets to make sure it's steering the company in the right direction.

Ah-ha moment: Using iteratitive release cycles do refine operations pays massive dividends for bigger launches. It's like going to the gym and working out... Use iteratitive release cycles to work out operational kinks rather than having to go through a full launch motion AND having to work out operational kinks.