Is it better to do smaller but more regular product launches, or the occasional BIG one?

First, I would start with the customer in mind, develop a clear understanding of who they are & what they care most about. If your target customer is an IT Leader in a large enterprise, they might be more open to regular updates & even expect them from their vendors. At Microsoft, we would send weekly updates to these customer audiences including detailed product updates, it was the right cadence for this audience as they really valued constant information in their function. If however your customer is a Decision Maker at a mid size company, they are likely more focused on growing & retaining clients and may not appreciate constant product information from you, in fact it might annoy them, cause them to opt out of email updates or worse!

I’d also focus on establishing clarity on what “small” and “big” launches mean to your stakeholders using a Launch Tier Framework (LTF). We developed this type of framework recently at Dropbox and it has helped immensely to align our stakeholders across Product, Campaigns, PR/AR & more to position items from the product roadmap into a common framework & determine what the resulting launch strategy should look like (here is an example from our friends at Intercom). You might find that there are numerous smaller “P3” features shipping in Q2 that you can pull together with a compelling value prop narrative to create a large launch moment, including a launch event, press outreach, web updates, blog, email nurture etc. Or, you might find that the “P3” features are divergent and opt instead to do several smaller launch moments consisting of web & email only (assuming your target audience is accepting of multiple launch updates!). With an aligned framework in place, you’ll be in a great place with your stakeholders as you will have a defensible model on which to rank a specific product/feature & also understand the types of launch tactics that are warranted for the target customer.

Depends on your business model. If you're in SaaS and selling monthly contracts, do more launches regularly to keep your customer engaged "look at this new thing we just built for you." If you're an enterprise sales motion, selling annual contracts this might not be as important for you, but captivating your audience once a year with a really strong launch with a great story, then go and do that. 

Also of course depends on your product team. How often they are building new stuff, what customer problems they are solving and how big the new stuff is. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer here, so when making this decision at your company, leverage a key PMM superpower: start with the customer, gain an understanding of their needs, and the rest will follow. For example, as part of a continuous feedback loop with customers, you can ask questions around communication preferences both in desired channels and cadence which could help inform your approach.

Internally, it’s also important to gain alignment on a prioritization framework which will help dictate the size of the marketing effort that you put behind any given feature or product launch. This will clarify your own marketing roadmap prioritization, align cross-functional teams, and ensure that you’re carving out right-sized budgets and creative resourcing.

Good question! A lot of this nuance comes from what stage you're at and the type of excitement you're looking to drive. A steady drumbleat of regular product launches keeps momentum up - helps shape an ongoing story, and can build excitement up for a big launch. I generally prefer the big splash. I think of a well-connected and highly integrated launch approach like a new car unveiling where you lift up the curtain on what you've been working on. These make a disproportionate amount of noise and can help cut-through all the other things in the market. Smaller launches should be used in tandem with the big moment, but if you're not cutting through, it's probably not making a huge difference.