planning a product launch

PLANNING A PRODUCT LAUNCH

The message, the audience, and the product

Presenter: Tarun Gaur

CEO, tringapps, Inc.

the recap …

develop personasunderstanding your customers is the key to developing a

product that will work

a prioritized feature listconduct a feature scrub and prioritize the feature list

(refer to - Idea to MVP deck)

create wireframesthink thru the experience for your product, get to a

visual concept; from features to screens and interfaces

get to a visual designfrom greyscale to colors; refer to color psychology to create

a brand identity and appeal

interactive prototypeadding interactive elements to a visual design is always

helpful, it makes things real

develop the productthis is where engineering and software development comes in; SDLC or Agile or Scrum - suit yourself but get to an MVP

test the productuse internal testing teams (if you have one); or work with

beta customers to test features

release a public betareach out to the early adopters and ask for help; product

testing continues …

THE SOFT LAUNCHA large number of startups go for the soft launch as they

are not funded adequately to think through a multi-

channel launch

plan micro-releasesonce the “early adopter” feedback starts to trickle in, release

updates early and often

engage early adopterscontinuously reach out to early adopters and don’t hesitate

to ask for help; get feedback on features

LET’S HOPE TO GO VIRALThe product appeals to the early adopters, and they

push it along, they need a motivation to keep doing this.

What is the hook?

time to regroupyou need a product marketing plan, that starts with a

product launch plan and continues thru the sales cycle

startup or shutdown?continue to pray to your respective gods, and hope to go viral,

reach out to a few everyday with a hope that tooth fairy will help

THE RE-LAUNCHIf you are a startup, that hoped to grow organically, then

you need to regroup and rethink your marketing

strategy, starting with product launch

analyse and pivotYou can launch as many times as you want, till your

product hits the mark

importance of pivotingthe features, the audience, the plan

THE LAUNCH GOALmaximize the reach, with brand recall for early adopters

your customersTarget the early adopters, understand their user journeys

user journeysunderstand how the customer will engage with your

product; once they discover it

PHASE 1Initial Planning

identify the objectives• Get more revenue from the existing customers • Target a new market • Leverage a new technology

identify the personas• Lock in on the early adopters • Identify the features most likely to intrigue them • What will they do with those features

a positioning statementTO parents, QuikShare.com is a content platform that they can use to find community verified child-safe content, reliably aggregated by parents themselves

- with love from mom!

PHASE 2Pre-Launch Activities

the marketing calendarLaunch is not an isolated activity, it is one of the events on your marketing calendar, get an events calendar in place, if you don’t have one

the distribution planIt is important to carefully list out the distribution channels that you plan to target, each channel should be qualified to establish it’s reach (at a given cost)

the pitch materialdevelop the sales material for your entire team, in a startup, everyone is a sales person. They should understand the message, pitch deck and how to sell

the buzz planthe buzz plan is different from the sales activities, for a startup, its a combination of social outreach + organized PR + wacky activities (disruptive actions)

tech launch checklistsDeploying a software to a distribution channel is a small subset of product launch activities. The technology team needs to work in tandem with product team to line up the release per marketing team’s requirements

PHASE 3The Launch day

the eventThe event is generally for the partners, sales channels and

your team. If you have a partner ecosystem, you need to convince them that they can make money selling your product

the PR machinePublic Relations, reaching out to the press, planting stories

about your product, should coincide with your product launch with an objective to drive traffic to the product landing pages

monitor the buzzThe person responsible for PR needs to monitor the buzz from PR, subscriber acquisition numbers and other related metrics

important for your product

product demosPlan for live product demos for the partners, press and the

event attendees with special attention paid to press

PHASE 4Post-Launch Activities

collect feedbackTAP Partners, Resellers and people present at your launch event are mostly part of early adopters, their feedback is

critical for the pivot

engage!You will lose your early gains, if your team is not in a habit of

creating “product chatter”.

lead generation plancontinue to execute on your lead generation plan, address

each customer segment with a focused positioning message

REVISITING DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS

Go where the customers go!

viral videosYouTube, Vimeo, AOL Videos, Telecoms, Facebook, Twitter

organic socialfacebook, twitter, watsapp

paid searchGoogle, Bing, Affiliate Marketing

aim for brand recallproduct sell or a context sell, either case carve out a message

that helps brand recall

careful with your adsAds are products themselves, treat them so!

UNDERSTANDING SALES AND MARKETING

Go where the customers go!

customer acquisitionA strategy to acquire customers

customer engagementA strategy to engage customers, with an intent to keep them coming back to your product, incentivize the early adopters

to create brand affinity

the sales cyclefrom the time a customer discovers you or you discover the

customer to the time the customer buys the product

customer relationshipCRM starts where “the sales cycle” ends. Once you get the

customer, try to keep it by building a relationship.

marketingAnyone who wants to market without selling is STUPID.

Marketing is a tool that helps in sales and it’s effectiveness can easily be quantified with increased or decreased sales

QUESTIONSkeep them simple please, won’t answer

difficult ones just because .. I get bored

don’t forget to smile, if you din’t get the joke, just do .. ha ha ha.