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Bryan Sise

AMA: ActiveCampaign Former VP Product Marketing, Bryan Sise on Product Launches

June 2 @ 10:00AM PST
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ActiveCampaign Former VP Product Marketing, Bryan Sise on Product Launches
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Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 2
It sounds like you’re in for a fun and challenging few weeks :). While they’re likely to be stressful, they might end up as some of the most memorable of your career. I would focus on “doing less” on launch day / rebranding announcement day, then activating with elaborative messages and resource......Read More
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1 request
Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 2
For clarity, I’ll draw a distinction here between product research and product launch research. 1) Product research happens before resources are committed to build the proposed product. Product research is critical to ensure that you are, to use YCombinator parlance, “making something people wan......Read More
3676 Views
5 requests
Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 1
I think the process of communicating about a launch to internal stakeholders starts with identifying the goals of the launch. As you consider launch goals and how you’ll measure goal attainment, it’s useful to distinguish between: 1) Channel metrics. These are metrics that show how many people y......Read More
1249 Views
2 requests
Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 2
I’m glad you asked this question because I’m a big proponent of “rolling thunder instead of flash in the pan” :). It’s easy to overestimate how closely customers and prospects are paying attention to every message coming out of your company, and think that if you make a lot of noise on launch day......Read More
1280 Views
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Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 1
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 planne......Read More
967 Views
1 request
Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 2
Yes, my team uses a document template for what we call a Launch Guide, and what at prior companies I’ve called a GTM Plan or a Product Marketing Brief.  The document template is organized into sections that cover a wide variety of topics around the launch, such as the beta and GA launch timing......Read More
2407 Views
2 requests
Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 2
I think it’s useful to think of the PMM as the quarterback of a product launch. I’ll acknowledge that this is a thoroughly American reference :). For larger launches, as early as possible while the to-be-launched product is still in development, the PMM should assemble a cross-functional launch t......Read More
1058 Views
3 requests
Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 2
Using launch messaging that over-focuses on the nuts and bolts of the product itself, instead of using the launch opportunity to highlight the broader value of the product line. (Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, using launch messaging that is so high-level that customers and prospects can......Read More
1585 Views
4 requests
Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 2
Really early :). When the release is just a twinkle in the PM’s eye :). The way to do this is to set up a formal PMM:PMM partnering system where each individual PM is partnered with 2-4 PMs, and they all focus on the same area of the product. The PMM meets regularly with their PM partners. The ba......Read More
856 Views
1 request
How do you balance product development's desire to quickly ship products with marketing's desire to tell a compelling story/narrative? Have you had to influence release planning in order to have a more compelling narrative come launch time?
At times, waiting to announce a feature or product can lead to a much more impactful product launch. This can require patience on the organization's part. Think rolling releases vs. batched releases.
Bryan Sise
Bryan Sise
Checkr VP of Product & Customer MarketingJune 2
Great question. That’s a tension that comes up in a lot of organizations. I’ll start with what you don’t want to do :). You don’t want to slow down product velocity. You don’t want to be seen as advocating for the Product and Engineering teams to slow down the cadence of new releases they’re pus......Read More
783 Views
1 request