AMA: Cameo Former VP of Marketing, Mike Polner on Product Launches

I think the basics called out here are nice building blocks, but a few more tactical examples to help: Listen to customers. "Know your audience" is too broad of a term, but actually listening to what they have to say - and most importantly - what they react to is key to a great story. Stories evoke emotion and emotions can be visible positive feedback that your stories are resonating. Great storytellers aren't born that way, they learn through that positive feedback on what resonates and what do ...Read More

Love this question. I take a 1 is greater than 0, even if it's less than 100 strategy here. Talking to any customers is better than talking to no customers. Obviously if you have sufficient time you'll want to gather feedback (qual + quant) on both the product experience, the positioning, and any campaign messaging or assets that you have. I find that's rarely the case though and almost everything is done with half the time and a quarter the resources you'd like. In that case, I take a best gues ...Read More

Every organization looks dramatically different, so I don't think there's one size fits all for a template. I would generally say: 1. Understand what problem you're solving 2. Understand what skills are important in solving this problem (ie., you'll need somebody creative, you'll need some research, you'll need some analytical fire power.)3. Recruit the folks you need early.  4. Think about all the ways something can go wrong. Plan for paths of failure or contingencies. Where are there risks and ...Read More

I've tried a tiering system a few times, but honestly, have never made it stick. There needs to be a relative sizing of a launch, but I don't think it's so black and white where you can say this is Tier 1 and Tier 1 gets XYZ and this is Tier 3 and Tier 3 only gets X. I think a better way to do it is starting at the top. What are your business goals and objectives. What are the narratives and the stories you want to tell. Then, what are the launches, products, activations that support those stori ...Read More

I wish I could say I have some secret weapon tool that's truly magical, unfortunately, I am just a Google Docs power user. More broadly, I should say that keeping stakeholders engaged comes more from a tight operating cadence than just a tool. This boils down to: 1. Have a clear goal and vision.  2. Tell the appropriate people about it (ie., inform the right folks, and designate the responsible parties so it's clear who's doing what.) 3. Have a regular operational meeting cadence. Meetings, done ...Read More

It may not be unique, but I think one that both startups and large companies alike don't prioritize enough is a clear, concise PR strategy with launch. Early on Eats we didn't have a lot of money to spend on paid media or flashy integrated campaigns to get the word out, but we had the fortune of being a company a lot of people cared about and wanted to hear more from. Every product launch we had started with the external story we wanted to tell in close partnership with our comms teams. In some ...Read More

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 ...Read More

The biggest change between an initial product launch and subsequent smaller launches comes with how you move between truly top-of-funnel tactics into more mid or lower funnel engagement. In an initial launch you're trying to tell people that this new thing that you could have never imagined now exists. I called out PR being a huge lever that I'm a fan of in an initial launch, but the real impact of that channel can only come one time when something is "news."  Smaller launches getting bundled in ...Read More

Broadly, alignment with Product should happen in an OKR or goals planning process at some regular interval. That's the real moment to align with you product partners on what problems you're trying to solve and what success means for a number of initiatives.  More specifically, I push that Product Marketing co-owns Product goals (to ensure alignment) and that they're the responsible party for product adoption metrics. What % of the audience has tried XYZ product is a strong measure of adoption an ...Read More