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Holly Xiao

AMA: Drift Director of Product Marketing, Holly Xiao on Product Launches

May 28 @ 10:00AM PST
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Drift Director of Product Marketing, Holly Xiao on Product Launches
We will email you Holly's answers to these questions after the event in case you can't make it.
Questions must be topic related and not promotional. (250 character limit)
Top Questions
What's the most effective way you've found to introduce/launch new features within the product UI?
What are some unique external (customer facing) activities you include for promoting a new product?
What are your best tools to leverage product launches? Where do you find the most challenging? When is Product Marketing involved in the launch?
When you look at the best launches that you have done, what did you get right that made them so successful?
How do you increase the Product Marketing function's ability to be a more strategic player in the company and not just the launch arm of the feature factory?
Marketing invariably gets the blame if the product launch doesn't hit prescribed revenue targets. How should we in product marketing set our launch revenue targets and validate our sales team's forecasts?
What are the key things to consider post-launch? What standard metrics are important to track to measure success and what teams (and at what cadence) are important to connect with post-launch?
When you think about product launch, what post-launch activities are mission critical?
How do you refine your messaging and get the latest one adopted even after launch?
Often time when the launch goes general announcement (GA), everything seems finish. But obviously, launch is a series of events around a theme and it can last long after GA, especially in terms of messaging refining. But how do we keep the go-to-market team engaged to adopt it after launch?
What is your process for developing buyer personas for a new product launch?
How do you think about bundling or 'holding' launches for a regular launch cadence vs releasing when ready?
What approaches have you tried, and did they work? How did you get buy in from the product team?
Is there a template you follow for Product launch vs Feature launch? Also for existing and new markets.
What is the best way to choose/prioritize channels for a product launch?
How do you measure success when launching a second product? Are you focused on current customer adoption or new customer adoption?
We're launching a second product at my company, and I'm struggling to get sales to prioritize selling it. How do you motivate and incentivize your sales org to prioritize this new product?
How different is a product launch for an acquired product vs built in-house?
How do you know when a product transitions to the next stage of the product adoption lifecycle and grabs the majority market's attention?
What template (or suite of templates) have you found to be most useful for launch planning and maintaining alignment & visibility across a variety of (very!) busy cross-functional stakeholders?
Specifically across the variety of workstreams that result from a launch plan
How do you get alignment on the launch message?
How does product readiness affect launch success?
How do you partner with the various marketing teams to ensure a successful product launch?
What is the end to end process you follow for an internal launch of the product? What documents / collateral would you advise for a) training internal stakeholders b) getting them excited about the launch?
How to manage a PDE function that does not want to commit to any dates, ever, but also does not want to uncouple release from launch?
I'm establishing PMM at my org as a function, and trying to put in place a launch process. The PDE function are used to just shipping when ready, without giving thought to the need for a launch plan. We're missing opportunities to launch, but also annoying clients by not giving enough notice when we plan to roll out new features or functionality.
How do you evaluate your launch messaging when launching into a crowded market?
If you have a multi-pronged value prop
How do you manage product launches when there is a % rollout (i.e. rolling it out to 5%, 10%, 25%, etc.)?
What tactics do you use to effectively incorporate new, creative aspects into product launches that can so easily become routine and mundane?
In the SaaS world especially, I feel like it's easy for PMMs to fall into the pattern of checking off the "traditional" product launch activity boxes. This may be because of limited bandwidth and resources or restricted budget, which can ultimately keep PMMs doing the same things that have previously worked. For me, this has often stunted my creative aspirations, and led me to feel more like a project manager than a standout Product Marketer.
What's a good process for managing multiple launches in conjunction with an industry event with a small team (2 people)?
What's the 'do not miss' piece of advice to give for PMM's for product launches?
What creative ideas have you come up with for product launches that are terrible and/or really dull?