AMA: Ethos Head of Marketing, B2B, Aneri Shah on Product Launches

I'm a huge fan of in-product education software like Pendo or UserPilot - they allow you to create personalized, triggered, guided, targeted education flows that are highly effective - much more so than just a pop up and banner. And better yet, they're highly measurable and actionable - we even pass the data off to our Sales/Customer Success teams so they can use it to prioritize their outreach.

I gave away a Mustang! We launched a significant new product in October 2023, 3 months before the most major industry convention. Our goals were to: 1) drive usage and early adoption at launch, 2) make a big splash to earn share of mind in a cost-effective way at the event, 3) clearly position our product as "fast" and "sleek" relative to competitors. We ended up getting a prime space to show off our branded Mustang right outside the event for 3 days, and then raffling it off on the main stage to a top user of our product. Here's how we measured success: 1. Pre-event: Drove higher-than-expected product usage right at launch due to our marketing of the Mustang raffle. 2. At the event: Drove significant brand awareness, booth visits & product trial based on the Mustang, and did so at a much lower cost than competitors. 3. After the event: Saw an incredible lift in social and content engagement based on testimonial content collected at the event, saw significant earned media value from people posting about the car and our brand, and we've seen high brand recall based on how memorable the Mustang was. And on a personal note, I call this my 'Oprah moment' - the winner of the Mustang giveaway broke down in tears on stage in front of thousands of people and told an amazing story of how when he started in his role, his car had just been re-possessed, and to go from that to winning a slick, new car was a real testament to his efforts. In addition to all the product and brand benefits we saw from the promotion, nothing feels better than being able to impact someone's life in such a material and positive way :)

1. Get involved early in the product lifecycle through strategic inbound: Broadly, PMM work comprises of inbound strategic inputs, launches, and outbound marketing. Organizations that don't understand that tend to oversimplify and end up putting PMM in the position of the "launch arm of the feature factory". The best way to overcome this is by demonstrating value far earlier in the product lifecycle by informing what the product team should be building, and why it is important. You can do this through customer insights, market research, competitive landscaping etc. - namely, anything that brings the voice of the customer into the product development process and cements your position as someone who can shape product strategy. Put together concrete deliverables, do so consistently, and provide strong rationale (i.e. we should build feature X rather than feature Y because of this industry trend, or this gap in the market). 2. Bundle and put together product narratives: Launching features rather than products is one symptom of "shipping the org chart". Demonstrate your value as a PMM by having a strong POV on how to bundle together features and put together product narratives based on the solution or customer you're focused on (e.g. these 3 features rolling out over the next 2 months all address the same customer pain point and should be bundled together as a suite). Think about how to get the highest impact from your launches (e.g. a big event announcement, press, coverage, strong customer case study) by connecting the dots and ensuring that you aren't just launching each feature the product team is shipping, but instead aligning to a narrative your target customer will get value from. 3. Build strong relationships and influence other functions where there may be gaps: It takes many teams and functions to work through a product launch, and part of PMM's superpower is that you can identify and fill in the gaps. Does design need a partner to work with on mapping out use cases? Is the in-product messaging coming through clearly or do you need to work with a content designer? Does product need help prioritizing customer feedback? Does Sales Enablement need help identifying target customer profiles? Does demand gen need help with campaign assets? And so on. Map out what your ideal launch looks like, build strong relationships with your cross-functional stakeholders, and help out where they may need an additional perspective or set of hands.

Find the magic in the launch. It's so easy to go through the checklist of activities and spend months getting every little detail right for a launch, that we sometimes get too in the weeds and forget to take a step back and think about that 'aha' moment that will make the launch feel magical to your ICP. Assume they'll see your email, and read your blog post and click your push notification and so on - what is it that makes their eyes light up? What makes them want to go talk about the launch to a friend, or post about it on social? It could be a funny tagline, an amazing launch video, a cool incentive or giveaway, a cool resource you've created or a relevant influencer that you've partnered with. At the end of the day, your target buyer is a person, and you need to strike an emotional connection with them for your launch to resonate.