AMA: Figma Product Marketing Lead, Priya Kotak on Product Launches

I’m a big advocate of getting messaging in front of customers and potential customers directly. Here are a few ways I’ve done that recently: Test messaging in product betas: At Figma we often launch features to a subset of customers in beta before making them generally available. I like to use this as an opportunity to test some messaging ideas. Not only can you test messaging in recruitment comms and onboarding decks you can join feedback calls to hear use cases and benefits in the customers’ o ...Read More

A common pitfall when trying to improve feature/product adoption is to jump straight into tactics. This often results in emails and in-product messaging that doesn’t have the intended impact, and annoys users. I like to start by better understanding the users that have adopted a feature/product. Ideally, I can look at product usage data in addition to talking to users. I want to know who they are, how often they’re using the feature, what they use it for, and what they like/dislike about it. In ...Read More

As teams scale and more processes are put into place to streamline go-to-market, PMMs can become overly reliant on launch playbooks. We’ve all been there — you identify the tier, fill out the launch plan, and start working through the corresponding checklist of tactics. In many cases, this will result in a smooth process and pretty good launch — after all, the playbooks are there for a reason. But great launches come from taking a step back from the playbooks and processes to think about what th ...Read More

Methods for keeping everyone up to date will vary from company to company, based on the communication norms in place. At Figma, here are some of the ways we keep internal teams up-to-date today: Push out internal comms: At Figma, we primarily use Slack over email. We have a channel called #product-launches that PMMs update on launch day so that everyone in the company has visibility into what’s launching and can chime in with any questions or concerns as the feature rolls out. Every Friday, we a ...Read More

In April 2021 we launched our second product, FigJam, into beta, allowing anyone to use it for free for 10+ months until we released it as a paid product. Here are some ways to get Sales excited about selling a new product: Make it clear why they should care: This might sound obvious, but a big part of this is making sure the Sales team knows why they should sell this new product. This should include why it’s important to the company, but also what’s in it for them. Does this help them expand de ...Read More

This always starts with defining your audience. Once you know who you’re trying to reach, you can prioritize the best channels to reach them. There are two questions that I try to answer before I jump into channel strategy: Will this feature drive new user acquisition or adoption within our existing user base? Which of our users will care about this news? It is tempting to say that a feature is relevant to both new and existing users across personas, but prioritizing audiences can make a big dif ...Read More

I believe the key to having a cohesive launch narrative comes down to putting your new product into context of your existing product(s). While each product will need its own positioning, and may even appeal to different audiences, an overarching narrative can help tie everything together. We recently went through this process at Figma when we launched our second product, FigJam, an online whiteboard. Here are two activities I found helpful in this process: Articulate the “why” behind your new pr ...Read More

At Figma we use a few different types of in-app messaging to reach users depending on what information we’re sharing. While in-app messaging can be a great way to reach users, it can also be distracting — PMMs work closely with their product and design counterparts to determine whether in-product messaging makes sense for a given launch, and if so, the best format and targeting. Here are four formats we primarily use at Figma: Modals: We typically reserve modals for our bigger and most requested ...Read More

Measuring success starts with defining what success looks like. This is most successful when it’s a cross-functional effort, and teams across the organization are bought in. Ahead of launch you should align on a metric. This will differ from product to product. You need to figure out what metric matters most to the success of your product, and make sure its easy to understand so folks can rally around it. For FigJam we focused on an engagement metric, Weekly Active Users (WAU), which we also tra ...Read More

I’m generally in favor of being transparent with customers when it comes to the product roadmap. It can be a great opportunity for Account Managers to engage with customers ahead of renewals and expansion conversations. There are a few things to keep in mind when doing so: Include a safe harbor. If you’re going to share future plans, it’s important that you include a safe harbor stating that nothing shared is 100% certain and that your product plans may change. Your friends in legal will thank y ...Read More