AMA: Notion Former Head of Marketing, Camille Ricketts on Product Launches

We haven't run into too many traffic jams yet with this. One thing that has proven very helpful is categorizing releases into three types: minor release, notable release, big launch. We have standard marketing activities associated with all three. For instance, a minor release gets a release note update on our What's New page and a tweet. A notable release requires an email be sent to all users and more social media support. A big launch has a custom array of marketing needs attached to it depending on the story we want to tell. This way, we're able to plan for big launches far in advance so marketing is not blocking product once it's ready to ship. And marketing is able to respond quickly to smaller ships because only a couple levers need to be pulled to tell the story. 

I think it depends on your audience, product, and goals. What do you want your audience to really understand about the product you're shipping? Do you want them to perceive that you are constantly shipping new things? Is part of your competitive advantage that you're building product faster than other companies in your space? Is this something your audience even wants, or would they prefer more considered/perfected big launches that meaningfully change their experience with it? We like to stick to a monthly cadence unless there's something shipping that we want to call extra attention to because it will have such a major impact on the everyday eperience of using the product. If there are features that you know your audience is going to be very excited about, or that you know will support the type of narrative you want to tell about the company, then you should break those out and give them room to breathe. For instance, we knew launching better search was very keenly anticipated by Notion users, so we made that the very clear marquee feature launching, as opposed to burying it with a bunch of other things just for the sake of shipping a neat bundle all at once.

Whenever you start planning a larger than average launch, you should kick things off by understanding who the audience is for this launch. Is it all your users or a subset? And what do you want to motivate them to do? If you're successful, what is it that changes? Do you get more signups? Deeper engagement among current users? Etc. Once you have the answers to those questions, think about the marketing levers that are most likely to reach and influence that subset of users. Are they general consumers who are going to be most impressed by people like them sharing the news on social media? Are ads the only way to actually target the people you need to impact? Maybe your buyers are actually in need of an in-person touchpoint, so you should spend on a conference sponsorship where they're likely to be so you can get your launch featured on stage. You should only spend on tactics that are going to succeed given all this criteria. For instance, at Notion, one of our "splashiest" launches was making the product free for students and teachers. After speaking to a number of students already in our audience about how they discovered Notion and what would influence them, we realized that community was the most critical marketing lever for spreading the word to the right audience. We worked with a number of campus ambassadors to throw events where our spend was springing for pizza and otherwise letting them organize.

The most helpful thing to do here is to have a single point person to talk to on each team involved in the launch. In our case, we have a "most knowledgeable person" on marketing, product, community, and sales (if it's relevant). These people are responsible for cross-team communication about the upcoming launch, so that you don't get several people on one team talking to several people on the other team and no one knows which information has been exchanged. That's how you run into confusion and duplicative work. These are the folks who meet on a regular basis about the launch and then bring action items back to their teammates if needed. They're also the ones collaborating on decisions based on tradeoffs or needs for each team. Clarity and focus are so important for cogent, successful launches. Many people need to know exactly what role they're playing, what they're responsible to deliver, and when. This information needs to remain as consistent as possible, and if there's any change, then everyone involved should immediately be informed. Having single point people on each team helps with this considerably.

The only way to figure out what channels reach and influence your audience is to ask and observe them. You have to do both - ask and observe. Asking is helpful. Most people can tell you where they hang out online, or how they heard about recent product purchases in their lives. But they often won't tell you the full story. People may say that they decided to sign up for a product because their friend tweeted about it. But really, they made the decision because they also saw your product remarketed on Facebook, or they read a post on your blog a month ago, etc. So you want to also just watch how your users find out about you and decide to convert to get all that detail. I think there's often temptation or pressure to fire on all cylinders. Have a plan for many channels and be as ubiquitous as possible. But if you're really honest with yourself, a smaller subset of channels would probably reach the bulk of your audience. And when you give yourself the benefit of focus, you can do a lot more to make the channels you do use successful. I think it can be helpful to give yourself some artificial constraints. Look at your launch plan and then force yourself to eliminate several channels. Go through that thought exercise of interrogating their value. Give yourself the benefit of doubling down where you know your audience lives and is likely to be transformed.

We've benefitted significantly from having a user education specialist on the marketing team. Fantastic individual named David Tibbitts, who joined marketing from our community support team. Today, he owns social media (including Twitter support), user education (help center articles), and product marketing (messaging releases and creating content to educate users about all new products and features). He's also our conduit to the community support and customer success teams. He sits in their meetings, and has unique empathy for the customer experience since he's been on the front lines talking to them for so long. He plays an instrumental role in informing the rest of the marketing team why something is interesting or important from the customer's perspective, and we shape our communications based on that intel. 

First of all, sometimes product launches are about existing customers. Maybe you're launching something meant to dramatically improve their experience, or help them expand their engagement with the product. In those cases, they are your primary audience and all of your comms should be shaped to inform them and motivate them to take the action that you want them to take. However, let's say that your launch is about attracting new users. You still want to engage your existing users as evangelists, influencers, storytellers, and examples. Nothing is more powerful than someone who already uses your product telling new people how it's transformed their lives for the better. You want to make it very easy for them to do this and build them a platform for their voice to be heard. Supply them with all the information they need to share your news to their followers on social media, showcase how they've been succeeding with your product in customer stories that you post to your website, YouTube channel, etc. Make sure your launch is embroidered with all kinds of examples of existing users' experiences. What they've done with your product. The value they've realized. Your happiest existing customers are going to want to support your success. Make them feel even more appreciated by aligning your interests with theirs, cross-promoting their brands or products, etc. at the same time as you show your audience how your product has helped them. 

It's critical that you define success metrics ahead of launch because they should guide every facet of your plan. You never want to get to the end and think, "Okay, let's mine some data to see how we did." That's how you end up with a bunch of vanity metrics... or numbers that aren't necessarily indicative of what the launch actually could have accomplished. For instance, maybe total traffic driven by a launch is not actually as important as the number of people who actually purchased a particular pricing package on your website. The tendency is to hold up the traffic number to your team and the rest of the company to say, "Look at how successful this launch was!" But this ignores the goal that would have actually driven the most momentum for the company. When you kick off work on a launch, have the hard conversations about the quantifiable impact your want to create. Is it sign ups? Is it upgrades? Is it broad brand awareness? Doing this will help you answer a number of other questions about how your launch should proceed to, the story you should tell, and where and how you should tell it.