AMA: Twilio Director of Product Marketing, Lindsey Weinig on Product Launches

Best case, I partner with the product team to define the core KPI(s) for a product launch. Often product adoption is the goal of the launch, but sometimes a product is launched with other intentions like decreasing churn or increasing revenue through other product/feature adoption. Depending on the nature of the product, KPIs may include new signups for free trials, paid upgrades, add-on purchases/total value, NPS, or active users of the new product that was launched. I also like to measure KPIs ...Read More

For a launch of any significant size, the most valuable action on my checklist is a post-launch retro. You will always want to measure KPIs and ensure positioning is accurate, but the retro is often overlooked. A well-run retrospective can uncover meaningful insights to both improve the recent launch success as well as avoid unnecessary challenges and uncover new opportunities in future launches. It also builds partnerships across teams reinforcing the value of the key stakeholders involved in t ...Read More

As a Product Marketer, there are a couple considerations for internal launch and enablement that help guide the process, assets and activities including, product readiness stage (Pilot, Beta, GA), and launch size (T-shirt sized). First, we usually take ownership over launch activities when the product has reached a Beta stage. We partner with the product team to stay informed through the earlier product readiness stages to ensure we deeply understand the problem, target, and solution details. We ...Read More

Product Marketing can often bring in the voice of the customer to influence in the development process. I've been involved in product launches from ideation to general availability and the most powerful insights come directly from customers. Interviewing customers on their pain points, to validate the problem we need to solve; and then interviewing other customers on the solution, to validate what the team built solves the problem we identified, have been enlightening and have heavily influenced ...Read More

Unfortunately there are many reasons a product launch can fail or underperform: Doesn't solve a felt problem by the target audience Solves a problem for a different target audience Is not differentiated enough in a competitive market Is not priced correctly Doesn't function as expected (bad UX, unreliable, etc.) Target audience doesn't know about it (isn't marketed well or discoverable) In my experience the most likely reason a product launch fails or underperforms is when it is solving an inter ...Read More

My number 1 recommendation is documentation. First, identify your key stakeholders across product, marketing and sales and document what is working and what isn't in recent launches. Then gather any process or standardization used across the product team for their launches. Ask questions like: how do they document the value of their launch? how do they share the status across launches? how do they determine product readiness (Pilot, Beta, GA) Then, consolidate your internal research findings int ...Read More