Product Marketing AMA - Zendesk Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications, Teresa Haun on Product Launches

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Product Launches With Teresa Haun, Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk Already a member? Sign In

In your eyes, what's product marketing's role in the launch? What's key to ensure it's smooth?

What are the key deliverables PMM provides? What gets handed off to other teams to run with and create?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

I’ve heard two terms used before to describe product marketing’s role in a launch that really resonate with me and I think accurately sum up what we do. The first is “launch captain” and the second is “momentum maker” (credit to @Marcus Andrews for that one). Product marketing is the “captain” th...more

How do you tier your launches, and what KPI's do you assign to each tier?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

This question is very similar to this other one https://sharebird.com/ama/zendesk-director-of-product-marketing-teresa-haun-on-product-launches?answer=DjEBP934m2 so I'm sharing my answer from there here too: At Zendesk, we use a launch template that includes key workstreams and teams to engage...more

What does the Go-to-Market process look like for a global product? Does it differ vs. more regional launches?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

At Zendesk, the vast majority of our functionality is global so almost every launch is a global launch. We’ve had some very specific regional launches like GDPR, certain voice partners, and messaging channels that are primarily concentrated in select regions, but those are pretty rare. When it is...more

Do you have a product launch template that shows what teams (and when) to incorporate into the preparation of a strategy/plan? How should I think about that?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

At Zendesk, we do use a launch template that includes key workstreams and teams to engage for different tiers of launches. We use two criteria to determine the tier of a launch: business impact and market impact. For business impact, we assess how much the launch benefits existing and new custome...more

how do you treat iterative releases different than launches?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

An iterative release can still count as a launch, just likely a small launch (in case you’re curious about the tiers we use at Zendesk to determine size, just talked about that on this question https://sharebird.com/ama/zendesk-director-of-product-marketing-teresa-haun-on-product-launches?answer=...more

When you look at the best launches that you have done, what did you get right that made them so successful?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

When I think about the most successful launches my team and I have done, they all included 1) a clear go-to-market strategy with leadership and stakeholders bought in, 2) strong communication and partnership across cross-functional teams, 3) effective sales enablement, and 4) success metrics and ...more

What are the foundational steps to develop a repeatable and scalable launch discipline?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

I would suggest establishing process and structure around launches, like determining the tier and then based on the tier having a launch template with the typical activities and teams to engage. More detail in my response on this question: https://sharebird.com/ama/zendesk-director-of-product-mar...more

How do we ensure adequate demand for our product launch?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

I think adequate demand for a launch comes down to ensuring all of the planned activities for the launch are actually enough to deliver what’s expected and needed for the business. Sounds like you might already have top-down targets for what the business needs to deliver on that launch, so now it...more

How do you get buy-in from regional teams for a product launch when they don't view the product that you're launching as relevant for their market?

Senior Director, Technology Marketing and Communications at Zendesk

This question is very similar to this other one https://sharebird.com/ama/zendesk-director-of-product-marketing-teresa-haun-on-product-launches?answer=mZxqPwjEr5 so sharing my answer from there here too: At Zendesk, the vast majority of our functionality is global so almost every launch is a g...more

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