AMA: Zendesk Group Product Marketing Manager, Lauren Hakim on Product Launches

Great question! Success metrics can vary across companies, but in my experience successful product launches consistently hinge on clear planning, targeted goals, strong cross-functional collaboration, and continuous measurement. Here are some key elements to focus on: Set clear goals: Establish and align on specific, actionable, and measurable goals well before the launch so you can measure success immediately post-launch and make data-driven decisions. Organize your team: Identify your core team early! Ensure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities. It's always best to have a dedicated launch lead to keep all teams aligned and driven towards shared goals. Verify product/market fit: Do your research to ensure your product meets a genuine market need. This is crucial for generating interest and driving adoption. Identify your targets: You'll need to understand who your product is for and tailor your marketing plans to resonate with these audiences. This way, you can ensure to craft messaging that will land with impact for potential customers. Prepare your GTM teams & market: Make sure your GTM teams are WELL informed and prepared. You can do this by conducting training sessions and providing them with the necessary resources to help them effectively promote and support your new product. Pre-launch activities should also focus on educating the market to build buzz and excitement. Measure and adjust: Post-launch, you should track your identified success metrics across different stages. For example: - Awareness: Measure reach and impressions - Pipeline/purchase: Track how many leads convert into paying customers - Adoption: Measure how customers are using and maximizing their use of the product post-purchase Depending on the scale of your launch, you can set the appropriate cadence for these measurements, whether daily, weekly, monthly etc. Just make sure you track these regularly so you can adapt as necessary. Get feedback from your customers: Customer feedback is so important. Make sure you set up the appropriate channels to collect customer feedback post-launch to inform refining the product and adapting your marketing strategy.

How exciting! This should be super helpful in ensuring your GTM teams can have effective conversations with customers. I've listed some additional elements you may want to consider below. Competitive info: Identify competitors with similar offerings and highlight what sets you apart. This helps your sales teams position your product more effectively and win more deals by showcasing unique advantages. Resources across the customer journey: From my experience, providing resources for GTM teams and customers that align with each stage of the customer journey can be highly effective. This makes it easy for sales to provide the right assets at the right time—whether customers are just interested or actively evaluating a purchase decision. Roadmap: Outline planned features or updates to generate further excitement and show your ongoing investment in the product. This can help build confidence in your long-term vision and commitment. Customer references: Sharing real-world examples of how your product has solved problems for other customers is critical. Gather a variety of case studies, quotes, and video testimonials across different industries to provide compelling validation of your product's value. Objection handling: Support your teams by anticipating potential objections customers might have and providing key talking points to address concerns. This is especially important for handling objections related to pricing, product features, or competitive comparisons. FAQs: Put together a list of the most common questions you're hearing from both GTM and customers along with answers. This will help to ensure consistency of responses as your field is speaking with customers. This can continue to evolve based on feedback you continue to gather.

Launching from a smaller organization can be challenging, but it also presents some unique opportunities. One of the greatest advantages of being at a smaller organization is the ability to leverage agility. You can pivot more quickly based on market feedback, which is a luxury that most larger orgs often don't have. Additionally, focusing on niche markets enables you to offer specialized solutions that big players can tend to overlook. Building strong and authentic relationships with your customer base is also critical. Identify customer champions by engaging with early adopters, gathering their feedback, and turning them into your best advocates. At Zendesk, our customer luminaries program has been instrumental in building a loyal customer base that organically amplifies our message. This approach can be incredibly powerful for smaller orgs.

I would say this is not necessarily always the case. Adding new features can happen at any stage of the product lifecycle. It could be part of the early stage strategy to iterate or improve the product based on initial customer feedback, or a mid-stage effort to expand functionality and capture a broader target audience. If the product is in it's late stages, new features could be added to help retain existing customers. At Zendesk, we continuously deliver new features within our products to enhance value - regardless of the product's lifecycle stage.

Great question. With any launch, especially one that's focused on an acquisition, brand alignment is critical. At Zendesk, we work very closely with our brand team to ensure that the acquired product not only retains its unique value but also enhances the overall brand portfolio. The brand team ensures that the acquired product fits within our existing brand narrative and values, so this could involve rebranding efforts (eg logos, web, etc), if necessary, and creating cohesive messaging. Product marketing focuses more on positioning, go-to-market strategy, and communicating the product’s value proposition to existing and new customers.

One of the biggest mistakes one can make is assuming the work is done once the product has launched. Here are a few things to consider when it comes to maintaining post-launch momentum: Sustained post-launch marketing: Marketing efforts should not stop once the product has launched. Continue to emphasize value and use cases to keep your offering top of mind and relevant to potential customers. Customer education: Customers often need guidance to fully utilize new capabilities or features. Develop helpful resources like tutorials, best practices, and how-to guides to help customers understand and successfully adopt your product. Frequent customer engagement: If you aren't actively engaging with your customers, this can lead to dissatisfaction or churn. Take the time to proactively seek feedback, address questions, and demonstrate how customer input is being incorporated into the product to help build trust and loyalty. Leverage the community: The Zendesk community is such a powerful tool to promote organic growth. Foster communities within your own customer base that allow them to share experiences and learn from each other, ultimately turning them into your best advocates. Utilizing customer references: At Zendesk, customer success stories are crucial to accelerating new user adoption. Identify early adopters early on so you can be armed with a variety of case studies and testimonials. Sharing these success stories with other customers and prospects can accelerate adoption of your product.

At Zendesk, we determine the tier based on business impact, customer impact, and market differentiation. * Tier 1 covers major new offerings or significant enhancements with high business and customer impact. These involve extensive go-to-market (GTM) planning, sales enablement, adoption strategies, major communications/PR, and dedicated marketing campaigns. Tier 1 launches are often aligned with major events with significant promotional efforts. * Tier 2 covers major new features with medium to low revenue potential and significant customer impact. These involve comprehensive GTM activities but on a smaller scale than Tier 1, including announcements, demos, community events and targeted promos. * Tier 3 is for minor updates with low business impact, affecting fewer customers. These typically involve basic updates and release notes, handled mainly by product managers with minimal PMM involvement.

Great question. Evaluating launch messaging is crucial to ensure it stands out. Here are a few impactful methods I have found effective: 1. Competitive Analysis: Start with a thorough analysis of competitor messaging. This helps identify gaps and opportunities and can give you insights to differentiate. 2. Customer & GTM Insights: Conduct user testing with a select group of customers. This can help you ensure your messaging is 1) clear and 2) resonates with their needs and pain points. Similarly, take the time to gather insights from GTM teams to refine your messaging further. These folks are interacting with customers all the time. 3. A/B Testing: A/B testing can be a really effective method to evaluate different messaging strategies. You can test multiple headlines, value props, and calls to action to determine which resonates best with your audience. 4. Analyst Feedback: If you have the opportunity, leverage industry analysts for feedback. Their insights can provide invaluable perspectives on how your messaging and positioning compare to the market. This external validation can highlight strengths and areas for improvement.

At Zendesk, we determine product launch tiers based on several factors: business impact, customer impact, and market differentiation. Each tier has a different level of marketing support. * Tier 1 covers major new offerings or significant enhancements with high business and customer impact. These involve extensive go-to-market (GTM) planning, sales enablement, adoption strategies, major communications/PR, and dedicated marketing campaigns. Tier 1 launches are often aligned with major events with significant promotional efforts. * Tier 2 covers major new features with medium to low revenue potential and significant customer impact. These involve comprehensive GTM activities but on a smaller scale than Tier 1, including announcements, demos, community events and targeted promos. * Tier 3 is for minor updates with low business impact, affecting fewer customers. These typically involve basic updates and release notes, handled mainly by product managers with minimal PMM involvement.