How Top PMMs Execute Product Launches that Drive Adoption

Some of the "mistakes" I've experienced across a few different companies that can cause friction both internally as well as externally are: 1. Not truly understanding your customers problem before you build: You build off of your own echo chamber/vibes/or an internal edge case without really talking with customers before launching. Or potentially not aligning internally. It typically makes it so you waste cycles and or worse— deprecate or phase out a product, which can cause low morale for the t ...Read More

Not grounding the launch in clear value positioning and stakeholder alignment leads to failure. From an operational standpoint, if you haven't established the value proposition and positioning with alignment across stakeholders upfront, you'll either have a bad launch or just check boxes without seeing real impact. This alignment requires significant effort with executives to ensure everyone is on the same page. I recommend using a launch brief framework to document what you're doing and why, es ...Read More

If your strategy is poor, your launch will fail no matter how well you execute. While project management is important, having a bad strategy means you're solving the wrong problem, and everything will fall apart. For example, if you're trying to drive more subscriptions from existing customers who already use your product extensively, but you decide to run a huge outdoor campaign, your strategy isn't aligned with your business objective. This misalignment will eventually surface when the launch ...Read More

The biggest mistake is focusing too heavily on the immediate launch moment without thinking about ongoing feature discoverability. When launches don't land effectively or achieve long-term success, it's often because teams concentrate solely on the launch day and then quickly move on to the next quarter's launch. Your launch plan should incorporate always-on methods for driving awareness and usage of key features, especially those that lead to stickier customers or upgrades. A recent example fro ...Read More

AI enables hyper-personalization at scale and gives PMMs new superpowers to influence stakeholders and drive outcomes across the organization. Two key additions to the mix: 1. **Hyper-personalization at scale**: Combining product signals (how someone is using the product, where they're stuck in the funnel) with enrichment data (e.g., from Clay) to deliver highly personalized messages. Combining product signals with market signals allows for orders-of-magnitude more personalized automations than ...Read More

AI is helping accelerate two key areas: creating the launch brief and enabling seller readiness at scale. There are two main tranches where AI is making a real difference: 1. **Standardizing the launch brief**: Using AI to develop the first draft of a launch announcement — taking all the innovation and generating what the announcement should be. Getting that first draft has historically been a big exercise, and AI makes it much faster. 2. **Seller enablement and competitive readiness**: Once mes ...Read More

You need to pick a couple core beta success metrics or exit criteria that you and Product agree on. In our world, these metrics tend to boil down to some sort of business impact metric (like did we hit our revenue or customer adoption targets in the beta; are beta customers indicating X% greater willingness to pay now that they've used the product?), and a customer-value metric (is the product improving customer ROI or a key outcome by Y%, did it achieve our CSAT or NPS targets, etc?) For our la ...Read More

The release date is not the launch date - they can and often should be different. At SurveyMonkey, we distinguish between when a product is released and when it's launched. While we try to keep these dates close, we often launch under experiment or limited availability first. Sometimes we get quick results showing positive impact on metrics and can proceed with a full launch. Other times, products need more refinement. For example, we have an AI-based thematic analysis feature for open-ended sur ...Read More

Product readiness is rarely a binary decision and often involves staged rollouts with both qualitative and quantitative assessments. For consumer products, launches typically aren't a sudden 0-to-1 moment but rather a staged rollout. One exception was when Uber launched tipping - we didn't do a gradual percentage rollout because it was a principled decision that wouldn't be rolled back. Generally, though, there's both a qualitative and quantitative aspect to readiness. As product marketers, we n ...Read More

A successful beta is the best determinant of launch readiness. Here are a few questions that are worth answering: Do you have clear goals for your beta, including product adoption and engagement metrics that would define success? Did the beta achieve majority of those goals? Do you have ICP customers from the beta who would be happy to give you testimonials and case studies? Are customers in the beta willing to pay a premium for continued usage of the product (if applicable) once it's in GA? Has ...Read More

Focus on owned channels and authentic voices to maximize impact without large budgets. I always start by thinking about our owned channels like social media. Beyond just doing clever marketing campaigns, we look for authentic voices within our organization that we can promote. Having product experts or product leadership share why they chose to build a particular feature and its value can go a long way. We coach the product team on how to write these messages and review them together. Additional ...Read More

Nobody ever has enough budget, so get creative with in-product and owned channels. At Discord, which is a social platform with many daily users, we leverage in-product channels to reach customers directly. For example, last April Fools' Day, we built a loot box activation where users clicked boxes to unlock avatar decorations. After opening many boxes in this repetitive task, users received a clown decoration - essentially we were playfully trolling our users. People opened billions of these box ...Read More

Leverage early access programs to generate customer stories that fuel both pre-launch and post-launch momentum. Customer involvement is key to building and sustaining momentum. With our early access or beta programs, we try to secure customer stories early. This drives internal buzz because people know something exciting is coming that customers can test. Then, when you launch, having customer quotes ready for your press release gives it more impact. As these stories continue to develop post-lau ...Read More

Focus on internal excitement and target influential early adopters to create a ripple effect. It's crucial to generate internal buzz so your team feels the excitement about a major launch. Paint the vision of not just a single moment but a series of drumbeats. Sell it internally so people understand the importance. Externally, recognize that all customers aren't created equal - a small set of people drive a disproportionate amount of conversation, activity, purchases, or usage. Find those influe ...Read More

As the PMM, we are the drivers behind the strategy of the launch. We determine the strategy but we have to heavily rely on our partners to execute it. At Sauce Labs, we’ve worked across stakeholders to develop a Launch Checklist Template that outlines every launch activity, with designated owners to ensure alignment on responsibilities. We also hold a Launch Team Interconnect bi-weekly meeting to review the launch timeline and GTM plan, ensuring everyone is on the same page and aware of their ac ...Read More

Focus on long-term adoption metrics rather than launch-day vanity metrics. Sometimes we get distracted by vanity metrics like PR impressions, web traffic, newsletter click-throughs, or other immediate indicators. Instead, we should anchor on longer-term success metrics around feature adoption - what percentage of users have tried or are using the feature, package mix shifts if the feature is attached to a paid plan, or attach rates and impact to average order values for new sales SKUs. These met ...Read More

Set one primary goal with secondary goals beneath it, and consider 'number of fires' as an important KPI. You should clearly document the problem you're solving in a brief that's socialized across the organization. Establish one primary goal with several secondary goals beneath it, maintaining this hierarchy throughout the process. Beyond traditional metrics, I consider 'number of fires' to be a crucial KPI. When a launch goes smoothly, people often don't realize how well it went. We create scen ...Read More

Great question! Here are some metrics we use in LinkedIn Ads for our customers, who are generally brands and agencies advertising on LinkedIn: Product adoption (as a % of revenue) Incremental sales or deal flow (difficult to measure but doable with the help of a capable finance partner) Customer-value or customer success metrics: Incremental improvement to customers' cost per qualified lead, opportunity pipeline, or other core campaign performance metric CSAT or NPS of the product you just launc ...Read More

Success isn’t just about adoption metrics. You need a balanced scorecard that tracks: Product Engagement: Are users actually adopting the new feature and using it as intended? Usage data helps validate whether the messaging resonated. Customer Sentiment: Feedback from surveys, NPS changes, and social listening can tell you whether the feature is landing well with your target audience. Internal Alignment: Did you successfully enable your go-to-market teams? Track sales confidence and enablement c ...Read More

The types of metrics you would measure are quite subjective to the Go-To-Market strategy for your business.For example if your business goal is to drive distribution and new signups your would consider things like new activations, org retention, as well as weekly account usage and key moments On the other hand if your launch is tied to driving things like product led monetization or upsells, than you want to look at things like upsells, ACVs and time to complete trialsFinally if you are primaril ...Read More

The main difference between product launches in companies with a 1-2 products and many products is how you give context on your product launch. For multi product companies, I think product launches will need to tell how this new feature fits into the broader context of your platform. For sales enablement, you need to be able to define your new target personas, new processes, new content, etc and make sure you are thinking about how that fits in. Do you want to trade of $5 of your original for $1 ...Read More

In multi-product companies, launches are inherently more complex because they impact existing customer perceptions and can introduce portfolio conflicts. Three key things to manage: Portfolio Positioning: Be explicit about how this product complements or differentiates from others in your lineup. You don’t want internal competition or customer confusion. Orchestrated Messaging: Unified messaging that connects the dots between products can amplify the value proposition. Think of your launch as on ...Read More

Product launches in multi-product companies sometimes require a more integrated approach compared to those in single-product companies. For companies with a single product or a narrow offering, launches are often more straightforward—primarily focused on defining the narrative for that specific product. In multi-product companies, there are instances where a product launch narrative connects the new product with existing ones. For example, customers can derive greater value by using multiple pro ...Read More

Training sales prior to a launch is a go-to-market milestone I incorporate into any of my launch plans. This starts at the beginning of your launch planning. I always align with my sales leaders to assign a primary point of contact (POC) that can represent the sales team. This might come from a sales enablement department, a senior sales leader looking for a stretch project, or other designated role based on your organization. This individual is often responsible for assisting with beta customer ...Read More

Every PMM has experienced the issue of creating sales enablement materials, sending them "into the void", and not knowing how/where they're being used or if the sales team is adequately trained on them. A few tactical tips that I've used: Create a predictable rhythm: Don't just drop your launches into the ether and wait for Sales to pick them up. Have a GTM plan focused on Sales as an audience. How will they learn about the new launch? Do they know exactly where to find materials? Where and to w ...Read More

It looks like Loom has ~250 employees (according to LinkedIn), raised a total of $203.6M in their series C in 2021 (according to Crunchbase), and was valued at $1.53B. I’m sharing this mainly for context for other readers, even though my answer to your question will be a bit indirect because the startups I joined early were at least Series B and well-funded (i.e., not super early stage or lean). The big differences between lean/small/early stage startups and bigger ones are: Budget—money will be ...Read More

It depends on your resources and the skills of your team.  A larger company might be able to tap into more channels successfully or might already have more users and so the launch will inherently be more amplified.  You can still do a successful launch as a small company with some creativity and good storytelling! Try to think about the channels that will have the most impact given your constraints and work with a good designer to make compelling assets, and use Loom to create fun demos...(shame ...Read More

You can read my answer about taking a Tiered approach in one of the other answers. If you're a lean start up, I would suggest focusing on doing just 2 Tier 1 launches a year, and sprinkle in two Tier 2s throughout the year (rather than the 3 Tier 1s 3 Tier 2s I recommend for a more mature company). In addition to quanity of launches, you can use your "Bill of Deliverables" as a lever. Bill of Deliverables are the assets you are going to create for launch - think customers facing slides, messagin ...Read More