How different is a product launch for an acquired product vs built in-house?

A product launch for an acquired product vs. a product built in-house could be very different, largely dependent on how far along the acquired product is in terms of customers and brand. In many cases, the acquired product, especially in highly-technical categories, gets scooped up early by a company looking to fill a functional or technical gap (classic "buy" over "build" decision). In that case, it's unlikely that there are many customers or much revenue to account for so it should largely look and feel like and in-house launch. In the case where the acquired product has a considerable brand and customer footprint, there's a lot more to do, both operationally and from a storytelling standpoint. Operationally, there will need to be a ton of communication to existing customers of the acquired product with FAQs, next steps, any migration considerations as well as all sorts of sales ops/marketing ops back-end work (migrate CRM, SKU management, Martech stack) that the PMM lead should track closely even if you're not the responsible party to execute. On the storytelling side, you'll have to do broader framing about why and how the acquired product/company fits inside your company's portfolio (what use cases they address for which personas in which industries/verticles). Prepare for more in-depth enablement for the sales team and customer-facing roles like comms to make sure everyone can speak to the broader story.

This is a great question. When I worked at SurveyMonkey, I worked on the launch of TechValidate after we acquired them (third-party validated customer testimonials), and when I worked at Brex, we acquired Pry (financial modeling software), so I can speak with those firsthand examples in mind. 

The main difference is that customer sensitivity and branding play a much bigger role. 

• Customer sensitivity—How the customers of the acquired company feel is critical for the short- and long-term success of the acquisition. Often, the key business metric for an acquisition is to accelerate growth—whether that’s new users, paid upsell, cross-sell, a higher price point—and so it’s important to take great pains to ensure that the announcement and subsequent actions will feel especially good for the acquired company’s customer base. Disillusionment or churn would be a worst case scenario. Customers of the acquired company will have a lot of FAQs, such as “will you continue to support the products I rely on? Will the functionality stay the same? Will my main points of contact change?” It’s important to manage this change and help them understand what to expect so that they’re confident their business needs won’t be interrupted. You are working to build trust and loyalty.

• Branding—The acquired company will either fully adopt or partially adopt the brand identity of the acquirer as the integration of the two finalizes over time, and this has more complexity because it’s a merger of both a front-end (the brand) and a back-end (the product). Think: will the acquired product function as a standalone product with a separate login forever, or will it be folded into the acquiring company’s techstack? Will the UI change to be uniform with the other products? Will the logos be merged, or completely swapped out? In some ways, an acquired product launch can be similar to a partner marketing launch, except the dynamics are different (covered above).

The messaging is a bit easier for the acquiring company’s customer base, because it’s often a no-brainer value add, potentially only relevant for some use cases of the existing customer base (i.e., not relevant to ALL customers), and it demonstrates a position of strength and a commitment to continually improve the offering—all things that can only be considered “good news.”

They both require a clear user story. For a product you've acquired, they probably have existing messaging that you then need to nuance into a cohesive customer story. For a product you've built, you probably are messaging it in line with how youve always marketed and what customer expect to hear from you. But beyond that, customers wont care if you bought or built a product, just that it works.

This is an interesting question because for an acquired product you need to address three audiences: your existing customers, the existing customers of the acquired product, and prospects net new to both companies. I would encourage you to think about creating different messaging for each of these three audiences when you launch an acquired product.

I've gone through multiple M&A integrations in my career and the ones that have been most successful have started with treating the acquisition as a new product launch with those three audiences. I would ensure you have different external-facing content (both in-app and out-of-app) as well as different internal enablement. It's important to consider the internal trainings as separate as well given that each company's revenue teams will have different questions and different needs. It's often best to keep each audience (the three customer/prospect audiences and the two internal audiences) separated at first so that you can address their needs individually. You can start to combine them over time once you have a more integrated product and message.

Launching an acquired product isn't just business as usual; it adds several layers of complexity beyond typical product marketing. While the core principles like market analysis and strategic positioning still apply, you also have to navigate challenges like product integration, pricing adjustments, and managing an existing customer base.

• Product integration: It’s key to figure out how the new acquisition fits with what you already offer. Does it fill a gap, or does it bring something totally unique to the table? This differs from in-house products, where the team is usually well-versed in the product's history and market fit, making marketing and support strategies more straightforward.

• Pricing and packaging: You'll have to align the acquired product’s pricing with your existing portfolio, and potentially, integrate it into current bundles. Since the product has its own established customer base, any price changes need to be communicated thoughtfully to keep their trust and loyalty. As part of pricing and packaging, you'll want to consider existing contracts require adhering to pre-existing agreements, honoring legacy pricing commitments, and ensuring compliance with any sector-specific regulations that were in place prior to the acquisition

• Customer management: A clear communication strategy that focuses on the benefits of the acquisition and proactively answer questions can help maintain customer trust and loyalty.

• Branding: This is often a hot topic—will the acquired product keep its brand, or will it take on the new company's branding? If it's the latter, you’ll need to rebrand marketing materials, which can be a hefty task.

• Enablement and field support: Sales, customer success, partners - all need to speed on what the acquired product offers and how it stands out in the market.

• Cultural differences. An acquired product often means blending distinct company cultures and operational styles, which could influence everything from the marketing approach to how product updates are handled.

While the list above provides a good starting point for launching an acquired product, there are other important factors that may fall beyond the product marketing team's direct control that can impact the launch. For example, setting up an effective market funnel ensures that the customer journey from awareness to purchase is smooth and effective, helping to convert leads into sales. And creating motivating field incentives and compensation models can encourage sales and support teams to actively promote the product and achieve sales targets, aligning their efforts with the launch's success.