How do you think about KPI's for product launches, balancing awareness, demand gen and pipeline?

Question

Grant Shirk · Accepted Answer

Going to take my time with this one, as I think it combines a number of the other topics, but it's also critical, because PMM often sits at the center of all these things.

* Product launches are a big tentpole event in the lifecycle of a company and a product. Done right, they should drive traffic, leads, and opportunity creation (awareness, demand gen, and pipeline). 
 * These are massive, coordinated efforts, but they're also not a point in time. No single day or event should make or break the future of a business. It's certainly a major note in the story, but not even the only crescendo.

I coach my teams (and other execs) to think of product launches as the conclusion of a chapter or phase, and not the starting point. This solves for several problems. By the time you get to a launch, it should be almost a foregone conclusion to your customers, with the delighters in the annoucement taking center stage (the special or unexpected). You should have programs and campaigns pre-wired to carry it forward. Sales should be prepped and ready to go and carry the message forward. And you should probaly hat-tip your next move in the copy somewhere.

So, around a launch, you're really measuring three things:

* Short-term awareness. Views, reads, time on site, all relative to the prior comparable period
 * Medium-term engagement. Downloads, trials, attendance at that webinar, customer meetings
 * Long-term value. New opportunity creation, Qualified Pipeline, Average Deal Size

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