Is there a template you follow for Product launch vs Feature launch? Also for existing and new markets.

Yes, it's important to run a different playbook for major launches versus minor ones. Rather than thinking just around "product" vs "feature", I'd recommend developing a common definition for different tiers of launches. These are roughly the tiers we use:

Tier 1: Expands capabilities with a distinct, new product offering. New product SKU. Significant competitive differentiation.

Tier 2: New, incremental functionality/capability that extends your offering its current target market. Competitive differentiation.

Tier 3: Updated functionality/capability for an existing product.

Tier 4: Release of bug fixes and minor updates to the UX.

Tier 5: Functionality that is necessary (and requires resourcing), but does not have customer/partner-facing visibility.

Once you've agreed upon these definitions, you can develop a bill of materials around each of them to make the launch process repeatable. 

I use a tiered framework that defines the different tactics and strategies deployed for each type of launch. I first start off by defining the type of tier by whether its a:

• new product/service (differentiator or evolving our narrative)

• new feature (getting us to competitive parity)

• updated feature

• internal update

Then based on the above I will outline the timing required for this type of launch. It could be anywhere from 8+ weeks to 1 week. Here's where you will include all your launch tactics and who the driver is (PM, PMM, Tech Writing, Sales Ops, etc)

Next is to define who the intended target audience is. For a tier 1 product launch it may be new customers and existing customers vs. a tier 4 internal launch it'll be your internal teams (CSMs, solution engineers).

Lastly you'll outline your desired outcomes or the KPIs you'll track against. For a tier 1 launch it could be new revenue and for a tier 4 internal launch it could be improving process inefficiencies.

There are great examples of this and if you'd like my spreadsheet I use, please message me directly!

I recommend a tiering system for product vs. feature launches. The tiers include criteria about the impact of the feature that's launching (or series of capabilities, in the case of a full product launch), and the activities associated with each tier.

For example:

Tier 1:

Impact: All customers, market-level, significant company revenue

Activities: Press, social media (product and brand handles, personal handles), newsletters, blog (executive byline), Community series, website update, event keynote, multiple demos, paid promotion (ads, boosting social media, sponsored content, etc.), in-product notifications and/or navigation updates


Tier 4:

Impact: small sub-set of users, minimal revenue, limited/no market

Activities: limited social media, single Community post, limited newsletter promotion

The key is how much awareness and attention you want to drive to the new feature or product. If this is creating a new category and/or a new capability, you want to use pull all the marketing levers.

You can also grab free templates:

https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/templates/product-launch

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/templates/go-to-market

Definitely. Like many companies, we've always sized our launches (S/M/L/XL; Tier 1/2/3; etc.) and follow different templates for different tiers. The foundational differences usually align to the volume (not value, volume!) of activities surrounding the launch. Not every feature may need a standalone webpage, or a standalone live sales enablement session. Tier 2/3 may be more effective when bundled into a bigger story, or included only as a blog. I like to scope a Bill of Materials (BoM) to these Tiers in Google Sheets, and make it sortable by tier. (Plus, this way, partner stakeholders can see that it's not that one feature or product is more important than another -- it just may necessitate more assets to achieve the goal of this launch.)

Similar to many other PMM teams I think, we group our launches by levels. In my previous company we called these Gold, Silver, and Bronze where a Gold launch was something press release-worthy, a Silver launch was something meaty and interesting for existing customers but maybe not as impactful for the broader market or prospects, and a Bronze launch was something smaller which usually just needed a mention in the release notes or similar. For each of these launch levels, we created a launch package of external content, internal enablement, product documentation, internal and external communications, etc.

For each launch, we would produce things like:

• Gold: academy classes, product documentation including in-app announcements, customer case studies (from beta customers), customer and prospect emails, community post, pricing changes as needed, live internal training, content like updated website, updated/new pitch decks, solution sheets/one pagers, social posts, blog(s), advertising, a press release, competitive battlecard updates, and more. All based on a new messaging doc.

• Silver: product documentation including in-app announcements (combined for all silvers for the month), update the monthly customer newsletter, community post (combined for all silvers for the month), async internal training, some updated content as needed. All based on an updated messaging doc.

• Bronze: product documentation and a community post.

Typically for launching existing products into new markets, we would count that as a Gold launch - even if it did not need an external press release. That's because the level of internal and external awareness still needed to be pretty high.