What are some unique external (customer facing) activities you include for promoting a new product?

We break down external launch activities into one of three categories:

• Market Awareness: Will it generate market buzz and/or leads?
• Field Enablement: Will it help sales generate revenue?
• Customer Adoption: Will it retain customers?

Based on that, launch deliverables naturally fall into one of the categories. Outside of the typical external launch activities (see my answer below for "How do you think about the scope or deliverables for various launches?"), there are certainly some unique ones that we do here at Zuora: 

• Subscribed SF Keynote Story: We have a flagship conference in San Francisco every June called Subscribed. Based on the major launch announcement of that year, we design the opening keynote story to build up to that announcement. Here’s an example of the keynote for the Zuora Central Platform launch earlier this year. 
• If you do end up watching it, you can see the “3 act” structure of the keynote. Act 1 talks about the larger global shift that companies are going through. Act 2 focuses on how individual companies tries to solve the challenges of that shift (“hard code and custom build their own systems…”). Act 3 reveals the answer (“that’s why Zuora built the Central Platform”).
• Every year, we partner with our Marketing and Communications team to craft this end-to-end story. Since it’s the most ‘visible’ deliverable every year, it naturally sets the messaging tone for how the field and customers talk about the new product afterward.
  
• Zuora Test Drive: Test Drive is a 14-day “free trial” of Zuora that comes with in-app walkthroughs and tutorials. 
• Not only is it a lead generation tool that lets prospects to get hands-on with the product, it also drives revenue by converting leads into opportunities. 
• For Major Product launches, we add walkthroughs / pre-built demos for the new product area into Test Drive – keeping it up to date opens new doors to target a specfic buyer persona and start new conversation for the sales team.
  
• Customer Playbooks: For launches that are part of an add-on product, we create a playbook for our customer account management team. This allows our Account Managers to be more prescriptive and selective in educating customers on add-on products. 
• We do this by reviewing each customer’s existing product usage data and using indicators to identify which customers are “top candidates” for an add-on product. We arm the Account Managers with a plug-and-play presentation that highlight the relevant usage data and why this add-on makes sense for them. 
• As a customer, you get an extremely tailored story backed up with data rather than a blanket marketing presentation.

It may not be unique, but I think one that both startups and large companies alike don't prioritize enough is a clear, concise PR strategy with launch. Early on Eats we didn't have a lot of money to spend on paid media or flashy integrated campaigns to get the word out, but we had the fortune of being a company a lot of people cared about and wanted to hear more from. Every product launch we had started with the external story we wanted to tell in close partnership with our comms teams. In some cases, we would work with the comms team to understand what stories they were telling then find the right product / feature that could support that. It's an incredibly powerful, "free" channel that can drive a lot of awareness without a lot of money. Put another way, when a startup announces a round of funding and secures a bunch of press coverage, you sometimes see registrations, page views, etc go up 5 - 10X - why wouldn't we want a product launch to do something similar? 

Teasers have worked really well for me. Start running teasers on social, emails, and ads about one to three months before the launch to build anticipation. Some organizations aren't comfortable sharing sneak peaks, so figure out how much your leadership is comfortable sharing — and at what altitude. At Drift, we produced high-quality, short, hype videos as the core assets for the teasers. 

Post-launch day, consider following up with a larger "reveal" push to maintain momentum. The key is to create not only a single flare on launch day but also a continual drip pre- and post-launch.  

Some other (less common) external activities to consider:

• Exclusive preview events: invite a handful of your top accounts (customers and prospects) to be the first to learn about the upcoming product and see it in action. You could also make this into a series of events in different cities. 

• Launch day event: this can be virtual or in-person. The goal is to make it interactive and informative for customers and prospects. 

• Offers: these could be time-boxed discounts for those who buy your new product in the next X days. This requires sales and finance buy-in.

• Roadshows: after the launch, you can take a few executives on the road to meet with customers and prospects and discuss the new product, roadmap, and vision. 

• Partner/influencer marketing: tap into your partners' and influencers’ networks, resources, and credibility to boost your product launch strategy.

I gave away a Mustang!

We launched a significant new product in October 2023, 3 months before the most major industry convention. Our goals were to: 1) drive usage and early adoption at launch, 2) make a big splash to earn share of mind in a cost-effective way at the event, 3) clearly position our product as "fast" and "sleek" relative to competitors.

We ended up getting a prime space to show off our branded Mustang right outside the event for 3 days, and then raffling it off on the main stage to a top user of our product. Here's how we measured success:

1. Pre-event: Drove higher-than-expected product usage right at launch due to our marketing of the Mustang raffle.

2. At the event: Drove significant brand awareness, booth visits & product trial based on the Mustang, and did so at a much lower cost than competitors.

3. After the event: Saw an incredible lift in social and content engagement based on testimonial content collected at the event, saw significant earned media value from people posting about the car and our brand, and we've seen high brand recall based on how memorable the Mustang was.

And on a personal note, I call this my 'Oprah moment' - the winner of the Mustang giveaway broke down in tears on stage in front of thousands of people and told an amazing story of how when he started in his role, his car had just been re-possessed, and to go from that to winning a slick, new car was a real testament to his efforts. In addition to all the product and brand benefits we saw from the promotion, nothing feels better than being able to impact someone's life in such a material and positive way :)

I'm honestly not super bullish on trying to find the new flashy marketing vehicle. I interviewed at a company once who stated they were looking for some out of the box, early salesforce-esque guerrilla marketing tactics to drive their launches; but at the same time admitted they also struggled at following up with leads that they generated at events. You'll probably get the value you're seeking out of your marketing work by focusing on the tried and true promotional vehicles, but doing them really well. For example, people may hate on emails these days (its spam, emails get auto filtered, etc.), but in one of our recent launches for Gemini, there was a direct correlation with the time in which our email was sent and a spike in usage so high that it caused us to need to reallocate compute capacity so that the product didnt crash.

In today's saturated market, merely having a great product isn't enough. Unique external activities are crucial for several reasons - differentiation, customer engagement, trust & credibility, viral potential, customer loyalty - some of WHYs that come to mind that bolster creating a lasting impression and relationship with your audience.

The “HOW” totally depends on the context - varies by business vs consumer, industry segment, persona, vertical,type of product, complexity of product – to name a few. Some strategies and tactics that come to mind that my PMM teams have deployed to build awareness and value comprehension of new products are below - some are table stakes and some more unique to the given context:

• Live Launch Events: Product showcase & Vision casting

  • Allow prospects & customers to experience the product firsthand in a dynamic and engaging environment. Live demos & compelling storytelling can significantly enhance value comprehension of your product.

• Interactive Product Tours (VR/AR guided) 

  • Create immersive experiences that allow customers to visualize the product. This has really picked up in the home design space with IKEA, West Elm, Amazon offering spatial visualization tools for their furniture. Sky is the limit for that might look like for a SaaS software offering.

• Interactive Webinars and Workshops

  • Real story. At Uber, we ran a hackathon with Data scientists & Transportation planners to showcase the value of Uber Movement, a free open data platform that tracks traffic in cities!

• Exclusive Sneak Peeks and Early Access Programs to Select Customers 

  • Build anticipation and sense of privilege among early adopters or Select customers, who can eventually become brand ambassadors

  Some additional (more traditional) approaches include:

• Customer Advisory Boards

• Customer Stories and Case Studies

• Buzz through Customer Contests and Social Media engagement

• Influencer Partnerships for Product reviews & promotions 

• User-Generated Content Campaigns

• Pop-Up Experiences and Demos

• Web-Based Interactive Demos

• Personalized Email Campaigns

• Collaborative Webinars with Partners

• Engagement Through Gamification

Depending on your budget and target audience, there are a number of activities you can do. Principally, you should have a POV on how explicit you want to be promoting the new product vs more brand and meme-oriented activities which, while not explicitly promoting your product, can be quite effective at generating leads and new customers. 

• UGC: for some consumer-facing products, social campaigns with UGC can be hugely successful for driving awareness and interest.

• Meme ads: while not specific to your product, can be hugely effective in generating inbound leads across social (IG, TT, X). 

• Social SWAT team: there are cultural and social moments that can propel a brand and product significantly. Having a social media team that is equipped to engage in these conversations is hugely powerful, and underutilized by most companies today. 

• Waitlists: these can be effective to drive urgency and excitement. Layering in referral capabilities to move up the waitlist can be effective if you have trust with your community. 

• Experiential: IRL events, pop ups, city tours 

• Press Dinners: host small press events/dinners with product execs and a handful of key press partners. You can take a similar approach to strategic accounts. Give them early access, answer their questions directly. 

• VIP Webinars and Live Demos: Host exclusive webinars or live demos for a select group of customers, such as top-tier clients or industry influencers. These events provide an in-depth look at the new product and offer a platform for direct interaction and feedback.

• Testimonial micro-sites: not your boring testimonial wall, but separate micro sites with interactive short-form videos from customers. 

• Launch events: while fairly standard on the B2B side for companies of a certain size, these are making somewhat of a comeback on the consumer side, such as the Robinhood Gold Card launch event in NYC. 

Events/activations and community-based initiatives can provide interesting avenues to try something new to build buzz for a new product.

For a simple idea: can we take the 'influencer' idea and build something for your specific product purpose? E.g. if you're a solution for project managers, can you explore a play on the organizational skills of Marie Kondo, and work with a few early customers to create a fun social campaign spotlighting how they 'let go of old processes that did not bring them joy?'

For a bit more involved ideas, I think you can look at creative ways to infuse new products into in-person events. Work at a company that does governance (who has access to what)? Host a fun event where they have to 'request access' to get in, using your product. Work in collaboration software? Create a giant painting with instructions in your collaboration tool, and see how well the painting comes out at the end of the show. You could also try to tackle these virtually as well: 'request access' to get some sort of reward or invite.

This is my favorite part of product launches—finding creative ways to tell the product story!

• I always make sure we have at least two demos for promoting the new product. I work with my product manager and dev teams to create a technical demo that dives deep into the product specifics. I’m also a huge fan of Navattic interactive demos—they’re more high-level and highlight the core value props.

• Webinars are another favorite; they’re a great way to engage directly with customers about the launch. At Sauce Labs, we have two types of launch webinars: our "Hot Sauce Releases" webinar covering all the latest launches, and specific launch webinars that focus on one product in detail.

• And then I would definitely recommend doing an explainer video for larger launches - they’re a fun, visual way to communicate the product’s value and get everyone excited (especially through social)!