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 tha ...Read More

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 ...Read More

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 ...Read More

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. ...Read More

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 real ...Read More

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 crea ...Read More

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 t ...Read More

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 t ...Read More

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 n ...Read More