What are your best tools to leverage product launches? Where do you find the most challenging? When is Product Marketing involved in the launch?

Great questions. Product Marketing should be involved, or at least aware of, every launch in my opinion. I think it's important to establish launch levels, or some process around it though - a very minor feature update shouldn't get the same amount of time dedicated as an all-new product line. At Iterable we have extra small, small, medium, and large launches and the set of activities we do for each is different - and shared with the product team as well so they're aware. As far as tools, it's a ...Read More

This is a 3-part question, so I'm giving you a 3-part answer: 1) The best tools: I’m going to answer the “tools” part of your question by talking about four documents I find critical for successful launches: GTM overview doc—This is a pretty detailed, dense document whose only audience is really PMM and PMs. It’s the place to document the thinking for the following bullet points, and it ensures that PM and PMM are entirely aligned on what is launching, how it helps customers, how it will be mess ...Read More

The best tool for a product launch is a single system of record that captures both the strategic "why? what are the goals?" as well as the tactical "who's doing what, by when?" in one clear, easily discoverable place. This could be a tool like Airtable, Asana, Monday or something as simple and universal as a well-structured Google doc/sheet. Whatever it is, pressure-test and socialize the plan template as much as possible with stakeholders across marketing, product, sales, customer success, etc. ...Read More

Product marketing should be involved in the launch process as early as possible. In an ideal world, we’re involved before product development even starts to align on the perception the business wants to drive in the market and ensure that there’s a compelling, differentiated narrative. This also gives you the opportunity to do market research, customer interviews, and competitive analysis to help shape the product’s features/scope and positioning. However, that’s not always the case, and it real ...Read More