What role should a product launch have with your existing customers?

Answer

9 Answers

Launch Channels Launch Strategy

Camille Ricketts

XYZ Venture Capital Partner & Head of Marketing • 6y

First of all, sometimes product launches are about existing customers. Maybe you're launching something meant to dramatically improve their experience, or help them expand their engagement with the product. In those cases, they are your primary audience and all of your comms should be shaped to inform them and motivate them to take the action that you want them to take. However, let's say that your launch is about attracting new users. You still want to engage your existing users as evangelists ...Read More

1,744 Views
Manav Khurana

GitLab Chief Product and Marketing Officer • 8y

Existing customers are the best source for new product adoption and should be the primary target audience. With new customers, you need them to buy into your company, and then buy into your new product. That's hoping for two miracles, vs. one with existing customers. Plus, it's so much easier to get your new product info to existing customers. You know who they are and conceivably, you have a standard way of contacting your existing customers. I'd suggest paying extra attention to in-produ ...Read More

2,079 Views
Josh Colter

Woven Head of Marketing • 8y

In short, yes the product launch should play a role with your existing customers. As Mike wisely pointed it, the nature of the role should be determined by the objectives of the business.

I use a communication matrix to define the desired outcomes and appropriate tactics, channels, and messages for each audience segment (customer, prospect, target market, etc...).

In principle, you want customers to become ambassors. So neglecting them from a launch plan would be short-sighted in most cases.

621 Views
Mike Flouton

Boxford Capital Managing Partner | Formerly Barracuda, SilverSky, Digital Guardian, OpenPages, Cybertrust • 8y

You should never be launching a product just for the sake of launching it. Clearly define the objectives of the launch and commit to a primary and secondary. The role your cusotmers play will clearly follow out of the objectives and answering your question becomes easy.

If increased retention/decreased churn is an objective, plan around that. If this is a new product and up/cross-sell is an objective, plan around that. If this is a set of new features to an existing product, plan around that.

502 Views
Nina Seth

Blue Yonder Product Marketing Director • 8y

Existing customers should be your product champions. You should be getting them involved in betas, cusotmer advisory panels and the like. They can help shape product direction and help you understand messaging that will resonate in the market.

532 Views
Sahil Sethi

Freshworks Vice President - Global Product Marketing | Formerly Klaviyo, Qualtrics, Microsoft, MckInsey • 3y

Existing customers should be primary audience in any new product launch plan 1. They are familiar with your company, your products. They have literally invested time and money to be familiar with your solutions. They are likely to be the earliest adopters of your new products due to this familiarity of contracting, relationships, UI/UX,use cases, and more 2. Even if your new product is for a distinct buyer/use case/user than your existing users , you are likely to find them in existing customers ...Read More

322 Views
Dave Daniels

BrainKraft Founder • 8y

Depends. If you have a risk averse target market and you need reference customers as proof, customers are very import. Identify potential candidates for your new product within your customer base and work like hell to turn them into references (I don't care how, just get them to sing like a bird).

If your new product is targeted at your customer base, get them onboard early like Nina suggests.

403 Views
Shannon Johlic

Auryc Head of Marketing • 4y

Customers MUST be a part of any product launch. While you never want to treat them as "guinea pigs" for any new feature, they are your best resource to test the market fit before you even dream of actually pushing any update to product and promoting it. Including your customers in the launch is vital. Keep the lines of communication open during any product launch. Any product launch has a growth component in it - be it for new logos, new revenue lines, or even expansion of current contracts. Yo ...Read More

300 Views
Carlos González de Villaumbrosia

Product School CEO • 7y

I believe that this question has a two-fold answer. The first being that existing customers should play a large role in product launches. Since they have already bought into the previous models, you want them to remain loyal with new features. Launching something new without considering them in mind could have a hugely adverse effect. Also, as David mentioned above, the refrences from existing products is what will help drive success for the launch and the overall lifespan of the product. On th ...Read More

608 Views