What type of customer research do you do pre-launch to help you have a great product launch?

Great question and glad to see people taking a customer-led approach to product launches. There are a few strategies I recommend here and they fall into 4 areas. Review the foundational research and insights that already exist - What you’re launching was built based on deep customer research and …ensure you’re clear on the insights that drove what you’re bringing to market in the first place. If gaps are identified, now is the time to identify and close them. It’s better late than never on the f ...Read More

For clarity, I’ll draw a distinction here between product research and product launch research.1) Product research happens before resources are committed to build the proposed product. Product research is critical to ensure that you are, to use YCombinator parlance, “making something people want”. This is frequently called validation research. You are validating that A) a customer need exists, and B) what you propose to build will meet that customer need. And you are seeking to understand the nu ...Read More

I’m a big believer in customer research as a part of the overall launch plan. It’s tempting to make decisions based on “I think” or “I like” but in most cases, the PMM is not the target audience so it’s important to balance a convicted point of view with actual customer signal.  At Dropbox, we work with our Customer Intelligence team to do quant & qual research across areas like: value prop definition, messaging, creative brand and even perform research early in the pre-build phase to help i ...Read More

It is always a good idea to factor in some time for research pre-launch to make sure your messaging is resonating with your target customer. In the past, I've done this both via quant surveys (Pros: more data driven confidence levels but Cons: Finding the right prospect audience can be expensive) and qual (Pros: can learn more of the why and insights, Cons: lower levels of confidence). Another useful tactic is to loop in your GTM teams early on to get their thoughts on concepts/messaging. But ul ...Read More

It depends on the launch, but I will usually do a mix of these:Customer Research: Talk with existing customers, or survey your existing customer base (or a segment of it) if a solution your launching is directly related or adjacent to an existing product you have. If you need deep insight into the pain points a customer is facing a 1:1 conversation would likely be best. There’s no magic number of conversation to have - but once you start noticing trends in a lot of answers you can generally stop ...Read More

Customer research is so critical to the success of a launch and the extent of it will depend on the size and scope of the launch. At a minimum, you'll want to do customer interviews to understand:- The customer problem - The value the product will deliver- Who your target segment(s) and persona(s) areThese will serve as the inputs to your product or feature messaging and positioning. If you work at an enterprise-focused company, it's sometimes not so easy to get in front of senior buyers at the ...Read More

To answer this question, first ask yourself a number of questions: Business importance: Is this a smaller feature, or is it a big bet and large revenue driver? Risk: Even if it's not a large revenue driver, there may be a substantial reputational risk to getting it wrong. Is this one of those situations? Timing: When does this need to hit market? Can you convince management and stakeholders to wait for research, or do you need to act now? (Side note: Many projects will feel urgent, but it's rare ...Read More

I like to break this down into: product research, messaging research, GTM research. Product research is research you do to inform the product the team builds. This almost always manifests in alpha and beta testing, but it can also be a specific research project you tackle. Messaging research is research you do to inform how you talk about the product. It can be as simple as showing a few customers your landing page to as complex as testing different audiences with messaging options and ad varian ...Read More

Customer research is a gold mine - if done correctly. What's not understood, and often missed, is that customer research should be a continuous effort. It is often poorly conducted when timelines are short and pressure is high. Work with sales, customer support, field marketers, and SAs to help you identify customers willing to provide feedback on your product. Find moments at events (big and small) to host customer round tables, 1:1 conversations, or sponsored dinners. During pre-launch phases, ...Read More

Love this question. I take a 1 is greater than 0, even if it's less than 100 strategy here. Talking to any customers is better than talking to no customers. Obviously if you have sufficient time you'll want to gather feedback (qual + quant) on both the product experience, the positioning, and any campaign messaging or assets that you have. I find that's rarely the case though and almost everything is done with half the time and a quarter the resources you'd like. In that case, I take a best gues ...Read More

There are a number of ways to approach customer research pre-launch. At Webflow, we spend a lot of time with our community members to better understand their needs and wants as it relates to our product roadmap and their business needs. Really understanding specific audience segments and the why really helps our product marketing team with better messaging that resonates in the market. I've also been part of organizations where leveraging a cross-functional product beta program with sales, produ ...Read More

The #1 thing is listening to customer calls. Or beta calls if you have someone selling the product before the launch. We use Gong.io for that.  This is where I get most of the positoining. Copy and paste call transcripts into the positioning deck. Better to use their words than make up your own.  Once you have the positioning, you can pitch it to other customers. Get on a call yourself, test it out. So not only does your positioning originate with your customers, but it's validated by more of th ...Read More