Adam Weigand

* Test, learn, and validate Formulating the foundation of your launch plan purely on an educated hypothesis is an OK starting point, but going to market on one is incredibly risky. Being a product marketer in 2021 means you have access to a variety of third-party or in-house tools to help test and validate the core components of your go-to-market strategy with end customers, including value propositions, positioning elements, and key messaging pillars. I typically like to run as many rapid-fire qualitative feedback sessions in a condensed time period as possible, and then validate those findings at scale with a fast-follow quantitative study. * Be comfortable with an iterative launch plan When I’m writing the product marketing brief that will ultimately become the launch plan, I rarely get it right on the first draft. I like to involve other cross-functional collaborators (PM, Sales, Design, Research, Legal, etc.) early in the process to pressure test my assumptions and ensure we’re all aligned before the plan becomes solidified. Investing in this upfront will save you from a scramble drill as you approach launch day and ensure you have plenty of runway to make pre-launch modifications based on key stakeholder inputs. * Have a clear path to measuring success Clear-cut KPIs and agreement on the timing in which you achieve significance in those metrics will be integral in determining whether your launch was a success. I like to partner with data science and engineering to build both the tracking mechanisms that power the marketing funnel like UTM parameters and deeplinks, as well as the dashboards and reporting that ultimately tell me if our tactics are impactful on launch day and beyond.

A critical yet simple tool that I’ve used to get cross-functional marketing teams aligned early and often is a crisply written marketing brief that outlines DRIs (directly responsible individuals) for each swimlane of work. This document can serve as the northstar for go-to-market efforts, not only distilling product context down to its core, but also detailing key elements of the overall marketing strategy such as KPIs, positioning and messaging, and the overall channel strategy. Once socialized and agreed upon with the broader marketing team, individual channel leads (like CRM, performance marketing, etc.) will play a key role in the executional elements while PMM continues to serve as the common strategic thread and ultimate approver of what hits the external airwaves.

Two things come to mind to keep your launches unique and differentiated while still laddering up to topline product and company goals: 1. Encourage new channel experimentation as part of the launch process to keep the go-to-market playbook fresh and ever-evolving. Be open to adding new chapters with each subsequent launch. 2. Don’t be afraid to include adjacent functions in your go-to-market process, specifically product and brand experience design teams. Leveraging their expertise will uplevel the creative themes attached to your launch moment and beyond.

A very good foundational question. This should tie back to the well-defined KPIs you set early in the go-to-market planning process, and time-gating your launch tactics against those KPIs can give you the clearest signal on success. This is especially true when the “launch” phase of work is simply the first of a multi-phase adoption and growth plan and you have deliverables that are inherently tied to “launch day” activities such as a press announcement or a launch email campaign. Once you’ve met or exceeded your launch phase KPIs in the pre-established timeline, you’re ready to move onto the next phase of work.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer here, so when making this decision at your company, leverage a key PMM superpower: start with the customer, gain an understanding of their needs, and the rest will follow. For example, as part of a continuous feedback loop with customers, you can ask questions around communication preferences both in desired channels and cadence which could help inform your approach. Internally, it’s also important to gain alignment on a prioritization framework which will help dictate the size of the marketing effort that you put behind any given feature or product launch. This will clarify your own marketing roadmap prioritization, align cross-functional teams, and ensure that you’re carving out right-sized budgets and creative resourcing.

Proactively plan for sustained momentum from day one. It’s tempting (and deceptively easy) to over-invest in “launch day” activities given all of the buzz these moments can generate. While it varies based on the tactics you deploy, the initial launch announcement is often great for top-of-funnel awareness but can leave some significant gaps in product adoption given the short attention spans of consumers. Mapping out a steady drumbeat of activity post-launch is critical to sustaining that desired momentum and meeting your adoption KPIs. A well positioned launch plan will allow you to continue leveraging the same or similar messaging, value props, and even potentially creative assets in your post-launch activities.