How to Launch a Product | Derek Osgood, CEO of Ignition

Summary

The transcript discusses the intricacies of product launches, emphasizing the importance of having a structured process. It suggests that either a product marketer or product manager should lead the launch, depending on their strategic and operational capabilities. The ideal launch process includes alpha, beta, and general availability phases, with a focus on research, strategic development, and execution. The speaker highlights the significance of setting clear goals, effective internal communication, and ongoing momentum post-launch to ensure success.

Takeaways

• 🤔 Product launches should generally be led by a product marketer, but if the product marketer lacks certain skills, a product manager could lead.
• 📝 Successful product launches require thorough pre-launch research, including understanding customer needs and conducting competitive analysis.
• 🚀 Product launches typically follow three phases: Alpha (internal testing), Beta (wider external testing), and GA (general availability).
• 📊 During the Alpha phase, close stakeholders like trusted customers, partners, or investors can help gauge the product's value.
• 🛠 In the Beta phase, focus on strategic development, positioning, messaging, and preparing assets for the public launch.
• 📅 Internal training and enablement are crucial prior to launch day to ensure all teams, especially sales and marketing, are aligned and prepared.
• 🎯 Launch success can be measured through business metrics (revenue impact), marketing goals (category penetration), and communication goals (message influence).
• 💡 The post-launch phase should include ongoing content and efforts to maintain momentum, such as blogs or other collateral that extends the product story.
• ⚠️ A common breakdown in launches occurs when companies lack a defined process, leading to last-minute scrambling and underwhelming results.
• 📢 Effective communication and cross-team collaboration are key to ensuring all stakeholders are aligned and equipped with the right information for a successful launch.

Q & A

Who should typically lead a product launch?

A product marketer should typically lead a product launch, but this depends on the skill set of the product marketer. If the product marketer is not strategic or operational enough, then the product manager, who is closest to the product and has a holistic view of the customer, should lead.

What are the typical phases of a product launch?

The typical phases of a product launch are Alpha, Beta, and GA (general availability). Each phase involves different activities such as research, onboarding early users, and developing core strategies like positioning and messaging before executing the final launch.

What should be done before the Alpha phase?

Before the Alpha phase, product marketing should be tightly embedded with product teams to perform customer discovery, understand customer problems, conduct competitive intelligence, and expand the roadmap.

What is the purpose of the Beta phase in a product launch?

During the Beta phase, the focus is on more executional work. This includes creating collateral, conducting pre-promotion, and possibly offering beta programs to a broader group of users to gauge product readiness.

Why is internal training important before a product launch?

Internal training is crucial to ensure that teams like sales, customer success, and marketing are fully equipped with the knowledge and materials they need to discuss and sell the product effectively for the next 6-12 months.

What is a 'Rolling Thunder' approach in product marketing?

The 'Rolling Thunder' approach refers to continuing to release content and collateral related to the product after the official launch, maintaining momentum and keeping the product top of mind for months after launch.

How should the success of a product launch be measured?

Success should be measured through a combination of revenue metrics, marketing targets (such as category penetration or market growth), and communications goals (how well the product’s message was received by customers).

What are common reasons product launches fail?

Product launches often fail due to the lack of a clear process, inadequate research, poor communication between teams, or neglecting internal enablement for key stakeholders such as sales and customer success.

What role does research play in a successful product launch?

Research helps define the target audience, understand customer problems, analyze competitors, and clarify the product’s unique value proposition. This sets the foundation for a well-informed product launch.

How should different teams be enabled during a product launch?

Each team, such as sales, marketing, and customer success, requires different information and assets. A successful launch ensures that each team has the right enablement materials at the right time to effectively communicate with customers.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Product Launch Leadership and Strategy

The paragraph discusses the ideal leader for a product launch, suggesting that it should typically be a product marketer due to their strategic and operational alignment with the product. However, it also acknowledges that the suitability depends on the marketer's skillset, with a fallback to the product manager if the marketer is not strategic or operational enough. The discussion then transitions into the phases of a product launch, emphasizing the importance of research and customer discovery before product development. The alpha, beta, and general availability (GA) phases are outlined, with each having specific strategic and executional tasks. The alpha phase focuses on internal testing and strategic development, beta on execution and external pre-promotion, and GA on the public launch and internal team enablement. The paragraph concludes with advice on maintaining momentum post-launch through ongoing content and collateral release.

05:02

📊 Measuring Launch Success and Common Pitfalls

This section delves into how to measure the success of a product launch, advocating for setting clear goals and using an OKR structure. It stresses the importance of tying launch efforts to revenue and business metrics, such as customer retention, market penetration, or upsell opportunities. The paragraph outlines a three-tiered goal setting approach: business metrics (like revenue targets), marketing targets (like category growth), and communication goals (influencing customer perception). It also touches on common issues in launch processes, such as the lack of a defined process, poor research, and inadequate communication, which can lead to last-minute scrambling and ineffective launches. The importance of considering all stakeholders and their needs during the launch is highlighted, as neglecting any can doom the launch to failure.

10:03

🗣️ The Crucial Role of Communication in Launches

The final paragraph emphasizes the critical nature of communication during product launches. It points out that failures often stem from a lack of effective communication among different teams, such as product management, marketing, sales, and customer service. The paragraph stresses the need to ensure that all stakeholders are informed and enabled with the necessary information and assets at the right time. It likens the go-to-market process to an enablement exercise, where the goal is to disseminate the right information to the right teams to facilitate customer communication. The paragraph concludes with a cautionary note on the potential for launch failure due to communication breakdowns, regardless of the quality of the marketing or messaging.

Keywords

💡Product Launch

A product launch refers to the process of introducing a new product to the market. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of a well-structured product launch process, highlighting different phases such as alpha, beta, and general availability (GA). This process involves not only the release but also extensive research, customer engagement, and internal team training to ensure success.

💡Product Marketer

A product marketer is a professional responsible for bringing a product to market and ensuring its successful adoption. In the video, the speaker discusses how product marketers should ideally lead product launches, provided they have the right strategic and operational skill sets. They are key in crafting messaging, positioning, and aligning efforts across teams.

💡Alpha Phase

The alpha phase is an early stage in the product development cycle where the product is tested internally or with a select group of trusted users. The speaker mentions that during this phase, companies engage in research and strategic development, including positioning and competitive analysis. It's a crucial step before beta testing begins.

💡Beta Phase

The beta phase is the stage following alpha where the product is tested by a broader group of users, typically those who have opted into a beta program. In the video, this phase involves more executional work, pre-promotion, and asset creation. The goal is to gather feedback and further refine the product before its full public launch.

💡General Availability (GA)

General Availability (GA) is when the product is officially launched to the public and becomes fully accessible to all customers. The speaker describes this as the 'big splashy' launch day, where the product is marketed externally, and internal teams are fully trained and equipped to sell and support it.

💡Customer Enablement

Customer enablement refers to ensuring that internal teams, like sales and customer support, are well-equipped with the knowledge and tools to effectively sell and assist customers with a new product. The speaker emphasizes that much of the launch process revolves around training internal teams to communicate the product’s value and support it post-launch.

💡Positioning

Positioning refers to how a product is perceived in the market relative to competitors. The speaker notes that during the early phases of a launch, product marketers must define the product’s positioning by understanding customer needs, competitive advantages, and how the product solves specific problems for the target audience.

💡Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence involves gathering and analyzing information about competitors to inform strategic decisions. In the context of a product launch, the speaker highlights the importance of understanding alternatives that customers could be using and where the new product can differentiate itself from competitors.

💡Go-to-Market Team

The go-to-market team consists of various departments responsible for executing the product launch, including sales, marketing, and customer success teams. The speaker discusses the challenges of aligning communication and enabling each team with the right resources and information, stressing that successful product launches rely on their cohesion.

💡Rolling Thunder Approach

A rolling thunder approach refers to an ongoing marketing strategy post-launch, where the initial launch is followed by continuous efforts to maintain momentum. The speaker suggests using a rolling thunder approach to keep the product in the spotlight by creating and distributing additional content after the launch day, ensuring sustained customer engagement.

Highlights

The importance of having a product marketer lead a product launch due to their strategic and operational skills.

The product manager should lead if the product marketer is not suited for the role.

The necessity of aligning time frames and having a holistic view of the customer for successful launches.

The typical phases of a product launch process: alpha, beta, and general availability (GA).

The significance of research and customer discovery before product development.

The role of competitive intelligence in product launches.

The alpha phase as a time for onboarding friendly customers and internal testing.

Beta phase activities include executing core strategic development and pre-promotion.

The importance of internal training and enablement before the GA launch day.

The concept of a 'big splashy launch day' to capture attention.

The necessity of an ongoing strategy post-launch to maintain momentum.

Creative ways to extend the launch process, such as post-launch blog posts.

Setting up goals and OKRs for a product launch.

The need to tie launch goals back to revenue and business metrics.

The common issue of companies lacking a defined launch process.

The problem of poor communication leading to failed launches.

The need for effective enablement and communication with all stakeholders.

Transcripts

I'd love to spend kind of the the rest

of our time just talking about product

marketing and product launches uh a

little bit more broadly because you're a

wealth of knowledge here and you're

obviously thinking about this stuff all

day long I think my first question is

maybe a basic one like who should lead a

product launch I mean I generally

believe that it should be a product

marketer um it does depend on the

characteristics of that product marketer

like product marketers take a lot of

different shapes and sizes some of them

are not really great at leading launches

because they're either not you know

strategic or not operationalized enough

and they may just be more kind of like

content and sales enablement skewing

Market product marketers so it depends

on the on the skill set if not product

marketing then I generally think that

actually the product manager should

because they're just going to be the

closest to the product itself and like

be able to align time frames and and uh

has the most holistic view of like who

the customer is why they care about it

but it does kind of depend on the

character like the structure of the

marketing orc um so you know if product

marketing is like well built out I would

say product marketing should if they're

not then typically it should be somebody

somebody in product and then what does

kind of like the perfect product launch

process look like like and I'm sure

there it's different for every company

and all that stuff but are there like

typical phases that people can follow or

somebody who's never really launched a

product before like what advice would

you say for them as sort of building a

road map towards that launch I'll try

and give a concise answer on this like

realistically this I could spend four

days and probably not get you through

the whole process because it's a big

chunky one but um you know I think like

typically you kind of think about

product launches as like you have an

alpha you have a beta and you have a ga

phase right so like most people kind of

think about launches through the lens of

the actual product delivery cycle so

upfront like before Alpha you should be

doing a bunch of research you should

like before the products ever even built

product marketing should be tightly

embedded with product actually doing a

lot of the like generative customer

Discovery to understand like who

customers are why they need this thing

what the problems that are being solved

to them are and expanding the road map

so that you should also be doing

competitive Intel that period where

you're understanding like okay what are

the possible Alternatives that customers

could be using for this thing that

you're launching and what are they good

and bad at where are we going to

actually separate ourselves and where

should we be focusing efforts from a

Ming perspective um moving through the

alpha period like Alpha is typically

when you would just start onboarding

like some of your friendlies like you

onboard like a couple of like really

trusted customers usually it's more like

dog fooding internally or working with

like Partners or you know investors to

kind of gauge the um whether the product

is kind of solving the problems that you

set out to solve um during that period

you're really doing a lot of like core

strategic development like positioning

understanding positioning messaging um

you know what your channel plan is going

to look like and how you're actually

going to roll out and communicate that

product to people what assets do you

need to get created in order to launch

it um during beta is when you're like

doing a lot more of the executional work

it's when you're actually like creating

all that c Al and even starting to do

some of the like external pre-promotion

and starting to kind of like set up

teasers or exclusivity programs or beta

or or like Clos betas with a slightly

broader group of customers that you know

may have opted into a beta program and

then you know at GA when you actually

launch it to make it publicly available

you obviously have launch day which is

your big splashy launch but you know a

couple of weeks before that you're doing

a lot of internal training and like so

much of the launch process centers

around enablement for internal teams

like everybody thinks about like the

launch as like the external part of the

launch and like the Splashy what are we

what are we where are we launching to

customers are we getting press you know

are we doing a product hunt launch like

what's our what collateral did we create

but the important thing is really how

did you introduce that product to the

teams that are going to be talking to

customers about it day in day out for

the next 6 to 12 months which is like

sales success your marketing team and

getting the assets and collateral into

their hands that they need in order to

be able to sell it so you know you do a

lot of training leading into launch day

then you do a big splashy day to kind of

just like put a lightning strike in the

ground and make sure that like the world

pays attention to it and then you should

have kind of an ongoing Rolling Thunder

approach after that where you're taking

a lot of the messaging that you used for

that launch and like ideally continuing

to trickle out other content and

collateral to keep momentum on that

launch for you know one two three months

after launch you know I think uh I just

did a podcast earlier today with ten and

from kabi and she was saying that um you

know basically like we were tearing down

equals this recent like AI assistant

launch and one of the creative things

they did is they you know did a blog

post after launch talking about how they

named the product that they had launched

and it's like taking things that are

decisions that you made during your

launch process to extend the launch

process by creating other Downstream

colle Cal is a really like just easy

Ling and fruit creative way for you to

actually be able to like to carry that

momentum Beyond you know the day of

launch itself and and that's the biggest

thing is like when you're thinking about

launch you know the one biggest piece of

advice I would give is like think about

it as a commercialization process like

don't think about it as a process

leading up to launch day you're doing a

bunch of work leading into launch day

but you're also doing all that work to

support a big postlaunch

you know uh selling

process and how do you know if a launch

is successful do you just look at

Revenue tied back to that as it user

engagement do you recommend people set

up goals ahead of time this is something

I always struggled with and we never

really got right at L us I'm curious you

think yeah so you should definitely like

have goals leading into the launch and

like set up the true kind of okr

structure for that launch and again like

we're talking more about like kind of

bigger product launches there's also

obviously like smaller releases that are

not going to have quite as much up fr

planning but um I think usually like the

way that I launches should be

contributing to revenue like you're not

building things at your company just for

fun and and for Giggles you know it's

like you are doing this stuff because it

is somehow some way going to

meaningfully contribute to the company's

bottom line whether that's retaining

more customers opening a new market and

like having a new Tam to be able to go

after you know creating more upsell

opportunities with your existing

customers and so you should be mapping

to those business metrics and the way

that I like to set goals for launches is

I like to set like a business metric

which is usually some kind of Revenue

Target could be something like an upsell

or cross sell Target if it's if you're

not talking about like Topline Revenue

um and then you set a marketing Target

which is basically the objective at the

Strategic level of like okay we want to

grow this category by this percent or we

want to penetrate this new category that

we're entering by this percent and so

you try and actually get to just kind of

an objective level Target for um you

know what the the approach to marketing

you're going to take is and then you

have like a Communications goal which is

how do we how much did we influence

customers perception of the product into

you know whatever message you're trying

to get across is and you can set up

measurement for each of those different

things right like you know when you're

talking about Revenue targets that's

pretty easy you're looking at like

overall Revenue impact how did that you

know move up or down pre and post launch

on average and like ideally you're

looking at like a revenue growth rate at

the marketing Target level like

depending on what your goal is like

category penetration you're looking at

okay of 10,000 customers in this

category we now have 1,000 of those so

we penetrated the um penetrated the

market 10% and when it comes to um the

communication goal you're really doing

that through like qualitative surveying

and like understanding how customers

regate back to you the message that you

tried to communic in that lach um so

there's a bunch of different ways to do

it I mean there's like you can that's a

rudimentary structure for this you can

go a lot deeper into any one of those

areas but um generally like I I would

always try and tie it back to revenue

because like otherwise why are you

investing the effort in launching the

thing in the first place yeah no I think

it's a really really helpful framework

and you obviously talked to a lot of

companies about launches you see this a

lot is there a trend that you see where

the launch process always breaks down is

there something where yeah there's

always kind of that problem area in the

launch I I mean you can take your pick I

think every single every single company

that I talk to um barring a very very

small set of like exceptions um their

launch processes in some way shape or

form a mess usually it's the biggest

break reason that it breaks down is

because they don't have a process in the

first place they don't actually have a

muscle built out and they don't have a

defined set of steps that they're going

to take they don't have a defined way of

understanding like which launches are we

going to invest effort in and like so

there's no teering framework in place to

actually be able to identify okay this

should be a big launch this should be a

medium launch this should be a small

launch this thing we shouldn't launch at

all um and they that leads to them

actually just kind of scrambling at the

last second because they don't actually

know what time frames look like to be

able to actually launch the thing so

they end up just basically spending you

know a week leading into it and then

they just send one email to customers

and that's their launch and customers

you know 30 % of customers open it most

of them don't actually engage they

forget about it 2 weeks later and then

that product ends up flopping so it's

like it's it's very common um but the

biggest the biggest place that people

break down is they either just don't

have a process or they don't do research

to inform that launch yeah I think

another one I'll add is just

communication in general I feel like

when we were doing launches at lus the

moments where we messed up it was like

the PM thought it was a super important

launch but marketing didn't and then

that was communicated really poorly like

prior ities or like in the launch

process like one team got left behind

like we really focused on the sales team

and like enabling them but like we kind

of forgot about Cs and like new you know

customers were were kind of forgotten

about and like yeah like we just kind of

forgot about each little stakeholder

because it's a lot of work to manage all

these different kind of personas on the

go to market team and across the company

100% And they each need different

subsets of information they each need

different types of enablement I mean go

to market like at the end of the day is

an enablement exercise it's all about

getting the right information into the

right team's hands at the right time so

they can actually go tell customers

about it and so if you don't communicate

effectively if you don't have a motion

for getting those teams visibility and

you don't have motion for getting

information and assets into their hands

like the launch fails no matter what no

matter how good your messeng is no

matter how good your marketing is

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