Introduction:

Imaging you are a product marketing manager at a startup and you have been entrusted with leading the all important product launch.  It can be a life changing event and one of the most sought after project for a founding PMM. Because if all goes well, this is going to be a big feather in your career growth and add a steep learning curve for you.

But how do you navigate the product launch maze specially in a startup environment, which is highly unpredictable and fluid

Product launches are exciting yet stressful due to the so many moving elements. While there are no one size fit all strategy to product launch, there are elements which remain consistent during product launch project execution.

In this article I will cover the key steps that a product marketing manger should take while preparing for a product launch.

We will deep dive into a process which can then be modified or used for any product launch campaign.

We will also look at Duolingo and analyse their product launch which led them to grow into a billion dollar tech product. So lets dive in…

Prelude:

The first launch that I was involved in was way back in 2008. Back then as a junior marketing manager, I had a bird eye view of the entire product launch process without being directly involved. Yet that experience give me a rush which helped me gravitated towards a career in marketing.

2012 , as a founding PMM I got my change to launch my first product, an ed-tech platform. While the experience help me grow as a marketer, it was also an eye opener. Navigating the product launch maze is far from a smooth ride.

Over the years being part of or leading more than 20+ global product launched and countless releases, I have been able to answer some of the critical questions which we all tend to have as a marketer.

So how do you as a marketer tackle the challenges of a product launch?. What are some of the key focus areas? And how do you as a marketer design a successful launch strategy? Lets deep dive….

Section 1: Understanding the Fundamentals behind a product launch:

Product launch is one of the key marketing responsibilities, if your are working in a consumer product organisation, the launch is led by either a brand or a product marketing manager, in tech and product led organisation it is the key responsibility of the product marketing manager.

What purpose does a product launch serve?

 The purpose of a product launch is to introduce your product to a target market segment & set it up for success by generating demands for it in the target market

 At its core lies a combination of efforts which includes, market research, user understanding, planning and a execution strategy

Understanding the difference between the launch strategy and GTM strategy:

• The launch strategy is a subset of the larger GTM strategy and as such its ownership is primarily with the product manager/owner. However the marketing managers have a critical role to play in executing a successful product launch strategy.

• The role of a product marketing manager is to use market and user data to design and execute a launch campaign that ensures a successful introduction of the product in the chosen market and increase the viability, awareness and adoption of the product

• Your launch plan should be designed to ensure that your product has the best opportunity to succeed in the target market.

• The four core skills a product marketing manager should demonstrate for a successful execution of a product launch:

  • Research

  • Planning

  • Cross- collaboration and,

  • Campaign design & execution

Product marketing managers should be skilled at the above four process, any launch requires through planning involving cross function stakeholders and internal audiences. Your launch strategy has to be based on data and insights to fall back on and also use it to design a campaign that offers the best shot at success and achieving your launch objective. We will cover how to gain these skills in another article.

Section-1 A) Segmenting your launch plan:

Segmenting your launch

The fundamental rule of tackling any business process, is to break it down into manageable chunks. In case of product launch, a PMM should segment their launch strategy based on three core stages.

• Pre launch stage ( Research & Planning)

• Launch stage and,

• Post launch stage

• Launch campaign

• Post launch review and actions

Lets deep dive into each part

Pre launch planning & launch readiness

• Pre launch entails that PMM aligned their focus to achieve their startup's north star,  make your brand recognisable and build momentum for a successful launch.

• Getting launch ready is the main objective of the PMM during the pre launch period. Product marketers anchors the entire operational requirements for the launch. Hence product pre-launch activities become very critical for a successful launch. PMMs are responsible for developing the frameworks and the content for the marketing assets, from messaging, and positioning statements to defining the ICP. They also create or support the creation of content, sales collateral, as well as digital assets to be used for all internal and external communications about a product

• As such the pre- launch period is the phase where a PMM should focus on:

1. Deep dive into user research:

The first step in designing a launch strategy is the answer the below critical questions which connects your product to your target users

Addressing the above enables a product marketing manager to be launch ready with a clear understanding of their

• Target audience

• ICP

• The key components of their product message,

• Key product differentiator leading up to your positioning strategy.

2. Identify your audience & map it to your pre acquisition customer journey process

( Will deep dive into customer journey mapping in another article)

• User

• Influencer

• Decision maker

Your product launch campaign strategy should address specific pain or value add for each of these categories specifically when you are a B2B product.

Hence covering every critical use case for each of the touchpoint in the decision journey is important.

3. Collaboration & initial outreach:

• Build bridge through early outreach and engagement with your target audience. Design and execute a drip strategy of systematically seeding content/information about your product through various channel. This will help drive awareness, build early hype, identify the marketing channel that can work best for your launch campaign and also narrow down the user segment to target during launch. (Will share more on drip campaign in another article)

• Achieve internal customers &  stakeholder alignment  with your launch plan. Launch activities involves collaboration and coordination with multiple internal stakeholders who would play a critical role in the launch plan. For example, PR  release, event participation, aligning messages and positioning across marketing assets, validating ICP as well as your early onboarding flow etc

• Invest in community development. Pre launch is a great opportunity for a PMM to invest in building a community around your product. This is beneficial in identifying, engaging and acquiring early adaptors and also develop strong user advocacy for your product. Communities can be designed through AMA, debates and discussions, Q&A and also as a way of getting user feedback. Early community will help PMMs refine the funnel strategy which is very critical for the success of the launch plan ( Visual illustration )

Section 2: The Role of product marketer in driving the product launch ( what & how is it to be done)

Executing a successful launch campaign    

• Product launch is the day when your product is available to your users. Your launch campaign can precede your product launch by a few days, weeks or months.For a product marketing manager, product launch is a tactical and strategic initiative to bring your product to market. The campaign itself can run up to the day and beyond of your product release.

Key objectives of product launch:

1. Going live with your product story

2. Executing your promotional and communication plan

3. Taking your marketing asset live ( landing page, product hunt launch, signup form, email )

4. Your launch should follow with a specific CTA.: What action do you wish your target audience take when they see, engage with your campaign or assets?

Your launch campaign objective may vary depending on the stage and type of launch as well as priority. ( As mentioned above)

It could be as low key as a email communication to your target users and as grand as a large scale event to announce the launch.

1.Planning according to your launch priority

I typically like to , first understand the launch in terms of business and user priority .

Your product launch campaign depth and investment would depend on the  priority that is associated with the launch ( from a business and user priority framework)

Usually there are four priority categories for product launches:

P1: Priority-1, These are major launch which could mean an new product launch and or a major annual launch related to your existing product. These are launches which are critical for your users as well as your business and hence are of high importance.

P2: Priority-2 are typically cadenced or periodic launch of a critical features or a bunch of features at a select time period in a year. These are critical for your users and typically can be done periodically along with your other business priorities

P3- Priority-3, these are regular or not so critical product feature releases which happen at a regular interval of time.

P4- Priority-4, Not critical for both business and users and does not require any investment and done as a regular update

Breakdown your launch priority framework ( Visual Representation )

Product launch plan is not a singular activity rather a mix of activities across multiple forums and platform to ensure a successful product launch

I like to segment the this part into two categories

2. Launch Component:

Once the pre launch part has been completed, product marketing managers now need to focus on the two key levers of their launch strategy:

1. Content plan

   1. Content readiness is critical for your product launch campaign to succeed ( Content Bucket Visual)

   2. It involves being ready with your copy as well as iteration and stage wise content board to ensure your target users get what you plan to convey

1. Channel prioritisation

Product marketing manager should plan the above two categories in order to address the 4 W ( Visual Framework)

• Who to target

• Why should they bother with our product

• Where do you engage them

• What type of content or engagement do you use

This will then dovetail into your marketing funnel or channel plan as part of your larger launch strategy:

Product launch success matrices

Product launch matrices are depended on your launch objective/outcomes and the user journey from pre launch to post launch

Product marketing managers owns the funnel and the touch points during any launch activities and they are responsible for mapping the desired outcome for every user touchpoint during the launch execution.

Depending on the state of the product launch ( New product launch, relaunch, upgrade etc) and the user awareness and affinity towards the product, product marketing managers design the launch funnel and own the outcome.

In order to analyse your launch outcomes, it is critical to first define

• What was the objective of each activity?

• What kind of content and marketing assets were used? and

• What are the outcome associated with each activity

Launch are usually geared towards user acquisition or upgrades as the ultimate outcome.

And hence there is a

• Pre acquisition phase,

• Acquisition and onboarding phase and then

• The usage, retention and loyalty phase to any launch or larger GTM strategy

For any launch I like to define my outcomes or objective by something I call as  "A-SMART" goals:

• A: Attribution: Your precise attribution will allow you to associate success of your campaign to the campaign elements and also help analysis if you have achieved your desired outcomes

• S: Specific

• M: Measurable

• A: Achievable

• R: Relevant

• T: Time - bound.

What to measure:

• Traffic

• Trail/demo sign up rate

• Registration and activation rate

• Feature engagement

• Upgrades and retention.

• Feedbacks and reviews

Section 4: Challenges and Solutions

Things to do for product launch success

Wow! We just covered a lot of ground. We hope you find this article helpful.

In case you’re looking for a bit more guidance, here are few extra tips and recap for product launch success.

1. Segment your launch plan

As you’re sketching out your product launch plan, it can be helpful to segment that plan into distinct phases or sections. Examples include …

1. Researching the market and competition

2. Developing the buyer persona(s)

3. Building the internal positioning framework

… and so on. Without any kind of segmentation, there’s a greater risk of falling behind and/or failing to dedicate sufficient time to certain phases.

2. Stay focused on your ideal buyer

We’ve explored quite a few tactics throughout this post. To ensure that you’re generating adequate awareness and demand—and doing so amongst the right people—keep your ideal buyer in mind at all times. Your approach should be bold, but it should be targeted, too.

3. Measure success & learn for next time

Each and every product launch is a learning opportunity. No matter what, you should walk away with a better understanding of your target market and the people who comprise it. Questions for you and your team to consider include …

1. Which marketing channels and tactics were most effective? Which were least effective?

2. How strong (or weak) is adoption thus far?

3. What feedback, if any, have we gotten from prospects and customers?

The more thorough you are in the examination of your product launch, the greater your chances of delivering better results next time.

Part 2. The Case study: Duolingo and its successful launch campaign

About the brand:

Duolingo is a leading digital learning platform, its success from a startup to a 6 Billion USD valuations is a case study in itself.

Duolingo’s mission: making language education personalised, fun and universally accessible

The pain: Education specially in poorer countries was expensive and hence inaccessible to the masses and specially language learning apps were extremely costly and hence out of reach for most.

That’s when Duolingo was born, promising free language learning to everyone. Accessible to everyone who wants to learn. ✨

Multiple factors are responsible for the meteoric rise and popularity of Duolingo as a learning platform, its marketing strategy being one of the key reason.

They launched Duolingo as a private beta on November 27, 2011, with six languages. It includes English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian. They opened Duolingo to the public on June 19, 2012, with over 300,000 people on the waiting list.

The what:

Marketing ( product) campaign which stands out as a startup strategy.

• Driven by user research, Duolingo strategy was design led . They focused on making learning fun and accessible. This was the core message they wanted to get across to their target users.

They invested their effort on developing a product which is easy to access, intuitive and engaging with a gamified learning process.

Their pre launch activities focused on identifying their target audience, pain point and also a packaging which will make Duolingo extremely attractive to casual as well as serious learners

• Being Community led: Their strategy was to be a product led community driven platform supported by engaging marketing campaign

• Initiate with a brand identity. The first tweet with "Duo" as "the mascot" was done in Dec-2010 almost a year before Duolingo opened their platform for beta test

The why:

Their launch campaign and why it is so amazing and successful

Duolingo knew very early, the power and reach of social media and used it extensively.

They also knew what made social media so popular, its non serious and potential to create connection helped Duolingo forge strong community structure from very early on.

There content marketing strategy was build on virality which allowed them to reach a large audience in quick time

Another tactic they followed is leverage the powerful personal brand of the founder. They never missed on an opportunity to leverage their founder's personal brand value to establish their mission in front of their audience, this also help them become popular with not just their users, content creators but also investors, who were sold on the idea of Duolingo in no time.

The Messaging:

Then positioning

The communication Strategy:

The how:

They nailed their marketing ( product ) strategy

The three core pillar of Duolingo's marketing strategy was

•  To build a community,

• Be fun engaging and relatable: Duolingo engaged with a young and eager audience in a fun way allowing them to be relatable to the needs of this audience.

• Use extensive social media marketing,

• Use the right tonality/voice as well as be crystal clear on your positioning and shout it out loud.

Duolingo focused on being razor sharp with the product messaging and the their objective, which was to make language learning accessible to all in a fun way

They were adaptive to the use of right channel to reach their target audience and also empowered their user through their community strategy to participate in achieving their larger objective of making language learning accessible and affordable.

Part 3. Marketer's Mindset Moment:  How do you succeed in you first launch as a marketer? Or show resilience when you face of failure?

Everyone of us go through that moment in our marketing career when we are tasked with our first launch. As exciting as it may seem, having butterflies in your stomach is very common. Of-course this is you big moment, your that first chance to shine and prove yourself. But what if you fail? What if you are lost in the excitement and don’t know what to do? How do you handle the pressure? Do you have the skills needed to lead a successful product launch?

These are common questions and doubts that can creep in, trust me I have been there once too often to know that it can drain your energy.

So what should you do? How do you tackle self doubt or handle this over whelming situation?

Lets dive in,

Collaborate: Reach out and engage with your internal stakeholders:

In any organisation, startup or established, no project or activity happens in isolation. Every activity is a moving part of a larger wagon, so go ahead and find out who all are involved in your project. Seek them out, talk to then, ask questions and understand how you can contribute and what you should prioritise. The collective experience of the team is always a great starting point to get yourself sorted

Project Planning:Create your own roadmap or plug into to an existing once ( most organisations have a launch playbook that you can refer to) and document what it is that is expected of you, dig into what was done in the past to get a reference. Documenting your plan helps in visualising and analysing your plan and it also acts as reference when you need help or evaluate your plan

Last thing is have the balanced attitude and resilience. It is ok for your launches to go not as planned and sideways ( this has happened more often to me then I remember). However it is important to know  what your approach was, where you went wrong and how you can do better going forward.

Early on in your career you want to be a learner first and then a performer, without the mindset of a learner you are bound to be stuck in loop of predictable outcomes without the desired results.

Be honest and seek feedback and guidance:

There is no shame is failure as long as you have given your best. While we celebrate success and love to step up and take credit for it, it is common for us to retreat into a dark corner and rue a missed opportunity. We all have been in that situation, whether we like it or not and it never feels great.Seeking feedback and introspection is critical in such situation. Revisit your plan, analyse, review and learn. Be open to suggestion and act on what is best for you to move forward.

Failures can be a great redirection for your future success if only you are willing to take it as a learning step in your growth direction.