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LingQ Academy - Tech Startup Course, 14 Essential Elements of a Flawless Product Launch

14 Essential Elements of a Flawless Product Launch

Getting ready to launch a new product? No matter how great it is, in today's cluttered marketplace, it probably won't speak for itself. So here are 14 lessons I've learned over the years launching products at HubSpot and speaking with product marketers at companies I admire like Apple, Google, and Salesforce. This will be helpful for anyone getting started in product marketing, or business owners with new products in the works.

14 Product Launch Lessons for New Product Marketers

1) Be crystal clear about your buyer persona.

Building a buyer persona is like tying your shoes: If you don't do it before you go anywhere you'll trip and fall. This blog has lots of great articles about building your buyer persona (here's one). My advice: Find every way you can to get to know your buyers. Interview them, watch them, do whatever it takes, then keep doing it.

2) Be crystal clear about your buyer's journey. What is the series of steps that your typical buyer takes on the path from knowing zilch about your brand, to becoming a customer? As a product marketer, you need to know that general path -- and specific examples of steps along the path like search keywords, blogs, and review sites. You should choose product launch content and tactics based on what you know about your typical buyer's journey. 3) Don't expect to generate boatloads of leads. A product launch isn't a top-of-the-funnel marketing activity. Sure, it makes sense to set up forms to collect interest in your launch (here's an example of one we created), but most people don't care about your product. Instead, focus your launch on influencing people who you've already attracted and who are in your funnel. 4) Use your social networks to do lightweight research early on.

Most product marketers get lazy and skip product research. They probably figure it's a complicated task that requires focus groups and testing facilities. Testing your messaging with members of your buyer persona early in your launch planning process will help you narrow in on a message that resonates and avoid an expensive flop at the launch. Plus, you don't need to do heavy-weight focus-group-style research. Just reach out to a few people on Twitter or LinkedIn, give them an Amazon.com gift card, and fire up a free Join.me session.

5) Create a document that spells out launch positioning early on.

Any successful product launch needs to have a clear message that is consistently articulated across your entire company. That's hard, particularly if you have more than one person at your company. The best way to make sure everybody sees eye-to-eye on your launch is to actually write out the positioning.

Create a document that spells out the key points: What are the new features or products that you're launching? Who's the buyer persona? What benefits do they provide the buyer persona? What's the competition and how is your product different? If you can get your whole team to agree on answers to these questions your message will be much sharper when you launch.

6) Create web-based content that explains your product.

So you've been a responsible product marketer -- you did your product research, you created a document to spell out your product positioning -- now you're ready to start creating content. This is a critical step. You can't just send sales a new PowerPoint deck when you launch. Buyers want to learn about your product before they talk to Sales. That means videos, web pages, infographics, whatever it takes to explain your product to people browsing your website.

7) Have a weekly war room for your launch team.

Remember what I said about consistency in #5? Well, even if you have launch document, people start going in different directions as you get closer to a big launch. The best way to nip this in the bud -- and to handle all the coordination that needs to happen for a complicated launch -- is to pull the whole team together once a week to go through all the projects people are working on and resolve open issues.

8) Run a sales test on the new product.

If you have a sales team, you need to train them before your launch. One way to get your team excited about and trained on the new product is to run a test. Here's how you do it. First, pick a few of your top-performing reps. Train them on the new features and let them start selling it. Second, get feedback from them. Figure out how they're positioning it, what kind of tools they need to sell it, and what you can do to help them sell it. Finally, use all the information you gathered from the test to guide training of the full team. The training will be stronger, and the reps will be excited about it because they know it's something the best reps were already using. 9) Create a minute-by-minute plan for the day of your launch.

Don't leave the day of the launch to chance. Create a document that lists everything that needs to happen, and the DRI -- the directly responsible individual -- for each item. Details and timing are critical to the success of your launch day, so it's critical to spell them all out. 10) Make sure your launch is customer-focused.

Lots of marketers focus exclusively on prospects. Don't do that. In many cases your launch will have as much impact on new revenue from existing customers as it will on revenue from new customers. Loop members of your services team into the launch planning. And ask yourself: Will the positioning make sense to customers?

11) If you're launching with a speech, do a test run in front of your whole company. Many companies launch new products in a speech at a major event. If you're doing this, have the executive giving the speech do a dry run in front of the whole company. Marc Benioff does before Dreamforce every year, and we've started doing it at HubSpot before INBOUND. You can pitch it to the executive as a way to communicate the launch messaging to the company (you don't need to mention that it's also a great way to get him or her to practice in front of an important audience). 12) Use case studies in your launch.

Don't make your launch all about features or potential benefits; show the benefits by showing a customer already using the new product. This is complicated, and requires trusting, beta-tolerant customers, but it will catapult your launch into a new level.

Salesforce is great at launching with customers. Here's one of my favorite examples, a launch from last year that they did with the ski equipment company Rossignol. Here's an example of our launch of the Content Optimization System this year with Magellan Jets and New Breed Marketing. 13) Create a shared file filled with resources to empower your evangelists.

One of the best ways to get more reach for your launch is to cultivate relationships with evangelists. Every business has different evangelists -- in some cases they're partner agencies, in other cases they're journalists, in other cases they're analysts. Part of your job as a product marketer is to identify these evangelists and help them tell the story. A great way to help them tell your story is to create an online file (we use a Dropbox at HubSpot) to collect resources that make it easier for evangelists to tell the story of the product launch. Your “resources” could be anything -- pre-written blog posts, images, videos, quotes, data -- whatever you think will help your evangelists tell the story.

14) Attach your launch to a bigger story.

Make sure your launch gives people a reason to care. Don't add features to re-engineered widgets. Take steps that will help change the world. Salesforce doesn't launch software -- it moves its business into the cloud. Google doesn't launch features -- it takes steps toward organizing the world's information. HubSpot isn't just making marketing software -- we're helping people build inbound companies. What is your company doing, and how does your launch reflect that?


14 Essential Elements of a Flawless Product Launch 14 Essential Elements of a Flawless Product Launch 完璧な製品発売の14の重要な要素 14 elementos essenciais para um lançamento de produto sem falhas Kusursuz Bir Ürün Lansmanının 14 Temel Unsuru 14 основних елементів бездоганного запуску продукту 完美产品发布的 14 个基本要素 完美產品發佈的 14 個基本要素

Getting ready to launch a new product? No matter how great it is, in today's cluttered marketplace, it probably won't speak for itself. それがどんなに素晴らしいものであっても、今日の雑然とした市場では、それはおそらくそれ自体を語ることはありません。 So here are 14 lessons I've learned over the years launching products at HubSpot and speaking with product marketers at companies I admire like Apple, Google, and Salesforce. そこで、HubSpotで製品を発売し、Apple、Google、Salesforceなどの尊敬する企業の製品マーケターと話すことで私が長年にわたって学んだ14の教訓を紹介します。 This will be helpful for anyone getting started in product marketing, or business owners with new products in the works. これは、製品マーケティングを始めた人や、新製品を開発中のビジネスオーナーに役立ちます。

14 Product Launch Lessons for New Product Marketers

1) Be crystal clear about your buyer persona. 1)購入者のペルソナについて明確にします。

Building a buyer persona is like tying your shoes: If you don't do it before you go anywhere you'll trip and fall. 購入者のペルソナを構築することは、靴を結ぶようなものです。どこかに行く前にそれを行わないと、つまずいて転んでしまいます。 This blog has lots of great articles about building your buyer persona (here's one). このブログには、購入者のペルソナの構築に関するすばらしい記事がたくさんあります(これが1つです)。 My advice: Find every way you can to get to know your buyers. Interview them, watch them, do whatever it takes, then keep doing it.

2) Be crystal clear about your buyer's journey. What is the series of steps that your typical buyer takes on the path from knowing zilch about your brand, to becoming a customer? あなたの典型的なバイヤーがあなたのブランドについてジルチを知ることから顧客になるまでの道をたどる一連のステップは何ですか? As a product marketer, you need to know that general path -- and specific examples of steps along the path like search keywords, blogs, and review sites. You should choose product launch content and tactics based on what you know about your typical buyer's journey. 3) Don't expect to generate boatloads of leads. 3)大量のリードを生成することを期待しないでください。 A product launch isn't a top-of-the-funnel marketing activity. 製品の発売は、目標到達プロセスの最上位のマーケティング活動ではありません。 Sure, it makes sense to set up forms to collect interest in your launch (here's an example of one we created), but most people don't care about your product. 確かに、ローンチへの関心を集めるためにフォームを設定することは理にかなっています(これが私たちが作成したものの例です)が、ほとんどの人はあなたの製品を気にしません。 Instead, focus your launch on influencing people who you've already attracted and who are in your funnel. 代わりに、あなたがすでに引き付けており、あなたの目標到達プロセスにいる人々に影響を与えることにあなたの立ち上げを集中させてください。 4) Use your social networks to do lightweight research early on.

Most product marketers get lazy and skip product research. ほとんどの製品マーケターは怠惰になり、製品調査をスキップします。 They probably figure it's a complicated task that requires focus groups and testing facilities. 彼らはおそらく、それがフォーカスグループとテスト施設を必要とする複雑なタスクであると考えています。 Testing your messaging with members of your buyer persona early in your launch planning process will help you narrow in on a message that resonates and avoid an expensive flop at the launch. 立ち上げ計画プロセスの早い段階でバイヤーペルソナのメンバーとメッセージをテストすることで、共鳴するメッセージを絞り込み、立ち上げ時の高額なフロップを回避できます。 Plus, you don't need to do heavy-weight focus-group-style research. Just reach out to a few people on Twitter or LinkedIn, give them an Amazon.com gift card, and fire up a free Join.me session.

5) Create a document that spells out launch positioning early on. 5)起動位置を早い段階で詳しく説明するドキュメントを作成します。

Any successful product launch needs to have a clear message that is consistently articulated across your entire company. 製品の発売を成功させるには、会社全体で一貫して明確に表現された明確なメッセージが必要です。 That's hard, particularly if you have more than one person at your company. The best way to make sure everybody sees eye-to-eye on your launch is to actually write out the positioning. 打ち上げ時に全員が目と目で確認できるようにするための最良の方法は、実際にポジショニングを書き出すことです。

Create a document that spells out the key points: What are the new features or products that you're launching? Who's the buyer persona? What benefits do they provide the buyer persona? What's the competition and how is your product different? If you can get your whole team to agree on answers to these questions your message will be much sharper when you launch.

6) Create web-based content that explains your product.

So you've been a responsible product marketer -- you did your product research, you created a document to spell out your product positioning -- now you're ready to start creating content. This is a critical step. You can't just send sales a new PowerPoint deck when you launch. ローンチ時に新しいPowerPointデッキを売りに出すことはできません。 Buyers want to learn about your product before they talk to Sales. That means videos, web pages, infographics, whatever it takes to explain your product to people browsing your website. つまり、ビデオ、Webページ、インフォグラフィックなど、Webサイトを閲覧している人々に製品を説明するために必要なものは何でもです。

7) Have a weekly war room for your launch team.

Remember what I said about consistency in #5? #5の一貫性について私が言ったことを覚えていますか? Well, even if you have launch document, people start going in different directions as you get closer to a big launch. さて、あなたが打ち上げ文書を持っていたとしても、あなたが大きな打ち上げに近づくにつれて、人々は異なる方向に進み始めます。 The best way to nip this in the bud -- and to handle all the coordination that needs to happen for a complicated launch -- is to pull the whole team together once a week to go through all the projects people are working on and resolve open issues. これをつぼみに挟み、複雑な立ち上げに必要なすべての調整を処理するための最良の方法は、チーム全体を週に1回まとめて、人々が取り組んでいるすべてのプロジェクトを実行し、オープンに解決することです。問題。

8) Run a sales test on the new product.

If you have a sales team, you need to train them before your launch. One way to get your team excited about and trained on the new product is to run a test. Here's how you do it. First, pick a few of your top-performing reps. Train them on the new features and let them start selling it. Second, get feedback from them. Figure out how they're positioning it, what kind of tools they need to sell it, and what you can do to help them sell it. 彼らがそれをどのように位置づけているか、彼らがそれを販売するために必要なツールの種類、そして彼らがそれを販売するのを助けるためにあなたができることを理解してください。 Finally, use all the information you gathered from the test to guide training of the full team. 最後に、テストから収集したすべての情報を使用して、チーム全体のトレーニングをガイドします。 The training will be stronger, and the reps will be excited about it because they know it's something the best reps were already using. トレーニングはより強力になり、担当者はそれが最高の担当者がすでに使用していたものであることを知っているので、それに興奮します。 9) Create a minute-by-minute plan for the day of your launch.

Don't leave the day of the launch to chance. 打ち上げの日を偶然に任せないでください。 Create a document that lists everything that needs to happen, and the DRI -- the directly responsible individual -- for each item. 発生する必要のあるすべてのことをリストしたドキュメントを作成し、各アイテムのDRI(直接責任者)を作成します。 Details and timing are critical to the success of your launch day, so it's critical to spell them all out. 詳細とタイミングは、発売日の成功に不可欠であるため、それらすべてを詳しく説明することが重要です。 10) Make sure your launch is customer-focused.

Lots of marketers focus exclusively on prospects. Don't do that. In many cases your launch will have as much impact on new revenue from existing customers as it will on revenue from new customers. 多くの場合、ローンチは、既存の顧客からの新規収益に、新規顧客からの収益と同じくらい大きな影響を及ぼします。 Loop members of your services team into the launch planning. サービスチームのメンバーを立ち上げ計画にループさせます。 And ask yourself: Will the positioning make sense to customers?

11) If you're launching with a speech, do a test run in front of your whole company. Many companies launch new products in a speech at a major event. If you're doing this, have the executive giving the speech do a dry run in front of the whole company. Marc Benioff does before Dreamforce every year, and we've started doing it at HubSpot before INBOUND. マーク・ベニオフは毎年Dreamforceの前にやっており、INBOUNDの前にHubSpotでそれを始めました。 You can pitch it to the executive as a way to communicate the launch messaging to the company (you don't need to mention that it's also a great way to get him or her to practice in front of an important audience). ローンチメッセージを会社に伝える方法として、エグゼクティブに売り込むことができます(重要な聴衆の前で彼または彼女を練習させるための優れた方法でもあることを言う必要はありません)。 12) Use case studies in your launch. 12)ローンチでケーススタディを使用します。

Don't make your launch all about features or potential benefits; show the benefits by showing a customer already using the new product. This is complicated, and requires trusting, beta-tolerant customers, but it will catapult your launch into a new level. これは複雑で、信頼できるベータ耐性のある顧客を必要としますが、それはあなたの立ち上げを新しいレベルへと駆り立てます。

Salesforce is great at launching with customers. Here's one of my favorite examples, a launch from last year that they did with the ski equipment company Rossignol. Here's an example of our launch of the Content Optimization System this year with Magellan Jets and New Breed Marketing. これは、MagellanJetsとNewBreedMarketingを使用した今年のコンテンツ最適化システムの立ち上げの例です。 13) Create a shared file filled with resources to empower your evangelists.

One of the best ways to get more reach for your launch is to cultivate relationships with evangelists. 打ち上げのリーチを拡大するための最良の方法の1つは、伝道者との関係を育むことです。 Every business has different evangelists -- in some cases they're partner agencies, in other cases they're journalists, in other cases they're analysts. Jedes Unternehmen hat andere Evangelisten – in manchen Fällen sind es Partneragenturen, in anderen Fällen Journalisten, in anderen Fällen Analysten. Part of your job as a product marketer is to identify these evangelists and help them tell the story. A great way to help them tell your story is to create an online file (we use a Dropbox at HubSpot) to collect resources that make it easier for evangelists to tell the story of the product launch. Eine großartige Möglichkeit, ihnen dabei zu helfen, Ihre Geschichte zu erzählen, besteht darin, eine Online-Datei zu erstellen (wir verwenden eine Dropbox bei HubSpot), um Ressourcen zu sammeln, die es Evangelisten erleichtern, die Geschichte der Produkteinführung zu erzählen. Your “resources” could be anything -- pre-written blog posts, images, videos, quotes, data -- whatever you think will help your evangelists tell the story. Ihre „Ressourcen“ könnten alles sein – vorgefertigte Blogposts, Bilder, Videos, Zitate, Daten – alles, was Ihrer Meinung nach Ihren Evangelisten helfen wird, die Geschichte zu erzählen.

14) Attach your launch to a bigger story.

Make sure your launch gives people a reason to care. Don't add features to re-engineered widgets. Fügen Sie überarbeiteten Widgets keine Funktionen hinzu. Take steps that will help change the world. Salesforce doesn't launch software -- it moves its business into the cloud. Salesforce führt keine Software ein – es verlagert sein Geschäft in die Cloud. Google doesn't launch features -- it takes steps toward organizing the world's information. Google führt keine Funktionen ein – es unternimmt Schritte, um die Informationen der Welt zu organisieren. HubSpot isn't just making marketing software -- we're helping people build inbound companies. HubSpot stellt nicht nur Marketingsoftware her – wir helfen Menschen beim Aufbau von Inbound-Unternehmen. What is your company doing, and how does your launch reflect that?