Launch Clinic

Friday Reading

Here are some links to articles/posts I’m passing along that I found interesting…

 

Content Strategy vs. Content Marketing vs. Inbound Marketing from Junta42

The Metrics that Matter for Marketing Measurement from Marketo

6 Ideas to Get Your B2B Social Media Plans Started from Social Media B2B

 

Enjoy.

SWAT Team Approach: Introducing New Products to Established Sales Teams

You are responsible for launching a new product and you have an established (perhaps large) global sales team. The board of directors has high expectations the new product and if you nail it, you have a shot at a big promotion.

The risks are high. You have two reasonable options. Option A is to roll it out to the entire sales force at one time. Seems logical. Get it into the hands of as many sales people as possible and magic will happen. Option B is to do a controlled introduction by using a small but highly focused sales team.

With Option A a significant risk is that the new product will get lost in the portfolio. Your sales guys may already have more products they can sell than they can keep track of. Couple that with the fact the new product requires a different sales approach, calling on a different buyer. It’s critical to get a beachhead early on to build sales velocity.

The SWAT team approach is more conservative. Take two salespeople and a sales engineer (technical presales) and have them dedicated to the new product for a limited period of time. Consider the expected length of the sales cycle and start there. Conduct sales enablement and then provide very close sales support. As deals close, the other salespeople will take notice.

By containing the risk within the SWAT team you have the flexibility to make adjustments as you get market feedback. Once the patterns of a successful sale are revealed you can roll out the new product to the rest of the sales force, hopefully with a few success stories. You’ll have refined the sales tools and understand which buyers get involved in a buying decision.

A bonus is that you’ll have two salespeople and a sales engineer who are the ‘go to’ guys for the rest of the sales team.

Sales Velocity Killer: Delivery Bottlenecks

In the Product Launch Essentials class we introduce the concept of identify and correcting “speed bumps” that get in the way of achieving your launch goals. Product delivery delays are one of those speed bumps.

The product delivery delays I’m referring to are not the delays from development. These are delays in getting the product to your customer after the deal closes. If the delay between contract signing and delivery becomes too long, customers get irritated and contact their sales rep to express their dissatisfaction. If sales reps experience this uncomfortable situation too often they will find ways to avoid selling the product and focus their attention on other products in the portfolio that can help them hit quota.

The initial excitement of the hitting your launch goal can turn into despair. Plus the product can get a bad reputation within the sales force (or channel) that may be difficult to overcome no matter how many new features you add to it.

The answer to this dilemma is planning. Evaluate the selling/delivery process for your product end to end. Don’t assume that delivery will automatically correct itself if sales take off. Reset your launch goal accordingly if delivery is a potential bottleneck to success or at least note it as a risk in your launch plan. It may take time to ramp up your delivery resources. Time you may not have.

Steve Kayser comments on my launch ebook

Steve Kayser, uber media relations guy over at Cincom,  had some really nice things to say about my product launch ebook on Cincom’s eXpert Access blog. Maybe now, finally, my kids will think I’m cool. Nah. Thanks just the same Steve, I felt like a rock star for a while anyway.

My favorite line that Steve wrote:

It’s true and it’s funny. But it’s mostly funny because it’s true.

You truly got the essence of my message and articulated it better than anyone.

Copyblogger: 7 Strategies for Escaping “Me Too” Product Launches

Jordon Cooper posted a piece on Copyblogger that I found interesting and wanted to share. The context of the post is around products that bloggers launch but there are many good ideas that can be applied to launching other products (even B2B technology products).

1. Limited time frame – using the concept of scarcity in pre-launch buzz building
2. A unique movement – think of your pre-launch material as a story with a single compelling theme
3. The joy of sharing – content goes viral because it’s as fun to share as it is to consume
4. Audience participation – find creative ways to shape your pre-launch content based on prospective customer input
5. Extreme consistency – make your pre-launch content into an addictive habit that ends with a purchase
6. The bandwagon effect – build a sense of popularity that others will want to be a part of
7. Lasting addiction – create a little high for your buyers, but don’t kill their buzz after launch

More from Jordon can be found at Not a Pro Blog

Product Launch eBook sourced for Gartner paper

Gartner analysts April Adams and Andy Rolfe published a research report titled "Marketing Essentials: How to Design a Successful Product Launch" and linked to my ebook "Is your product launch Doomed" as a source. You will need to be a Gartner client to gain access to the Gartner report. My ebook is available at no charge and with no registration form.

The (un)cross-functional cross-functional team

With increasing frequency I’m encountering product marketing managers who are managing cross-functional go-to-market teams that never actually (or rarely) meet. Wait for it, wait for it…

Here’s what happens. They’re assigned team members by a committee. Each team member provides a level of needed expertise. The team leader uses them as resources on an as-needed basis, meeting with team members one-on-one to get input. Some team leaders will emphatically state that this approach is more efficient and wastes less time.

But they would be missing the entire point of a cross-functional team!

The interaction and crosstalk that occurs between members in a real-time, live, synchronous situation is the secret sauce of cross-functional teams. It brings context to everyone’s contribution, exposes problems, and mitigates risk.

I’ll admit that at a theoretical level you could make an argument it would require more time of the team leader to plan meetings, conduct them and distribute team status when they already have a full plate. But I can assure you the value gained is far greater than the hassle. You will discover it takes less time provided you’re organized and disciplined in your approach.

What type of cross-functional team leader are you? Synchronous or asynchronous?

How’s that working for you?

ProductCamp Austin Spring 2010

Pragmatic Marketing is thrilled to sponsor ProductCamp Austin – the 4th for Austin – on March 27.

ProductCamp Austin is being held a the AT&T Conference Center on the University of Texas campus. I stayed there in 2009. It's a fantastic facility.

1900 University Avenue
Austin, TX 78705
(512) 404-1900 

www.meetattexas.com

You can get more details at http://www.barcamp.org/ProductCampAustinSpring2010.

Register at http://productcampaustin0327.eventbrite.com/

Submit your session ideas at http://www.barcamp.org/ProductCampAustinSpring2010Sessions

Look for the Pragmatic Marketing guys. You can’t miss them. They have the distinctive Pragmatic Marketing Framework tattoo.

Repeatable Product Launch Process – Execute Phase

This is the final of four posts providing an overview of the Repeatable Product Launch Process which is delivered in the Product Launch Essentials seminar. So far I’ve covered the Organize Phase, Evaluate Phase and the Prepare Phase. In this post I’m going to share with you the Execute Phase which is about building the product launch plan and measuring the effectiveness of the product launch. 

Execute Phase

To recap, the Organize Phase is focused on getting agreement on what the product launch goals were and which of seven product launch strategies would be the most effective at achieving the launch goals.

The Evaluate Phase is about identifying the speed bumps that would get in the way of achieving the launch goals.

The Prepare Phase is the time to organize the product launch team and develop the plans/actions to address the speed bumps.

Build

By the time you’ve reached the Build step of the Execute Phase you will have established the launch goals, launch strategies, have a clear understanding of the barriers to success, and developed plans to mitigate the highest risk items. Now it’s time to build the product launch plan.

The Product Launch Essentials seminar includes a product launch toolkit that has a product launch plan template. The plan is designed to articulate the goals, strategies and plans to assure success.

Measure

One area that often gets ignored after the excitement of the launch date is how the product launch is progressing toward the launch goals. The realization of success or failure is determined many months after the fact when the details are erased from everyone’s memory.

I advocate monthly launch status reports for the management team to show progress against the launch goals. The problem with metrics in the marketing discipline is that there are just so many. Fortunately, it’s far easier to know what to report when the launch goals are determined up front. The key is to draw a straight line between what you’re measuring and your launch goals.

The final launch status report is the Launch Effectiveness Report. This is the opportunity to assess what has been accomplished, what was learned and what could be improved in future launches.

Going Forward

Product launch is not the end of development it’s the beginning of selling. That alone sets a entire value chain of activities in motion to assure a successful product launch. The Repeatable Product Launch Process helps you focus on the things that are most critical to the success of your next product launch.

If you have questions or comments about the Repeatable Product Launch Process, send me an email or add a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Beta Programs - My Take

Recently I read a nice post by April Dunford on her Rocket Watcher blog about her take on beta programs. I also found a rant by Tom Grant on beta programs with an interesting spin.

Beta programs in software companies have become so distorted it’s hard to find a consistent approach any more.

In the Dark Ages

In the dark ages of the software business when everything required a mainframe, the cost of developing software was extraordinarily expensive. The cost of merely acquiring a ‘small’ mainframe and associated system software from IBM was easily into 7 figures and then there was the cost of supporting it too. It was cost prohibitive for most software companies to test a software product as thoroughly as they would like.

Beta to the Rescue

The answer was the beta program where you would get a handful of ‘beta customers’ who would bravely try out your new product in exchange for some give and take. This was largely a development managed exercise where the goal was making sure the product was as good as possible before handing it over to the sales team.

No One Wants to be First

Those big hairy mainframe software products also had long sales cycles. Buyers would take 12 to 18 months or more to finalize a buying decision, and involve a large number of buying influences. No buyer wanted to be the first customer but at the same time they were heavily influenced by references and case studies.

Converting Beta Customers to Customers

Enterprising people in software companies figured out that if they could also get the ‘beta customers’ to become customers that would also be references, that could accelerate pipeline growth and compress the sales cycle. Necessity is the mother of invention.

So the focus shifted to finding beta customers who would not only lend their testing help, but also their ability to influence other buyers. This became a widespread practice because it was very successful.

Beta in the New World

Some companies today use beta programs as their quality control department (then wonder why beta customers think their product sucks). Others use it as a way to get feedback on usability (wait to test usability until you get to beta and you’re screwed). Some use it as a way to sell a product that’s not ready for prime time because they need revenue in the quarter.

My Take

My position on beta programs is built on the work Jim McCarthy discussed in his book “The Dynamics of Software Development”.

1. The beta program is never an excuse for poor testing or design
2. The beta program is for validating positioning and messaging
3. The beta program is an opportunity to find weaknesses in delivery and support mechanisms
4. Salespeople may not derail the beta program to close a deal

Of course you want the beta program to help test the product in real-world environments as a way to find and fix rough edges. But your product should be in a shippable state before your beta program starts.

A huge benefit of an effective beta program is to validate the position statements and messages for each buyer who you need to influence, before committing large sums of money to marketing programs. Often the good initial work done in positioning is adjusted as a result of the feedback received in a beta program and helps to differentiate your message to stand above the crowd.

What are the goals of your next beta program?

Is validating your positioning and messaging one of them?

Also read Saeed Khan’s article “Building a Better Beta”.