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A 7 Step Checklist to Nail Your Next Product Launch and Drive Demand

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Whether you’re
launching something

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Launching something

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Or launching to your product

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Product launches can be a huge
source of ________ .

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to make sure you have your bases
covered and to set you up to
So we wanted to create a
your next product launch.

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Product Marketers
Growth Marketers
Customer Marketers
And anyone in-between that’s focused on
launching a product and driving demand.

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Just in case you only take ONE slide from this deck.

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Just in case you only take ONE slide from this deck.
(Go ahead, this is your chance to take a screenshot)
1. Talk to customers and do your research.
2. Create your positioning and messaging.
3. Share that positioning and messaging with key teams/stakeholders.
4. Create a list of all possible launch activities.
5. Create all of your launch assets and product content.
6. Get the whole team prepared and on the same page.
7. Launch.

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But in reality, there are
no shortcuts.
So, instead of the TL: DR version

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PS. Want product marketing tips right to
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Click here to subscribe.
(no spam, just one email, once a week)

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Yes, we believe in shipping fast.
That’s our CEO @dcancel.
His motto is “just ship it!”

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...there’s never been a successful
launch that wasn’t grounded in at
least a little bit of research.

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Neil Patel
Co-founder of Crazy Egg,
Hello Bar and KISSmetrics
The sooner you learn about your
customers, the faster you’ll be able to
pivot and serve them better.

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Some call it research.
Some call it
customer development.

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But regardless of what you call it,

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That you get out of the building and

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When you’re talking to customers, you’re
going to hear a lot of things like:
and

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But as a marketer it’s your job to filter out
the noise and only listen for one thing:

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Push yourself to go deeper,
ask better questions
and you’ll get better answers.

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One of the best frameworks for
discovering pain is

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Sandler’s process pushes you to go deeper
and uncover the underlying reasons for
your prospect’s pain vs. stopping at the
surface.
Learn more about the Sandler
methodology here.

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You don’t need to talk to the entire world when
doing research!
Just 12-15 one-on-one customer interviews will
reveal about 80% of all possible pain points for
your segment.
Henry Devries & Chris Stiehl’s Pain
Killer Marketing, 2008

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Now it’s time to turn all of that
customer development research into
something actionable.

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There are a million ways to write a
positioning statement.

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But you don’t need to get caught up in all of
the textbooks, tutorials, and worksheets.

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Just focus on answering these three
questions when it comes to your product:

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*But if you do want a worksheet. Here’s a
good exercise to nail down your positioning.

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Just fill out each one of these bullets:
Source: Mike Troiano & Intelligently

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And then turn those answers into a
Mad Lib style sentence:
“For target who are segment, brand
provides the category with distinction
because of proof.”

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“For target who are segment, brand
provides the category with distinction
because of proof.”
“For drivers who value auto
performance, BMW provides luxury
vehicle that deliver joy through
German engineering.”
“For people around the world,
Coca-Cola is the soft drink that has
been the real thing since 1886.”

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Don’t think about what your product does.
Anyone can write about features.
Think about the super powers that your product
gives to your customers.
Your product is the spinach. Popeye is the customer. The
ability to lift 1,000 pounds is the super power.
Credit to Justin Jackson for this one. Check out his
Tiny Marketing Wins to get awesome daily nuggets
like these.

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Now that you have positioning, everyone at
your company needs to know it.

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This step is hugely underrated.

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Positioning will never stick unless everyone
is on the same page.
If you can’t even get employees to buy-in,
what makes you think that customers will?

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Spend the time to key stakeholders on board.
The more people internally that are invested and
excited about your launch, the more resources
you will have to succeed.
Just be careful managing all of the cooks in the
kitchen and make sure you build time in your plan
to get their feedback.

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There’s usually a great plan behind every

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As Ben Franklin once said (most
likely about product launches):

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Don’t let all of your hard work on customer
development and positioning go to waste.

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When creating your launch plan, start with
your goal and work backwards.

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If your goal is 100 new customers, what
do you need to do to get there?
If your goal is to cross-sell to 3,000
existing customers, what do you need
to do to get there?

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Once you’ve set a clear goal, make a list of
every single marketing activity you can
think of.
Don’t take anything off the table.

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Don’t just think of things like “we’ll write a
blog post” and “we’ll send an email.”
Those are table stakes.

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Think of things like using SumoMe to do a homepage
takeover to capture email addresses,
posting on sites like Reddit and Inbound.org,
and giving VIP customers/partners early access if they
blog about your launch.

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Once you have your list of ideas, go through it again
and pick out 2-3 activities for each channel.
You don’t have to do them all, but you won’t know the
universe of activities unless you make an effort to think
through each one.

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“The biggest problem we’ve encountered is lack of
preparation: Companies are so focused on designing
and manufacturing new products that they postpone
the hard work of getting ready to market them until
too late in the game.”
Harvard Business Review, April 2011 on “Why Most Product Launches Fail.”

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Getting marketing ready is
just as important
as getting the product ready.

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Choosing which channels to include in your plan
can be overwhelming.
Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares provide a
helpful (and simple) framework for identifying all of
the possible channels in their book Traction,
including how to narrow down the channels you
should focus on and how to execute.
Check out their Bullseye framework.

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Now that you’ve prioritized all of your
launch activities, it’s time to get to work on
creating all of the assets you’ll need.

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This should be everything from demo decks
to product screenshots, sales materials,
landing pages and website updates.

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If you need creative or web design
resources to help with these assets, make
sure those deadlines are factored into
your launch plan.
Make it your responsibility to keep them
on track for launch.

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Don’t forget about tracking. Think of
tracking as an asset you’re creating.
It’s just as important to be able to measure
demand as it is to drive it.

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Seed the market.
Just because you haven’t launched yet doesn’t
mean you can’t be out there sharing that content
and talking about what you’re going to launch.
If you aren’t comfortable revealing specifics, take
a thought leadership angle and talk about things
like upcoming trends and best practices.

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Internal communication can be
just as important as external
communication with a product launch.

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Before launch, make sure all key
stakeholders are prepped and ready to go.

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Email, Slack and the Wiki are great
channels to reinforce messages, but if you
are getting ready for a big launch, don’t hide
behind technology.
Get up in front of the room or hold individual
meetings and make sure everyone is on the
same page and send them any relevant
links after.

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Regardless of whether you’re an early stage startup or
have a product marketing army at your disposal,
using this checklist can help you launch your next
product with a bang.

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But just remember.
That’s Mike Tyson. He said this.

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So be ready to adjust on the fly.

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Thanks for reading!