By mandrews@hubspot.com (Marcus Andrews)

If your product team is working on the next big thing, there ought to be an equally awesome promotion strategy to spread the word.

While some companies are guilty of drafting a press release, crossing their fingers, and hoping that the users will come, there’s actually much more to it than that.

Quite simply: If you have big news, you need a big strategy. And that’s where your product launch marketing plan comes in.

From establishing the proper messaging and creating the assets to enabling your sales team and keeping momentum, there’s a lot that goes into putting together a solid product launch plan.

At HubSpot, I work on the product marketing team, and we’re responsible for launching all of HubSpot’s new products. Our experience has shown us that there are three distinct phases of a product launch: the pre-launch, the launch, and the post-launch.

Pre-Launch

Before you launch, take the time to get really close to the product. Work with your product team to understand the problem they are trying to solve. Join them as they do users tests. Chat with them about their product philosophy. And most of all, ask a ton of questions — especially if you’re not familiar with the space.

Focus on understanding their vision and becoming a product expert. Outside of the product manager, the marketer launching the product should be the most knowledgeable person at your company about that product.

By understanding the product and performing market research, you’ll be able to align your messaging strategy with the product. The primary goal will be to bridge the gap between what the prospects’ pains are and what the competition is not doing to address them.

The pre-launch stage also includes the necessary promotion planning as you decide:

• Where you’ll advertise (e.g. search engines, social media, traditional channels)
• Where you’ll promote your message organically (e.g. social media, blog, website homepage, events)
• How you’ll get picked up by media outlets (i.e. your PR strategy and media outreach)
• Who you’ll rely on to spread the word (e.g. partners, communities, forums, third-party marketplaces)

Launch

During the pre-launch phase, you’ll have decided what channels to promote on, established relationships with any partners who will help you do so, and created the assets that will draw attention to your messaging on these channels.

The launch phase is simply the execution of all your planning. This phase is much shorter than pre-launch: it can take a day, or a week — depending on how long you feel you need.

As you prepare to move on to the launch, you want to stay focused on the work and be ready to put out any fires.

Post-Launch

The work isn’t over simply because the product is launched. In the post-launch phase, you’ll do a retrospective, pulling together the data to determine what went well and what didn’t go so well.

In addition, a product still needs to be maintained and improved upon beyond its launch, taking …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron