Strategies For Successful Product Launches

0:00Hey, did you know that HubSpot's annual Inbound conference is coming up? That's right. It'll be in Boston from September 5th through the 8th. Every year, Inbound brings together leaders across business, sales, marketing, customer success, operations, and more. You'll be able to discover all the latest must-know trends and tactics that you can actually put into place to scale your business in a sustainable way. You can learn from industry experts and be inspired by incredible spotlight talent. This year, the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Derek Jeter, Guy Raz are all going to make appearances. Visit inbound.com and get your ticket today.

0:43You won't be sorry. This programming is guaranteed to inspire and recharge. That's right. Go to inbound.com to get your ticket today.

1:03Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Jantz and my guest today is Mary Sheehan. She's an accomplished product marketing leader with deep experience, held marketing leadership roles at Adobe, Google, you know who I'm talking about, and many startups. She is also the co-creator of a new course with Reforge and hosts the popular Women in Product Marketing Podcast. And we're going to talk about her new book today, The Pocket Guide to Product Launches. Get confident, go to market and win. So Mary, welcome to the show. Thanks, John. So good to be here. So let's give the listeners a little bit of context for why you're qualified to write a book about product launches.

1:48Tell me a little bit about your product launch history, maybe like your greatest hit or anything you want to share. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a great question. So I have done product marketing, which is really known for product launches for about 15 years now, run over 250 launches. And I've done product launches at companies like Google and Adobe and several startups that you mentioned, as well as in a lot of consulting for Series A and Series B companies. So, yeah, I've launched a lot of advertising technology products in my day. and recently I joined the Adobe Lightroom product marketing team leading that up and we just had a big launch for a product called Denoise with that.

2:31So yes, I've done a lot of launches in the B2B and consumer space, so I thought I'd write a book. Okay, so awesome. So let's start off on the negative. Where do people get this wrong? Oh boy, yeah. Well, launches, there is a whole section on where you can go wrong and what you can do about it, but I think that the biggest challenge is actually getting the timing right. So especially when you're working at a tech company, often there are cultural differences between the product and edge team and the marketing team. And in order to get those coming together in perfect alignment, it's quite an undertaking.

3:05So I think that is a really hard part about just figuring out when you're going to launch, sticking to the timeline so you can make the biggest impact. That's what I see as a big challenge. Who knew timing was a cultural issue. We'll revisit that again. So what, I guess why, you know, what compelled you other than you've got this deep experience and you wanted to share it? I mean, is there something that wasn't being said in the product launch space that you really wanted to get into this book? Yeah. So at the time when I started writing this, I really felt like product marketing was kind of this learn on the job type of mentality.

3:46There wasn't a lot of content out there about product marketing. So after leading a team for the very first time, I realized, wow, if they didn't have a Mary to share this experience, they would have been creating things from scratch, really reinventing the wheel. So I saw a real market need that, hey, if people are trying to run their first product launch, whether you're a product marketer, product manager, or founder of a small business, why not just make it easy and give you the templates and everything to get started? And so the idea of this book is really kind of modeled after a Harvard Business Review Guide, where you can just take it in a weekend or in a few hours and also have a bunch of templates so you can get started.

4:24I just felt really felt like with the right tools and frameworks, you can do this and it can be a lot easier than just trying to figure it out on your own. So when people think products, they think, you know, physical box, you know, prototype. But what about information products? I mean, a lot of people launch things that are not, you know, tangible, physical things. I mean, would the framework, does the framework still apply kind of to any type of launch? It applies to any type of launch. Yes. And a lot of my experience is not with the, you know, not with something you can hold in your hand. It's a technology that you're reading about, or even something like a white paper or an ebook.

5:03So this can really work for anything that you are launching.

5:10Why don't we start with, and we can maybe get into a couple of the terms, but kind of quickly, like what are the sections? You know, what are the steps involved in it? It's like, first you do this, then you do this. Kind of maybe give us the outline. Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing that I like to do is just get the plan. Get everything in order. You know, look at the checklist, look at the things that you need to accomplish. And the first piece of that plan to really fill in is around strategic readiness. So no matter what your product is, you really need to understand who you are launching to, what your target market really is, and really understand that audience really well.

5:45You need to align the team that's helping you. Maybe it's just you, but aligning anyone that's going to help you with any content creation and set some goals. You know, I really think that without goal setting, you're really not, what's the point of what you're doing and what's the point of what you're launching? So after that, creating a plan and strategic readiness section, it's about thinking about how you are actually going to bring this to market with the positioning and messaging, as well as what we call the channels that you are going to be marketing to and making sure that really aligns back to your customers, your target customers.

6:18And then finally, just executing it, getting that timing right and getting that message really out there. So maybe this, maybe you're going to say, well, that's not really a part of the launch, but what about actually getting the product right? Which is probably goes before the launching, but certainly has implications, right? Yeah, absolutely. So no, I do think in the role of product marketing, it's really important to make sure that you have the right product. And actually one of the questions I ask up front in the book is, should you be launching this? Are you ready? Do you solve a problem.

6:55What is your financial target and model for this? So I do think that there is, you know, a huge effort that goes into the beginning of this, whether, and sometimes launching is actually about launching so you can test and get that feedback. So you might launch something as an alpha or an MVP, minimum viable product. So you can really understand that. Yeah. So I, I have launched many products myself. They've all been information products, courses, things like that. And I've had some real winners and some real losers. And one of the things years ago, I learned that if I actually developed my product with my customers, like, do you really want this?

7:33Does this make sense? Does this solve a problem? What role does a customer, existing customer base play? I mean, how involved should they be in just what you said? Is there really for this? Oh, 100 % agree with that. And if I look back on any of my launch fails, it's totally been that we either missed the mark on their customer or we moved so fast that we just left them in the dust and didn't think about it. So I totally agree with that. And so I do think that there should be a really considerable effort in understanding if this product has product market fit. And you do that by talking to customers, by understanding, you know, if this is something that they would actually buy and use, getting them to really invest in user testing, you know, is this something, you know, what is it about the experience that you're bringing them in on.

8:19Is there anything confusing about it? So yeah, one chapter is actually all about getting to know your customer and scrappy ways that you can research and connect with them. So you can make sure that you're not only launching the right product, but talking about it in the right way too. And now let's hear a word from our sponsor, Marketing Made Simple. It's a podcast hosted by Dr. JJ Peterson and is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly, make it work.

8:53In a recent episode, JJ and April chat with StoryBrand certified guides and agency owners about how to use ChatGPT for marketing purposes. We all know how important that is today. Listen to Marketing Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, marketing agency owners, you know, I can teach you the keys to doubling your business in just 90 days or your money back. Sound interesting? All you have to do is license our three-step process that's going to allow you to make your competitors irrelevant, charge a premium for your services, and scale, perhaps without adding overhead. And here's the best part.

9:32You can license this entire system for your agency by simply participating in an upcoming agency certification intensive. Look, why create the wheel? Use a set of tools that took us over 20 years to create, and you can have them today. Check it out at dtm.world slash certification. That's dtm.world slash certification. So one of the dangers in that sometimes is they don't know, you know, what their problem, you know, how does that this is going to solve a problem or what their problem actually is, you know, the cliche comment, you know, Henry Ford said, if I would ask people what they wanted, they said a faster horse.

10:13So how do you, you know, how do you bring innovative things to market that people don't know they need yet? Yeah, that's such a good question. And I think that we're coming up against this really with Gen AI, you know, it's so many things that are out here that weren't here six months ago. Like I would never have known I needed text to edit to get these beautiful images. So I think prototyping in kind of early phases is so important. And what I think is even more important though, is understanding what their challenges are. And so they might not be able to articulate to you what they want in terms of a new product, but they can tell you what their pain points are.

10:48So you can watch their user workflows. You can actually go, you know, see them where they are and see, you know, whatever type of product it is. If it's at the consumer space, go to their house, see how they're actually doing different things, what they're eating, how they're cooking, or, you know, in the tech space, how they're using their technology. Are they using it on their phone? Are they using it on their desktop? So understanding their challenges, I think can be a way better way to actually say, okay, this is a need. They don't know what will fix this necessarily, or they're doing this crazy workaround.

11:15But we do understand that's a core challenge that we can solve. Yeah, I love to tell people nobody wants what we sell, they want the problem solved. If you connect those two, that great but otherwise you know they don't want it what if i get it wrong unfortunately i can't think of a great example right now maybe you can in your history but of people that went out and said here it is blah blah and the market said well i don't get it or that's i don't need that but i need this and they pivot so with the actual product i mean any thoughts on you know how to to maybe even build that in like that could be a possibility you know how would you address that Yeah.

11:55Oh, and I always say if you haven't had a major launch fail, you probably haven't been doing it long enough. So even if you've best made plans, that's going to happen. So I would say fail fast. I mean, admit it. And I think what's so important, like I mentioned about goal setting, having those goals and starting to track that. So you're not just launching it and saying, okay, great, pop the champagne, we're done here. Really tracking and seeing if you're hitting those metrics. And if you're not, what is going wrong? And really trying to identify that so quickly. So one launch fail example I had was we went to market with a product, had tested it with this user group.

12:32It was amazing feedback. And when we went to market, we actually realized no one was buying it because we'd only been talking to the users, not the decision maker. And it did not fit into the decision makers stack at all. So, you know, it took us a little bit of time to figure that out. But once we did, we basically pulled it and decided we needed to go a totally different track. and it morphed into something else that our actual buyer would purchase as part of their marketing stack. So admit it, move on, figure out how to fix it. And sometimes that's maybe repositioning or it could be in any number of things that you need to fix.

13:09Yeah. And one of the things, and this is probably particularly true of smaller organizations, it's a lot of times I think larger organizations have their goals all mapped out and they have like, you know, what's next and what's next. But I think the point you make there is launch is just the beginning in some ways and not the end, but it sort of implies that. But the, you know, some of the biggest gains that I've experienced is to actually pay attention to not only who was buying, but how they were using it and then what they needed next. And it really, you know, and of course I'd already sold to them.

13:42So selling them more was going to be even easier. So, you know, So you kind of alluded to that, but it's not just metrics of like, is this selling or not? It's how do you build onto it? Yeah, absolutely. I think tracking sentiment, how they're using it, what you can improve on, how you can iterate from here is great to be able to kind of map that in as part of your process. Yeah. I kind of think about the product launch process. It's on the cover of my book. It's a mountain. The peak is the launch, but on the other side, you're descending down that mountain, but there's still a lot of work to be done and a lot of things to really figure out until you maybe find that idea for the next launch.

14:19Well, and to carry that metaphor a little farther, I live in the mountains. And one of the things that happens when you climb, a lot of times you're like, oh, there's the top. And then you get close and it's like, oh, that was a false peak. There's a much higher climb to continue. And I think that's how I use that metaphor all the time for business. Because just when you think you've made it, it's like, oh no, there's the next peak or the real peak. Yes, my wallpaper here shows that. So you said that this was in some ways, when I asked you about how to get this wrong, you said timing and team and you have a whole section on that, although it's the last section.

14:58But talk a little bit about the timing aspect and what you mean by that, because it's not just like, oh, fourth quarter is the best time to launch. I mean, it's more complex than that, right? Yeah, definitely. So yeah, one aspect of it, of course, is like, what is the best time to launch seasonality wise, or when not in the middle of summer where everyone's on vacation and won't hear, you know, anything about this, but that's one aspect of it. But the more important aspect of it is product readiness and marketing and aligning that. So sometimes, you know, a tech companies, product managers and engineering teams are used to just shipping things whenever it's ready.

15:35But when you partner really closely with marketing, it becomes a conversation about making sure that you're amplifying all of your resources together at the same time to make that big splash. So that might include having new advertising creatives, a whole new website refresh, events, you know, all these kind of things that if you partner together really well. So that means that the product can't go early, which happens a lot. And it also can't go late or otherwise you don't have anything to talk about at the big event. Two weeks after the trade show, right? Yeah, not going to be bad. If you're launching at CES and you don't have anything to launch with, that's not going to apply.

16:12So actually connecting those dots is pretty complicated and making sure that you have milestones along the way and really tight team communication is a way that I found that has made it more successful. So in larger organizations like Google or Adobe, I mean, is there a head of the product launch that is really trying to bring all of those together? I think at any size company, there should be a point person. So whether it's the product marketer or the product manager or even the founder, if you're a small team, I think that there should be one person that's sort of manning the entire end to end.

16:47But obviously, there's so many partners, depending on the complexity of the launch, that help and kind of assist. But I've always found one point person to be best. So do product people hate marketing people? Is that what you're saying? No, I think that you get to be best friends. I think sometimes you walk in the door and product people are like, who's this marketing person? But I think showing that you have, you're trying to help each other. You're trying to actually work towards the same goals. And that's how that's, you know, this podcast could be about making product managers your best friends.

17:17That's my goal too. So we have focused a little bit on larger organizations. A lot of listeners to this show are small business owners, founders, maybe solopreneurs in some cases. How would you suggest that this book applies to them? Yeah, absolutely. And I have several people that have reached out to me that have small businesses that have said that this has really helped them. And I think that at the heart of it, it's going to be the same thing. You're going to have a plan. You're going to try to understand who your customer is in the deepest way as possible, and then you're going to execute on that plan.

17:54So what this actually provides is a way of thinking about that and a way of constructing a framework to input all the things that you know about your audience, where you can reach them, and how to do it in the most cost-effective way. So it's really about just thinking, hey, maybe you're not going to do a huge trade show event, but maybe you're going to make flyers, or maybe you're going to have a smaller event where you have a booth, or maybe you're going to go do a big launch at grocery stores if you're selling CPG goods. So depending on what type of product it is, just really thinking about that end-to-end journey for your customer and where it makes sense.

18:30In a lot of ways, as I listened to you explain that, I mean, you really could take this framework and apply it to some sort of internal initiative too, right? I mean, let's say we're going to switch from, I don't know, one CRM to another or something like that. I mean, you still want to have a plan. You still want to get the buy-in from the people that are going to use it. You still want to get feedback. I mean, it really is. I mean, I think it's more universal than just a product launch, so to speak. I totally agree. And sometimes when I'm doing bigger projects at work, if I'm like, you know what, I need to just think about this as a launch, then it kind of all makes sense.

19:06Yeah. And it's kind of like journey mapping almost. It's like, what are all the stages? is, you know, what are people feeling at this stage? Why they need to hear, you know, to go to this next stage. So I think there's a lot of applications just as a general business framework. Absolutely. So you may have already answered this, but I like to leave people with, you know, what's the hardest part about launching a product? So I think the hardest part about launching is nailing the timing and nailing the customer message. And so I think that, you know, putting some thought into both of those, you will be a lot better suited to launch than you're just winging it.

19:46Yeah. Well, Mary, I want to thank you for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Where do you want to invite people to connect with you, certainly to pick up the pocket guide to product launches? Thank you. Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at Mary Sheehan PMM or on LinkedIn. And the book is called A Pocket Guide to Product Launches. It's available anywhere you buy books, Amazon particularly. And I also have a podcast too, like you mentioned, called Women in Product Marketing, if you're interested in hearing more. And your current work is really around consulting with folks on product launches?

20:19Is that? Yeah. So currently I'm working full time at Adobe. And so I'm running product launches. You still are. Okay. Yeah. And I have taken a little bit of a backseat at consulting nowadays, but happy to have a conversation with anyone that's interested. Okay, well, what's the top secret not yet announced except for on this show product coming from Adobe? I can't say a word, John, but look out. There's some great things coming. Awesome. Buy Adobe stock. That's my advice. So thanks again for taking a few moments to stop by the podcast. Hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there soon on the road.

20:56Sounds great, John. Thanks so much. Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics. Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that. What needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy? So we created a free tool for you. It's called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it at marketingassessment.co, not.com,.co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That's just marketingassessment.co. I'd love to chat with you about the results that you get.