By Fortunate NNEJI
When a company aims to release a lot of new products, it requires a plan to follow up from product development to product launch. So let’s provide a step-by-step guide to product launch to be used as a checklist, covering the following checks:
- “We have a good product that ensures maximum value and minimum switching cost”
- “We have conducted Market Research to ensure effective product marketing”
- “We have ensured Distinguishing Features are well defined”
- “We have created Positioning and Marketing Objectives”
- “We have reviewed all these with stakeholders”
- “We have created Launch Activities And Plan”
- “We have created Launch Assets and Products Content ahead for 4 months”
- “We have provided an incentive to buy for our early adopters”
- “We have gotten support from all stakeholders”
- ” We Launch the Plan”
- Having A Good Product
This entails that the company is sure that the product meets all requirements of development. The product should provide the maximum value and the minimum switching cost, guided by the following: documentation:
- Product Description
- User requirement
- Product policy
- Product pricing strategy
- Product roadmap.
- Conduct Market Research Aimed At Ensuring Effective Product Marketing
This provides a great pivot for an effective product launch and allows the company to start off on the right foot. The focus at this stage is to determine:
- Pain points that should be the centre of the product marketing and positioning (recommend the pain funnel approach)
- Market segments with acceptably high demand for the product
Checklist for Product launch
- Ensure Distinguishing Features Are Well Defined
After review of the research data, the marketing team should be able to define the distinguishing features that are in line with the predominant pain points and segments with high enough demand to be focused on
- Create Positioning And Marketing Objectives
For this to be successfully done, the following information is required
- Target: Defining the universe of buyers
- Segment: Defining the attributes of the particular buyer segments that make the product appealing to them
- Brand: A name to call the Product
- Category: Category of product within which the products offerings are competing
- Distinction: Defining what makes the product set apart within its category
A good example of a position statement would be for targets who are segmented; the brand provides the category with distinction.
- Review with Stakeholders
All stakeholders should be able to connect with the positioning statement.
- Create Launch Plan
This is done using the following:
- Define launch goals
- Define all possible launch activities with their required tools, channels, conditions, cost, expected through-put, and required partners
- Conduct screening to select the best activities that are acceptable
- Create Launch Assets And Product Content
This should be produced for 4 months in advance (a quarter) and should be reviewed such that they are in line with the marketing objectives and screening activities.
Check out this link for useful guides to this for a start
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-digital-marketing-assets-you-need-invest-today-jeff-bullas/
https://www.richestsoft.com/blog/6-types-of-digital-marketing-assets-for-online-promotion/
- Provide Incentive To Buy
New products require early users, and the company should ensure we have a strategy to incentivize early users to come on-board
- Get Support From All Stakeholders
This is done to ensure all stakeholders that are involved in following up on the implementation of the plan are aware of their involvement and support their involvement
- Launch The Plan Already
No plan survives execution. Be ready to change, and allow things to unveil themselves.
***Fortunate Jideofor Nneji is a Product Owner at The Concept Group where he oversees the life cycle of multiple B2B SaaS Products. His experience has seen him help take over 5 products to markets in IoT and Education space.
As a non-tech graduate who is self-taught in products, he believes in nurturing tech talents from all works of life. He also loves taking care of plants.
