What are the most effective methods for transitioning from launch to ongoing marketing and sales?

??After the buzz of a product launch, maintaining momentum requires a seamless transition into sustained marketing and sales efforts. Strategies to Consider: ?Consistent Messaging: Adapt launch messages for long-term relevance. ?Feedback Loop: Use initial feedback to refine marketing strategies. ?Diversify Marketing Channels: Explore new platforms beyond launch mediums. ?Leverage Customer Testimonials: Showcase early adopters' positive experiences. ?Adjust Sales Tactics: Use post-launch data to refine sales approaches. Interested in navigating this transition seamlessly? Connect with me to craft a strategy tailored for sustained market success.

Transitioning from launch to ongoing marketing and sales is most effective when clear goals and metrics are set. Establishing specific, measurable objectives such as sales targets, market penetration rates, and customer acquisition costs provides a roadmap for sustained efforts. Continuously tracking these metrics allows for real-time adjustments and data-driven strategies, ensuring marketing and sales activities remain aligned with long-term business growth.

A product launch is one day that should kick off a campaign to keep building interest over time. The momentum plan should be planned for months in advance. It can include: - Content – Select a couple of themes and plan a content series that you can publish across your owned (blog, newsletter, etc) and rented (social) channels. Be sure to post short and long-form content. - Events – Plan a series of in-person and virtual events that will keep you top of mind. - Customer Engagement – Start a Customer Advisory Board and keep in touch with how clients are using your product. Always keep an eye toward case study candidates. - PR and Speaking Engagements – Pitch guest editorials in trade pubs, speak on panels & webinars, and book podcasts.

You have to monitor the competition so you don't fall behind. Follow their social media, launches, and compare their features to yours. It might give you ideas on what you can improve or what new functionalities could fill a gap in the market. Validate with the market so you don’t dive into an empty pool. Before rolling out a major update, test it with a small group. This way, you can iron out details and avoid unpleasant surprises. Schedule updates so your users know you're consistently improving. It's not just about fixing bugs; it's about adding things they want or need. Communicate updates to make your stakeholders part of the journey. A simple email sufficesto keep everyone on the same page and boosts confidence in the product.

Whether you're launching a new product/service, or releasing a product update, it's important for the launch team to take a moment to celebrate. However, what we sometimes forget is that the launch day itself is when the rubber hits the road. It's when the critical work starts: achieving the goals you set out when planning the launch or release. Whether that means acquiring new customers, increasing product stickiness, winning back customer confidence, driving expanded product use, etc., revenue teams need to demonstrate that the new product/service (or capabilities in a new release) can deliver enough customer value and impact for them to adopt it in their organization. That's why product marketing's role is just as important post-launch.

In my experience, you need to have a sales channel strategy which means to define clearly which product should be in which channel based on channel potential and scale.

The product release is a recurring marketing “strike” moment for your company. Some companies choose a quarterly cadence. This doesn’t mean your product and engineering teams aren’t releasing product updates monthly but it allows marketing and sales the time to build wrapper campaigns on a quarterly basis. This matters because product release based campaigns will have a set of marketing and sales activations: pre-launch (usually for customers), at launch (for their target market), and post-launch (for their target market). A great launch story further extends your company’s overall narrative and needs to be shared and activated in pitch decks, emails, content, demos well beyond the launch.