Here's how you can navigate questions about product launch and post-launch activities in an interview.

There is a wide spectrum of activities involved in product launch and post launch monitoring. It is better to group activities into the steps/stages like ideation> customer and market research> product design> prototyping and testing> deployment> launch strategy> post launch monitoring (KPIs, continuous improvement) sequentially so the conversation is structured. Each stage can be elaborated with the action items and examples to showcase learnings. This will demonstrate clarity of thought and both breadth and depth of knowledge a PM holds.

When addressing questions about product launches in an interview, it's essential to underscore your strategic planning abilities. Elaborate on your methods for identifying target markets, crafting go-to-market strategies, and ensuring alignment with broader business objectives. Highlight your collaborative nature, emphasizing your experience in working across various departments such as marketing, sales, and operations. Demonstrate your analytical prowess by discussing how you utilize market insights and customer feedback to inform your launch strategies. By showcasing your methodical and data-driven approach to product launches, you exhibit your capability for effective planning and execution in driving successful launches.

"Four P's, Your Power Tools!" In a product development interview, questions about the marketing plan can be tackled strategically by demonstrating your in-depth knowledge of the four Ps of marketing. These are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. It's important to communicate how you adapt these elements throughout different stages of a product's lifecycle, accommodating for evolving market conditions. Even if you don't have direct experience, you can present hypothetical scenarios or refer to successful industry examples of product positioning that meets customer needs and achieves competitive differentiation.

It is also helpful to mention your ability to register user feedback and tailor your messaging to meet users on the platforms they use. You should also consider the awareness for your product category and aim to provide education through your marketing accordingly.

"Master the Unpredictable!" Product launch interviews often revolve around one's approach to risk management. Even without direct experience, you can still impress your interviewer by demonstrating a solid understanding of risk identification. Discuss potential hazards like supply chain disruptions, market changes, or consumer behavior shifts that can impact a product launch. Highlight risk mitigation strategies like scenario planning and contingency plans. This shows your ability to proactively prepare for potential hurdles. Also, mention how vigilant you'd be in monitoring for early indicators of problems, allowing you to adjust plans swiftly.

Customer-centricity is a brilliant approach to make sure that your product stays relevant. You should have a plan for how to approach it large scale when you are in the post-launch. Make sure to collect data in a smart way so you can follow up quickly and structured. BUT try to start working with customer-centricity already before you launch your product. Of course, you can't ask for feedback on the product before it's launched, but you can work with mockups and interact with potential users or even ask a couple of your friends.

Also mention the fact that obtaining customer feedback is an ongoing process, and not a one-time activity. Mention how you choose the source of customer feedback and how you synthesize learnings from it. It's also important to have a well structured system of documenting customer feedback in a way your entire team can access it as need be, including new hires.

It's important that you define how you will measure success for your product early on to ensure you aren't running by biases later. This needs an important mention. Next, you should also mention which metrics you choose and why you choose them as indicators of product success, instead of false metrics that measure nothing and have no contribution in data driven decision making.

It's also helpful to mention how you enable the mindset of continuous discovery and not just continuous delivery, which helps you approach a problem from different ways, rather than iterating without a direction.

Equally important is a problem-first and user-first approach. Explain how you go about a problem, focus on continuous discovery that enables you to understand that there are different ways to approach a problem, helps you learn from iterations and reduces the inherent uncertainty that comes while building a product.