Honey! I have a Product Release

Product Releases have a lot of nervous energy around them. Each team involved in the release process, whether directly or indirectly, showcases its nervousness in an almost idiosyncratic way. And nothing wrong with that. After all, good nerves are one of the most common reflexes of our nervous system and are even important for success; the adrenaline gives you a boost and energy. You bet!

As the Marketing Head of the LMS division of a leading eLearning company, product releases are a part of my work life. (By 'product release' I am not referring to the launch of a new product but the release of a 'new version' of an 'already-established' product.) It involves updating, and, at times, revamping, all product collaterals, sending out notifications and revised marketing & sales kits to your partner community, planning marketing campaigns - including but not limited to email marketing, SMM, writing blog posts and press releases, revising product information on all online and offline channels.

This is just the tip of the iceberg!

There is a great deal of behind-the-scenes inter-team coordination, research, writing, designing, planning, asset-gathering, and iterations that take place as a part of the product release process. It's imperative that all these activities are planned well in time and executed flawlessly for the perfect go-to-market.

UpsideLMS is a SaaS Learning Management System that has been built on AGILE designing and development methodology, which means a new version release is always just around the corner. My 7 years of experience in managing UpsideLMS' version releases have taught me a thing or two in developing and executing a product release effortlessly. The below points can be applied to a (new) product launch too.

1. Get Up, Close and Personal with the Product (and its New Features/ Functionalities)

• Meet up with your product team (or the Product Manager or the BA rep) to understand the objective(s)/ pain points the new features/ functionalities aim to achieve/ solve.
• Any questions? Just shoot away. Get all your doubts cleared NOW!
• Request for a detailed walkthrough of the new features/ functionalities. See how, if at all, it impacts the product's existing features and working.
• Get a sandbox to play around and explore the new features.

2. Read Up!

• A stitch in time sure does save nine. Use Google (or any other search engine of your choice) to look up new terms and also to see how others (if at all) are using the features (both from the vendor and the buyer perspective).
• Don't shy away from getting clarifications from the product team (repeat point #1) on terms/ application of the features or anything that search engines may not be able to provide clearly.

3. Put Together a Requirement List

• There is a direct dependency between the Marketing and the Product team for screengrabs, feature/functionality details, description, tech specs etc., and the onus lies as much on the latter as the former to make it available well in time to the Marketing team. So drawing up a list of requirements and sharing it with the Product team/ Head makes it easier to check off the items and ensure that everything is ready as and when needed.

4. Identify Impact Areas

• For a new version release, you will be dealing with more 'update' than 'creation', as most of the existing collaterals will already have the product details.
• Identifying 'what' needs to be updated (or in some cases, created) across media and channels lays down the groundwork for the next steps.

5. List Down All To-Dos

• It might seem like a laundry list of to-dos to you, but it's crucial to put together a list of things you need to do 'before', 'at the time of', and 'after', the release. This will give you a sense of 'what all' and 'how' you need to plan for it.
• Don't forget SEO! Remember, version updates in a product may affect the product positioning in a great way. It's important to edit and update the SEO details - including meta tags, description, keywords - of the website page(s).

6. Plan, Plan, and Plan

• In almost all cases, you will have to work backward (based on the release date given by the Product team) and plan the release. So it's important to plan for the tiniest of tasks down to the last detail.
• Setting timelines for 'Inputs to be received', 'Marketing's First Draft for Review', Review & Validation', 'Incorporating Changes', 'Final Validation', 'Final output delivery', each broken down into its granular level, helps in keeping the entire process realistic and under control.

7. Make Room for Reviews, Validation, and Iterations

• The biggest spanner in the works, if not planned for, can be 'time allocated for iterations' on the collaterals/ images/ web pages, as it can put the entire planning for a toss, threatening to push the release date further. Oftentimes, it's not the number of changes per se, but the unavailability of the person/ people assigned with the task of validating, which impacts the timelines.

8. Day 0

• It's as important to choose the right channels to get the word out as it is to have a rollout campaign ready. It's a no-brainer that the campaign should focus on the new features/ functionalities, however, a point often overlooked is the 'messaging' used for the announcement. The message should be on the lines of WIIFM (What's In It For Me) or in other words, highlighting the 'advantages/ benefits' of the new features to the target audience rather than a bullet list of technical jargon.
• Empowering your sales team including your partner network with marketing and sales tools needed to close the sale, hook, line and sinker, should be duly provided.

9. Continue the Talk

• The launch should NOT be the end of the product release, rather it should be a starting point of the conversation.
• Content Marketing techniques using blog posts, presentations, infographics, ebooks that evangelize the new features/ functionalities without being overly sales-y (yes, it's true that people don't want to hear about YOUR PRODUCT all the time!) help in keeping the buzz alive.
• Other channels/ marketing tools like Free Trial Links, Paid Ads (Newsletter, Banner, SEM) can be used for hard-selling of the product, by highlighting the newly released features/ functionalities and a clear CTA (Call To Action).

10. Nurture your Leads

• Not all leads received from the campaign/ activity will be at the bottom of the funnel. Lead Nurturing using a Marketing Automation tool (or manually, if you have the resources and dexterity) can help in a big way to move the lead smoothly down the funnel, and finally into your customer-base.

There we have it. 10 best practices to a flawless release.

Happy product release to you!