Product Management: Launch Flashcards
Product Management Cycle
Product Definition
Product Design
Product Development
Product Launch
Product Launch Process
- Set up the process
- Creating the launch process
- Create a Scaling process
- Identify and mitigate risks - Marketing Strategy
- Why, What, When,Where,How - Prepare your partner Teams for launch
- Partners: Sales, Support
- Tranining
- Collateral Materials - Launch and Post-Launch feedback
- Launch Strategy and Timeline
- Feedback
- Launch email
- A/B testing
Key reasons product launches fail
A flawed process
The product doesn’t resonate with the user
Lack of Sales and Customer Support team training
Key things to think about
Planning ahead is critical. The launch process should be set up before product development is complete.
Involve key partners Every launch is different but in most cases, you’ll want to engage with the engineering, testing teams, marketing, sales, privacy and legal.
Define your metrics before the launch This will give you time to design an effective feedback mechanism to measure the product’s success.
When should you start the launch process?
While the product is still in development
Launch Process
- legal department: ensure compliance
- Testing Team: ensure there are no bugs
- Marketing department: create a buzz
- Engineering Department: Ensure they are ready
- Leadership: To Greenlight the project
- Define Metrics
- App Store Review
Why is scaling important?
If a product doesn’t grow it dies
What should you consider when scaling your app to other geographic regions?
Language
Culture
The market
Legal issues
When considering scaling your app to other geographic regions, which regions should you scale to first
regions with the same/similar:
- language
- culture
- large number of users
- low cost
What is a Rollback Plan
The plan you put together if you need to ”undo” your launch
Go To Market Strategy
Go-to-Market Strategy: A detailed plan of actionable items, which describes how you will achieve your product goals, acquire users and deliver value through your product to your target user. This includes:
Pricing strategy- how you capture value
Channel strategy- how you distribute your product
Marketing campaigns- how you explain your product
Customer journey map- how customers learn about and interact with your product
Training for sales and support teams- how internal teams sell and help the user with the product
Value Proposition
Value Proposition: Benefits that your product delivers to address your target user’s needs. Another way to think about it: your product’s value proposition answers the question why your target user would buy/use your product.
Product Positioning
Product Positioning: Where your product fits in the market for your target audience(s) given the product’s value proposition. This can also highlight how your product is different compared to other products. You can have multiple product positioning statements
Marketing Message
Marketing Message: A concise statement of the value your product delivers to users based on your product positioning. The marketing message should be easy for users to understand and convey what our product does.
Product Positioning Statement
For {Target Audience}, {Product Name} delivers {Product Benefit} better than other products because {Evidence of Superiority}
Different Pricing models
Ad Supported: The product is free, but it generates revenue from advertisers.
Cost-based pricing: The cost to produce the product is the base price and a mark-up is added.
Dynamic pricing : Price changes reflect changes in supply or demand, e.g. surge pricing.
Freemium: The basic product is free but you can purchase additional features or content, e.g. Dropbox.
Price discrimination: Different users are charged a different price for the same product, e.g. US airline tickets.
Value-based pricing: Price is based on the value the user gets from the product.
Launch vs Landing
Launch vs. Landing: Your goal is not solely to launch, but to launch and then iterate to the next improvement (a.k.a. landing)
Landing
Landing the Product: Landing the product means that you launched your product, monitored your metrics and did improvements based on the metrics and user’s feedback
Immediate Release vs Gradual Rollout
Immediate Release: Launch the product to all the users at the same time.
Gradual Rollout: Launch the updated product to a small percentage of current users and slowly add more users.
Who Should You Notify About Your Launch?
Leadership
Teams Working on the Product (Engineering, Testing, Legal etc.
Partner Teams for Launch (Marketing, Sales Customer Support, Technical Writers)
benefits of a gradual rollout?
A gradual rollout is the safest choice for a software product:
Allows you to closely monitor performance metrics to identify issues and make any necessary fixes before launching to everyone.
Oftentimes you might run into bugs at scale that you could not catch or predict before rolling out
Gives you an early read if the product is on track to achieve goals
Easy to rollback the launch if any major issues arise
When would you use a Full launch?
A full launch makes more sense for a:
Hardware product. Once a product is on the shelf it has to work for any user who purchases it. You can still do beta testing, but it will be more challenging to get a physical product to your target users. Additionally, you can’t just “push” a new feature to an existing physical product like you can with software since you are limited by the capabilities of the hardware.
“No-brainer” product. It is a low-risk launch if your team is confident that the product will be well-received in the market and will work as expected.
It also may make sense to do a full launch to meet a product goal or a legal requirement. There may be times when leadership decides that the need for immediate revenue is worth the risk of launching an imperfect product. Or changes in law, that require product updates for compliance, like GDPR privacy regulations in Europe.
How to manage a Gradual Rollout
How to Manage a Gradual Rollout
For a new product, a gradual rollout involves launching the product to a small or geographically contained group of users
For a new feature on an existing product, you’ll want to make the feature available to a select group of users of the existing product.
You’ll want to be strategic about the number of users you start with. You need enough users to get a good read on the users’ reception of the project and to make sure any issues are uncovered. You will almost always want to start with 1% on the first day
After launch, monitor KPIs and user feedback
No issues -> release the product to more users.
If KPIs look problematic or issues appear in user feedback, halt the rollout or roll the feature back. Fix it and try again.
Structure of an internal launch email
User story Product description Launch data Next steps Thank Yous
What should be included in external launch email?
What Should be in an External Launch Email?
External emails should include much more marketing messaging about the product or feature and its value.
What the product or feature is
Why users should care/be excited about it
How users can use it
When users can expect it (if it’s not available immediately)
Where to go for more info/help
