Plan post-launch marketing for a product

Based on https://cxl.com/blog/new-product-launch-marketing-plan/ by Tom Whatley.

Business benefits

Retain customers and track your marketing performance.

Use customer-facing webinars to show existing customers how to get the most out of your product and to demonstrate specific applications.

Leverage email marketing campaigns to introduce users to product features step-by-step.

Send out product updates when resolving bugs or adding new features.

Encourage customers to follow your social media pages, and post insightful, shareable guides to using your product in a real-life context.

Conduct a post-mortem on your launch and analyze results. Start by evaluating your performance on metrics that measure the success of your product launch.

Track metrics like:

  • Content engagement metrics such as time on page, bounce rate, and page views.
  • Click-through rates for ads and organic content.
  • Volume-based KPIs like the number of new trials, new customers, referrals, sales qualified leads.
  • Total revenue from customers acquired through online marketing.
  • Cost Per Lead segmented by acquisition channel.
  • Average Customer Value.

Compare your actual metrics against your forecasts and goals, and ask:

  • Which goals did we achieve?
  • Which goals did we not achieve?
  • In either case, why?

If you hit your goal for sales qualified leads, but fell short of the KPI for the number of new customers, this may indicate a breakdown somewhere in the sales process.

Analyze sales pipeline data to understand drop-off rates at each stage. Meet with sales reps to find out how customers respond to your messaging and word tracks. Set up interviews with missed opportunities, and ask them why they chose not to sign up.

Share key learnings with sales, marketing, product, and customer success teams.

Use these questions to deconstruct the results of your new product launch marketing plan, and share your answers with all relevant departments:

  • What lessons can go toward the next product launch?
  • What could sales have communicated better?
  • What new issues are being presented to the support team?
  • What assets could optimize your marketing campaigns?
  • What demos could ease customers into the new product?
  • What does our product usage data tell us about the usefulness of the new product?

Post-launch insights can also prove invaluable for informing the product roadmap, so make sure to share key learnings with the product team as well.

Example

Wonderflow, ​​a voice of customer analytics company, was working with a client who produced an innovative new baby monitor. Unfortunately, the product launch didn’t go as planned, and the client wasn’t gaining a lot of traction.

The post-launch feedback analysis identified the problem: the monitor remained silent if there was nothing to report, but parents wanted a regular update, problem or not.

The product team used this feedback to change the monitor’s update sequence, the product marketing team adjusted their messaging and marketing collateral, and sales communicated the updated feature to prospects.

Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T09:23:39Z