In the previous article we spoke about the product roadmap and the release plan. In this article we will tell you more about the best practices that will help during your product launch and will make your customers enthusiastic about the new release.
We will not do a deep dive into the marketing and sales activities around the product release, as we are focusing on the timing, although I would like to guide you with an example and best practice for a product release and how to influence your customers positively.
In this article I am going to tell specifically more about the release of larger products or a new version. . If you are interested in update management and sprints, you can always join one of our DevOps workshop. In this (free of charge) workshop we will tell you more about updates and sprints. This is a technical workshop with some demos about building pipelines and the DevOps philosophy.
Some best practices on a major product release:
Tip 1– Focus on the customer, not the product
Focus on what value the product brings to the customers. I.e. the Surface-Book 2 is an ideal device to use as a full notebook and a tablet in 1. This gives you the opportunity to use your tablet in a hospital and easily clean after as there is no keyboard and while working from your home office use the notebook functionalities including the keyboard. Focusing on the value will create a positive perception. Focus on the values your customer get excited about.
When releasing a product, also include the whole company, ask for discipline and excitement for solving the customers challenges. It is the whole company who is helping the customers to evolve and get more productivity.
Tip 2 – Get stakeholders and key users onboard early
The more people will talk about it, the more people will share positive feedback when being involved early. A good tool here could be a demo that will be released a couple of months before the actual release.
Rethink your strategy here with the marketing and enable media and your influencers to be part of the release and preparation for it. I.e. lets take the iPhone product release which is always be presented during Apple’s WWDC every fall. Influencers and media are months before speculating and excited about the event.
Tip 3 – be revolutionary
Become an inspirer, be revolutionary. As a spokesman, presenter, yourself – you are inspirational to listen at, the people will not only be there for the product, but also for you as you are an idol for people and they would like to listen to you. The more influencers you have around you and the more you present yourself during events as a business leader, the more impact and followers you will have and the better the results will be. Bring visionary to your followers and your company.
Tip 4 – Make a party
The product release on itself should be a big event, a party, an unique showcase. They people need to know something important is happening and they need to pay attention to what is happening. Try to create report with your users and target audience. Also here you can enable the media for you and present yourself as a serious company. This will affect the sales positive.
Tip 5 – Take pre-orders
Be sure you are able to sell when launching a product. If you are not ready for whatever reason, be sure you can accept pre-orders. If your customers and potential customers do not know where to buy, or you can not sell during your release, the excitement and moment will be gone and will affect the sales.
Tip 6 – Be in the picture as long as you can
Obviously the momentum you are creating with a product release should exist as long as possible. Use the time given to make people enthusiastic and let them share their feelings with others. Create as many ambassadors as possible and convert all the positive energy into sales.
I hope this example created some ideas for your own product release. Well, let me summarize on this one: it is important to create a roadmap and release plan in order to structure and time the release of you product. A good planning with clear responsibilities and deadlines will lead to a structured execution for the developers and also the other departments who are involved, like marketeers, sales, end customers, stake holders, etc.. Remember to involve your end users and customers in the process in order to verify you are including the right features and updates within your release.
When ready make a big party of the release itself and involve as many people as you need to make it happen and drive you company and sales in a positive flow.
Interested to learn more?
If you feel interested to learn more about how to time your product release, please reach out to us the discuss the opportunities. Please find our contact details here.