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A product launch is a coordinated business event that marks the rollout of a new product into the market. People can start using the product after this event.
A product launch can be labeled successful when all the processes from solidifying brand positioning to tracking new user sign-ups are done correctly. For a successful product launch, all the team members from various departments should align their efforts.
That can be a lot to handle.
In this article, let’s look at a checklist for product launches that you can rely on to make this event a resounding success.
Before that, let's understand why creating a new product launch checklist is important.
The product launch is the moment of truth for your business. A product launch checklist helps you get there by:
With the importance of the checklist clear, now let’s look at.
The template below can be used as traditional software and a SaaS product launch checklist. You can add/remove/modify points in this checklist to make it more useful for your processes.
Start by setting the date on which the product will be launched. Research suggests the best day to launch your product in a week is Tuesday. The timing depends on your niche and a variety of other factors. For instance, you need your team to be available right after the launch to tend to any customer queries and so on.
The deadlines will immediately help you prioritize and schedule all the tasks in this template of the product launch plan checklist.
The next objective is to set goals. The goal of a product launch is not just to make it accessible to your customers. It is to make a desirable and profitable product accessible to the customers while standing by to resolve any issues as they arise and tracking its initial usage metrics.
Another crucial goal here is to position the product in the market with appropriate messaging and to create buzz around it. Furthermore, various teams need to create different documentation such as release notes and knowledge base for support.
Every product and company has different goals for the product launch. All of them are easy to trace by asking “what are the dependables for this” at every step. For example, to release a functional product the dependable is to conduct in-depth testing.
The product management process consists of a lot of responsibilities. The proper execution of those responsibilities for a successful product launch requires a collective effort. Assigning roles and responsibilities to everyone in the team facilitates that by:
Zeda.io facilitates this by allowing members of the product management team to assign feature requests to each other.
You can integrate other task management tools such as Jira, Asana, and Trello as well.
After setting the deadline and assigning roles and responsibilities to each team member, you should head to validate your theories with real data. This step in the new product launch checklist template is all about talking to your current and prospective customers to build them a product they find useful.
It involves creating surveys and questionnaires and setting up interviews to learn more about the pain points and expectations of your customers. This is also a great opportunity for you to soft-test your ideas and minimum viable products (MVPs).
Due to the nature of action items that come under this step, it might appear that you are moving quite slowly. It takes time to create questionnaires, send them to customers through different channels, collect answers, and extract actionable insights from them.
Fortunately, Zeda.io collates all of those answers into one place as soon as they are collected.
Completion of the previous step will give you the green light to proceed in the right direction and build a final version of the product. This is where you closely follow all the six steps of product management that will enable you to carry out the daily operations efficiently.
Product testing gives you the following advantages:
Post-development you should test the wheels off of the product. This is where a product launch readiness checklist can come in handy. Although this phase might look different for each brand, (as with each step in this product launch checklist) you should follow the two crucial steps below:
Your product launch will be a success when you will gain a lot of customers. That will happen when your target audience perceives your product to be valuable, superior to the competition, and trusts you as a friend.
That’s where your marketing strategy comes in.
A product launch marketing checklist consists of tactics that aim to achieve the following:
All of the above objectives are crucial for a successful product launch. It often involves tactics like content writing, holding press releases, running programmatic ads, etc. Make sure your marketing product launch checklist covers all promotional methods necessary.
Your sales team does more than making sales. They help set the pricing, nurture leads, upsell to your existing customers, and maintain customer relations for a higher customer lifetime value.
The work of the developers and the marketers is completed before the product is launched, for the most part. When your product is launched, your sales team takes the center stage to convert leads into loyal customers. In general, they need the following:
The SaaS sales pipeline usually looks like this
Make sure that all of the above components are tested thoroughly. You can consider combining the sales and marketing checklists for your product launch to build a more streamlined workflow.
Some of your customers will need help in figuring out how your product works. It is your responsibility to make sure that these roadblocks are identified and removed so that more of your customers get the value they were promised quickly.
Support documentation is content in any format that helps your customers use your product better. The most commonly used support documentations are knowledge base, how-to videos, chatbots, and onboarding tours.
Creating these is perhaps the most important step in the product pre-launch checklist. Not only will it provide help to your customers but it will also make your customer success team more knowledgeable about the product.
Now comes the actual announcement of your arrival to the market and directions for the interested audience to use your product.
Ideally, you should make that announcement on every platform where your target audience exists. However, there are some platforms that are more important than others because of their authority, reach, and contributions to the community.
Product Hunt (PH) is a website where software product-loving enthusiasts discuss the best products and spread the word. A PH launch will give you the following advantages:
- The number of upvotes and comments
- Traffic to your website
-The number of signups or downloads (in case of an app)
- Your ranking on Product Hunt
Apart from launching your product on Product Hunt, you can consider similar platforms such as SaaSHub and Indie Hackers.
The last step is about gaining insights from the data collected. The metrics we mentioned in the previous section will help you identify areas of improvement so your future releases will be even more successful.
For example, if your brand awareness is through the roof but initial sales are low, you may need to revisit your pricing and sales strategies while monitoring market sentiment.
Also, you can make edits to the new product launch marketing checklist based on the metrics' insights to improve brand awareness and increase user engagement after the launch.
A product launch checklist makes it easier for you to raise awareness about your product, announce its release to your target audience, and maximize initial traction. It does so by putting all the tasks on a comprehensive to-do list.
The free product launch checklist template above has nine broad steps:
Managing all the above steps for their clinical execution involves monitoring various activities and clear communication within the product management team.
That’s where Zeda.io comes in.
Zeda.io is a product management software for teams that will help you easily execute all the above steps in the new product launch checklist. You can track any activity on various apps through Zeda.io with the help of integrations.
Start your free trial today and make your product launch a success.
A product launch checklist contains important action items to be completed to make a product ready for its initial users upon launch.
The six steps of a product launch plan are — testing the product, empowering your team, getting the sales process ready, remembering your business goals, establishing performance metrics, and gathering feedback post-launch.
You can prepare for a launch day by expecting the worst, having extra hands on deck, setting measurable goals, and empowering your team to do their best work.
The desirability of your product is key to a strong product launch. Desirability is a variable that answers the most important question in product management — “Will this product solve the problem of my customers?”. It doesn’t matter whether it can be built or advertised until it has some real utility.
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