Every week I have the privilege of working with product marketing managers from a wide range of companies.  For the most part they’re in a technology related business and most of them have one consistent, blaring issue.  That issue is getting salespeople to sell the products that they - the product marketing managers - are responsible for bringing to market.

The biggest complaint I hear is the amount of time that product marketing managers spend supporting salespeople with things like one-off PowerPoint slides and one-off brochures.  Some of you report the amount of time you spend supporting salespeople can exceed 80%!

I have news for you.  If you’re spending that much time supporting salespeople you’re not in marketing, you’re in sales support.  Assuming a 40 hour work week (LOL) that means you have 8 hours to dedicate to product marketing.  One day per week.  Four days per month. Product marketing in this case can hardly be called part time. Is it any wonder you’re not getting ahead?

On a recent flight on a major US airline I like to fly, I was on a 757 that had a new inflight entertainment system.  It looks really cool and offers a lot of functionality including movies, TV, music, games and a flight map (my favorite).  The installation even required a change to the food trays because a little cut-out was required to fit the inflight entertainment screen. But while operating the system it became obvious to me that it’s a nice idea with not so good execution.  Granted the product does what it’s supposed to do.  My issue is with the user interface.

All user interface functions are by a touch screen.  The touch screen is not very sensitive, requiring multiple pokes to get what you want.  The first poke being light and subsequent pokes getting harder and harder. Ultimately annoying the guy sitting in front of you.  Then he reclines.  While at the same time the lady sitting behind you is doing the same thing.  I recline and a vicious cycle ensues.

What problem is this airline trying to solve for it’s customers?  If they would have placed some of their staff in planes to observe and interact with customers they would have learned that many people have MP3 players, their own headphones and watch movies on DVD players or their laptops. Oh wait, they do have staff on planes already.  It’s the flight crew.  Did anyone ask them?  My buying criteria for whether I fly on one airline or another has absolutely nothing to do with their inflight entertain system.  It’s not like I can choose the plane that has one or doesn’t when I make a reservation.

Time to get back to iTunes on my laptop with my JVC noise canceling headphones.  Joe Satriani’s “Summer Song” is playing. Way too loud. Sorry I missed your gig in Phoenix Joe.  Could Seth Godin and Joe Satriani have been separated at birth?

Product marketing managers in technology companies don’t see the forest from the trees.  I interact with lots of you on a weekly basis in my role as an instructor for Pragmatic Marketing.  What I’m referring to is the mistaken belief there is a magic set of deliverables you can produce for each new release of your product that would make all your problems go away.  With this set of magic cookie cutter templates you could produce everything your sales guys need to be successful in the market and you would be a hero.

Sales would get off your back because you’ve given them everything they possible could need.  Your time would be freed up to focus on more strategic issues.  Maybe you’d even get to have dinner with your family.

I wish it were that easy folks but it’s not.  What gets you the street credibility you crave with Sales and Marcom isn’t your expertise in the features of your product or your mastery of PowerPoint.  It’s your expertise in understanding your buyers, their problems, their buying criteria, the buying process (notice I didn’t say sales process) and how to influence each buyer through the buying process.

When you are the expert on your buyers your interaction with Marcom and Sales will become considerably smoother, less combative and with greater results for everyone.

We have witnessed one of the most significant product launches of the year, the launch of Sarah Palin as nominee for VP of the Republican Party.  The launch was well planned and executed, and there are many examples that can be emulated.

The Republicans had many good potential VP picks among their party ranks.  The easy thing to do was to choose a running mate that would be acceptable to the party base, much like Obama did choosing Biden as his running mate for the Democratic Party. But the McCain camp went much further.  They analyzed their market and developed a deep understanding of their Buyers (voters).

There are many undecided voters that are looking for something different.  Those voters see the pluses and minuses of both presidential candidates but were missing something.  And there are millions of Hillary Clinton supporters up for grabs that feel cheated in the Democratic primary process.

The McCain camp responded with Sarah Palin.

McCain’s strengths are his experience, being a war hero, and his maverick style.  But his liabilities are his age, being part of the Washington establishment and not being conservative enough.  By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain was able to capitalize on his strengths, shore up his liabilities and appeal to disenfranchised Hillary Clinton supporters.

While the Democratic Convention was underway, McCain kept his VP choice under wraps.  This caused the media to get worked up.  Cable news shows and radio talk shows spent hours of air time guessing who McCain would pick for his running mate. They focused on the usual suspects.  Sarah Palin was never in the discussion.

Then the day after Barack Obama’s speech in Denver, the McCain campaign launched Sarah Palin, and it completely stole the media attention from Obama’s historic speech.  The media was caught off guard and scrambled to get information about Gov. Palin and the McCain camp was prepared to supply the information.

I set the Tivos in my house to record Sarah Palin’s speech on different network and cable news channels because I wanted to hear the commentary of the hosts and their guest experts leading up to the speech and afterward.  Most of the discussion before her speech focused on her lack of experience and her unknown status.

Then Sarah Palin delivered a knockout speech.  It was well written and well rehearsed.  She stole the show.  It was a product launch event second to none.  It was a launch that even Apple should be impressed with.

Sarah Palin GOP VP Acceptance Speech (part 1)

Knowing your market. Capitalizing on strengths. Addressing shortcomings. Identifying and exploiting your competitor’s weaknesses. Timing.  Leverage. Surprise.

I just completed the slides for a webinar I’m giving tomorrow morning at 10am Pacific titled Product Launch Readiness: Planning for Sales Velocity.

The topic originated by asking the question, “Why do some products takeoff at launch (sorry, bad pun) and others appear to start strong and fizzle out like a lawn dart?”

I’ll address specific ways to stack the deck and create an environment that ensures Sales Velocity.

You won’t get any boring death by PowerPoint.  I’ve got lots of visual slides that will move quickly, so you will need to fasten your seatbelt and put your tray in the upright position.

To signup for the Planning for Sales Velocity webinar go here.  It will be recorded and available for playback on the same day.  I’ll write another post with the details when the recording is available.

with David Daniels
Instructor at Pragmatic Marketing

 

Lack of organizational readiness is the #1 killer of successful product launches. You’ve identified a market problem that is pervasive, urgent and the market is willing to buy. You’ve developed a great product that satisfies the need. You are ready to go to market, but are you confident that the rest of your organization ready to sell and support your new offering? You could easily lose an entire quarter or more while the rest of the organization catches up. Learn some of key secrets to a successful product launch that can set the stage for sales velocity.

Register here

Over a series of weekly posts I want to create a story around a product launch scenario.  I thought it would be a useful exercise for me personally, but more importantly I believe it will be of value to those of you who are in various stages of launching a product.  Your comments will help drive the direction of the story and its outcome, so the more comments that come in the better.

You see the thing is we didn’t have access to a class in school on how to plan and execute a launch, and there is a nearly infinite number of permutations of what can go right and what can go wrong.  Experience becomes our compass to navigate this dangerous and unforgiving territory.

Even with all the planning and rationalizing of what will work great and be cool,  “No plan survives contact with the enemy” - to paraphrase Prussian Field Marshall Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke,

Widget Software and Chen

Our story begins with Chen, the product marketing manager for Widget Software.  Widget Software is a $30M software company that builds enterprise scalable, open, extensible, and state-of-the-art solutions (insert your trite and meaningless adjective). Chen is responsible for the Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and execution of a new product, the Widgetizer.  Chen is in unfamiliar territory.

He has lots of experience in point activities around product marketing - positioning, presentations, demos, packaging and the like - and doesn’t consider himself technical.  He hates being called a “Demo Dolly”. Chen spends most of his time working with marketing communications (Marcom) people. He has good working knowledge of Widgetizer but relies on the Widgetizer product manager for technical information.  This is the first time Chen has been given the responsibility of developing a GTM strategy and been held accountable for the results.  The only GTM tools at his disposal are:

• What Widget did for the last launch
• What can be derived from how competitors have launched
• Hit or miss information from searching online
• Plenty of unsolicited ideas from the Sales team

Robin the Product Manager

Robin is the Widgetizer product manager.  She has done an impressive job of identifying a need in the market and translating that need into requirements for the Development Team.  Robin is counting on Chen to launch Widgetizer in such a way that it generates the revenue that was projected in her business case.  This will be an important personal win for Robin.

Up until now Widget Software has largely been a Development-driven organization.  Meaning that Widget developers would decide what would be built and product managers would largely be project managers.  Robin was determined to change this approach and be Market-driven. The success of Widgetizer would set the stage for the transition.  Even with a great product, Robin knows that if the market doesn’t know about it and if Widget Software isn’t operationally prepared to sell and support it, her efforts will have been in vain.

A History of Bad Launches

The CEO of Widget Software conducted an audit of previous launch efforts and found what they already knew.  Widget has done a great job of engineering products and lousy job of bringing them to market.  But the excitement of finishing a new product would quickly give way to the disappointment of missed revenue projections, followed by finger pointing and blame.  You’ve probably heard it before.  The product sucks.  The price is too high.  The sales guys are useless.  The customer’s don’t get it.

There is cautious optimism for the Widgetizer launch from the management team.  The product quality is high and the early feedback from evaluators is better than expected.  With a history of  bad launches, the management team is concerned of a repeat of history.

What’s Chen’s Next Move?

If Chen can pull off a successful launch his personal capital within Widget will go up significantly and he will build a strong ally with Robin.  Robin will prove the value of being a Market-driven organization. There could be promotion or a big bonus in Chen’s future as well as Robin’s.

So where does Chen start?  What should he focus on next?  What misteps could he take now that will doom the launch?

Three guys I know just completed a great new book - "Tuned In". It’s already on Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble’s best seller page.  I recommend you add to your reading list. 

Why is it that some organizations just "get it" and have successful products/services that their customers love and others deliver one lackluster offering after another?  It’s because they’re Tuned In to their buyers.

"Tuned In" is an exploration of this paradox and a framework for getting Tuned In so your organization can identify problems that are urgent, pervasive and customers are will to pay to solve.

Does your organization dream up new product ideas, build it and then find it flops?  If you answered yes to this question you need to make reading "Tuned In" a priority.

Click on this link to request a complimentary copy of "Tuned In" (while supplies last).

Review
This well-reasoned and useful guide argues that successful innovators can develop products that "resonate" by connecting deeply with consumers. This simple idea is delivered in a conversational tone and illustrated in well-structured chapters laying out a six-step "Tuned in Process" and examples that span borders and industries. From anecdotes about countryside hotels that sprouted up to provide respite for Japanese salarymen to Nalgene plastic bottles, which escaped the laboratory to achieve cult status and ultimately mass market consumer appeal, fascinating case studies abound. However, as appealing as the concept and the many examples are, the enthusiastic presentation begins to grate; the repeated invocation of the "Tuned in Process" may tire readers looking for more subtlety and fewer sound bites. Still, there is sufficient fodder for anyone who wants to shake the sleep out of an organization and renew a focus on creating the kind of value that customers are willing to pay for. (June)  (Publishers Weekly, April 7, 2008)

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Product marketing managers that are responsible for launching products don’t always get the lead time we need to adequately plan a winning product launch.  Usually we are busy with the day-to-day grind of supporting Sales in their quest to close deals (that’s a whole other story).

A new product is coming and then that fateful day happens.  An email arrives announcing that Product X is ready to launch and we should drop everything and get busy (like we’re not busy enough).  The product is already 60 days behind schedule and the Sales team needs Product X to hit their numbers this year.

So, we go into List Mode.  Building a list of the stuff needed for launch…

• Build sales collateral
• Update the sales presentation
• Create content for the web site
• Trade show planning
• Write the press release
• Email blast
• Advertising
• T-Shirts
• Blah, blah, blah

There’s absolutely nothing strategic about the process.  Although it would be ideal to have been involved with process much earlier, we didn’t get that luxury.  Now it’s all about getting the "stuff" done, not about selling.  The list of stuff evolves over a period of product releases and no one ever questions whether the stuff is good or bad. So we trudge through getting the list done.  The faster the better.

Don’t panic.  By taking a short strategic time out product marketing managers could get the right stuff done, in less time, shorten the list and have more impact on their organization.  How?

Who’s the Buyer and Why do they Buy?

This is the starting point.  You’ve probably heard it at least once before. If you have a really solid understanding of your buyer and what their problem is all about, you will have solved more than half of the puzzle.  Where we get tripped up is that we focus all our energy on product features that have little alignment with the buyer’s problem.

Look at your collateral.  Look at your web site.  Do you see feature, feature, feature or do you see the answers to problems?

During our strategic time out we’re going to create Buyer Personas for our buyers. You may already be familiar with User Personas.  I remember using them as a software developer to get a better understanding of users so that I could build a better product.  Buyer Personas are different.  They are generalized descriptions of the buyers in the buying process, who they are, their daily challenges, what’s important to them, where they get their information and what makes them tick. A Buyer Persona is written from the Buyer’s perspective, not the perspective of your product features.  For more on Buyer Persona’s I suggest you visit Adele Revella’s Buyer Persona blog.

Understand the Sales Cycle (Buying Process)

Armed with a solid understanding of the Buyer we will turn our attention to the Sales Cycle.  Working with people from your sales team, identify the steps of how a sale is made. In some organizations this can be a real challenge because the sales cycle is undocumented and ad-hoc.  If you’re fortunate to already have a documented sales process you’re going to be ahead of the game.  If not, don’t make it a huge project.  Document the basic steps of the sale.  Your goal is to build better sales tools not re-engineer the sales process.

Define the Launch Objectives

Launch Objectives give us something to strive for in the Launch. A measurement of success.  This is fundamental to demonstrating our impact and driving revenue.  Our Launch Objectives should be in total alignment with our management’s objectives.  Don’t bite off more than you can chew.  There is a tendency to overstate the Launch Objectives and be totally unrealistic (hero complex). Look at past launch performance and go from there.  Also, we need to be sure that we have a way to capture the data to measure our progress.

Develop Your Plan of Attack

We know our Buyer and why they buy.  We know how a sale is made.  And we’ve defined our Launch Objectives.  Now we are prepared to develop our Launch plan of attack.

Look at your organization and evaluate the marketing assets you can leverage.  Exploit those assets and develop an understanding of the weaknesses.  If our buyer uses Google to search for answers to problems, we will want to have good Google rankings.  If we don’t have SEO expertise in our organization we will need to get it from the outside.

Avoid the tendency to "do what we did the last time".  If it worked brilliantly before, great, we’ll repeat it.  Otherwise, we will be looking for tactics that can most efficiently (faster, lower cost) achieve the Launch Objectives.

Our plan doesn’t have to be complicated.  At a minimum we should include the Buyer Personas, the Sales Cycle, the Launch Objectives, how the Launch Objectives are measured, the activities that we will do in order to achieve the Launch Objectives, and how much we will spend.

In the old days when a software product reached a state where it could be sold, we referred to it as General Availability (GA).  You might still be using some of these terms in your shop: Beta, Release to Manufacturing (RTM), Release Candidate (RC) and GA.  These are states to help us understand where the product is in the development process.

We used the term "launch" to represent something big.  It meant more than a press release and a Powerpoint presentation.  But over time the marketing guys have hijacked "launch" and have overused it.  A new website is "launched".  Translation: a new design of our website has been uploaded to our server.  The get-rich-quick internet marketers have diluted "launch" to something quick and tactical.  Very smart on their part, I have to admit.  We still have a psychological connection to "launch" as being something big.  We launch ad campaigns, cars, drugs, beverages, airlines, ideas, programs, and all sorts of things.  Maybe "launch" should now be added to the gobbledygood of overused terms like scalable, enterprise class, robust, state-of-the-art, extensible, open architecture, cutting edge, and mission critical.

We borrowed the term "launch" from NASA.  NASA use "launch" in two ways.  One to refer to launching a mission (the big idea) and another to refer to launching a vehicle (the event).  When the rocket leaves the launch pad, the mission isn’t over, it’s just starting.

What are you launching?

I recently did a presentation at AIPMM’s PMEC West conference in San Diego and had the opportunity to speak with a lot of smart, energetic product managers and product marketing managers about product launch. It struck me that there’s a conventional wisdom that needs to be changed. Radically changed. It has to do with where product launch fits into the grand scheme of things.

It has to do with something I discovered a while back. Product launch IS NOT the end of the development process. It is the BEGINNING of the sales process. Noodle on that a little and then re-read what I just stated.

You probably have been in the situation where you scramble at the last minute to get ready to “launch”. To make matters worse you probably encountered a delay of some sort. It doesn’t really matter what it was. What’s important is that you discover late in the game there are material changes to the product that radically change the original assumptions you had about your product launch plan.

Now you have a serious delay. Marketing materials have to be revamped. In some cases a whole new approach is required. The sales team is up in arms because - yet again - the organization isn’t ready and they’ve already been given their quota. Of course it’s the marketing team’s fault again.

This is “end of the development process” thinking. Now change it to a “beginning of the sales process” thinking. Your goal in a product launch is generate momentum. What would you do differently?

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