Archive for product launch plan
Product Launch Planning: Sales Channel and Sales Cycle Complexity
Posted by: | CommentsAs it relates to your sales channel and channel partner readiness, there are two things to consider when developing your own product launch time line. First is the size of your sales channel. The second is the complexity of the sales cycle. By focusing on the sales channel and channel partners you address what is typically the most time consuming and riskiest part of a successful product launch.
Size and of Your Sales Channel and Channel Partners
Get your sales channel and channel partners ready for product launch is often the most critical and time consuming part of product launch. You can deliver the best promotional programs on the planet but if the sales channel and your channel partners aren’t ready (or haven’t embraced the new offering) your success in the market could be severely impacted.
The size of the sales channel and channel partners has a direct relationship to the amount of time it takes to prepare it for launch. Let me illustrate.
When the sales channel is limited to 6 direct salespeople in one office, you can get them together over lunch. But when the sale channel is a combination of direct salespeople and channel partners scattered across three continents you have to plan ahead. Sometimes months in advance.
Let’s say that Acme Software has a direct sales channel of 300 salespeople in North America, EMEA, and Asia Pacific. They are in 15 countries and speak equally as many languages. Additionally there are channel partners in 10 other countries.
In the case of Acme Software you may need to start the product launch planning process of sales enablement training 6 months in advance of the target launch date just to coordinate training dates. If you have the added constraint of not being able to get everyone together in one place at one time, consider traveling to them or conducting sales enablement training online.
The Complexity of the Sales Cycle
The complexity of the sales cycle can introduce another dimension into your product launch planning. Products that are relatively simple to understand and sell, lend themselves to a much easier sales enablement training regiment and therefore a shorter planning horizon. On the other hand complex products take longer to understand and require much more involvement from buyers before a purchase decision can be made require a longer planning horizon.
Complex sales cycles require much more training about the problems addressed, who is impacted within the buyer’s organization, and what will they need to know in order to make a recommendation to buy.
Let’s build on our Acme Software example. Assume Acme is launching a new solution and for the first time will introduce to the channel a product with a complex sales cycle. Management is anticipating a 9 to 12 month sales cycle with no fewer than 8 to 10 people from the customer’s organization to be involved in making a decision to buy.
We’re presented not only with a new product to launch but a change in the way our sales channel will sell. This introduces risk. In order to minimize risk we may have to consider sales enablement training a year in advance by focusing on the problem, the market, buyers, and how they buy.
Another consideration here worth mentioning is sales culture. It’s not uncommon to see a sales culture where it’s OK to sell what’s not yet available. It’s another opportunity to introduce risk. Only this time the risk is about negatively affecting current sales before product launch. When we start sales enablement training we may run the risk that salespeople start talking about the new product immediately and inadvertently stop the deals they are working on today.
While I’m a strong advocate of a sales culture what sells what we have, I’m also a realist when it comes to long, complex sales cycles. If we wait until the product is announced we’re starting from scratch to build a pipeline. If we have a sales culture that sells futures, we start building a pipeline for the new product but run the risk of reducing the size of the pipeline for current products. Sometimes we’re in a no win situation. Err on the side of getting the sales channel and channel partners prepared to sell and leave the problem of selling futures to the VP of Sales and the CEO to resolve.
What are you struggling with?
Let me know by leaving me a comment below or sending me an email at ddaniels@pragmaticmarketing.com.
A product launch lesson learned
Posted by: | CommentsI learned something important during the launch of the Product Launch Essentials seminar. Included in the launch activities were 3 webinars I conducted to help generate awareness, and to encourage viewers to download my new ebook.
Too hot, too cold or just right?
The challenge I encountered with the webinars is content. There is a delicate balance between engaging the audience while not giving away content that we typically sell. I had a belief that it was not good etiquette for me to overtly sell the seminar. I didn’t have any evidence to support that belief, but I had it just the same.
In the first webinar – 10 Ways to identify an Impending Product Launch Disaster – I had one slide that provided upcoming locations and dates for Product Launch Essentials and a URL to the launch landing page on the Pragmatic Marketing web site. It should be OK to mention the seminar and let viewers go learn for themselves, I thought. In the second webinar – Tips for Product Launch Marketing Success – I followed the same pattern. It was really more of an “oh by the way we have this new seminar” mention.
Apparently too cold
Then a funny thing happened. I received requests from viewers wanting more information about Product Launch Essentials. Some were even perturbed I didn’t discuss it more. The situation embarrassed me. I was so afraid of offending my audience that I glossed over the whole point of the webinar series – to sell the audience on attending Product Launch Essentials. It was about SELLING. I just didn’t want to be seen as the Sham-Wow guy.
At this point I was wondering if I was doing my audience and Product Launch Essentials a disservice by not discussing it in more detail. Did I blow it? Would they be back to watch the third installment in the series?
Going for it
I had one more chance. For the third webinar – Launch Owner: Superhero of a Product Launch – I shifted gears. I set my fear of offending my audience aside and added content that provided more context about Product Launch Essentials and even a little sample from the seminar content itself.
You can be the judge. Too hot, too cold or just right?
Are you limiting your product launch marketing efforts with unfounded beliefs?
Your product launch won’t be successful if your sales team doesn’t trust you
Posted by: | CommentsHave you noticed that your sales team isn’t very excited about your next product launch? You’re getting a “yeah, whatever” vibe from them and it’s driving you crazy. So crazy you’re at the point of believing the launch goals are in jeopardy, and you should.
How did the last launch go?
This problem started with a previous launch; probably the last one. You know, the one where you got the Sales team all hyped up and then failed to deliver. It’s another checklist product launch that crashed and burned.
They didn’t get hyped up because of the product. They got hyped up because they believed the product was going to be the fast path to reaching quota.
This idea was set in motion perhaps by you (or the CEO, or development, or…), and you were a hero until your sales guys realized that the product a) was much harder to sell, b) took much longer to sell, c) wasn’t as interesting to buyers as they were led to believe.
Now you have an uphill battle on your hands.
Hero to zero
Your salespeople stopped selling the old product and focused their energy on selling the products in the portfolio that would help them make quota. By this time they’re behind and they are pissed off (sorry, Mom) they were led down this garden path that wasted their time.
Their sales leadership didn’t really care that the new product wasn’t selling. They wanted answers to why quota wasn’t being hit. And when they found out it’s because the team was selling a product that buyers weren’t buying, they were told to stop selling it immediately.
And they won’t soon forget.
Brute force produces temporary results
You might be thinking that since everything is dialed in the next launch, you can get the CEO to force the sales team to sell the product. If they were required to sell X dollars of the product as part of their compensation they would see what a great product it is, and sell even more of it.
Don’t count on it. This is about compensation not about the product. The sales effort will be superficial just to make a point. The result will “prove” the product doesn’t sell and the CEO will drop the mandate.
And you’ve lost even more trust.
A stick doesn’t work so try a carrot
The pressure is on for you to deliver a successful product launch. You know your sales team will be skeptical and you have your work cut out for you. Don’t try to fix the trust problem all at once.
First, consider your audience. We hire sales guys to sell stuff, not to be product experts. Always keep that in mind and you will make good choices.
Next, focus on enabling your sales team to sell (notice I didn’t say “sales training”). I’ve covered this in previous posts:
3 Tips for Product Launch Marketing Success (part 1)
3 Tips for Product Launch Marketing Success (part 2)
3 Tips for Product Launch Marketing Success (part 3)
By enabling your salespeople with the knowledge they need to move a buyer through the buying process, they’re more likely to listen and embrace what you’re sharing with them. Continue down this path and you’ll regain trust and be viewed as a partner in helping them achieve quota, not a supplier of stuff when they want it.
Product Launch ebook “Is your product launch Doomed?” now available
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My new ebook – “Is your product launch Doomed? 10 ways to identify an impending product launch disaster” is now available for download. In typical Pragmatic Marketing fashion there is no registration, just click, read, enjoy and pass along to your friends (definitely not your foes).
All the cool kids are reading it.
Are registration forms getting between your ebooks, whitepapers, brochures, etc. and your potential buyers?
Product Launch Webinar Series coming
Posted by: | CommentsI just got word that the product launch seminar series I have been working on has been scheduled. There will be 3 webinars in the series and they are free. If you can’t attend for the live presentation, register anyway and we’ll send you a link to the recorded version as soon as it’s ready.
Top Ways to Identify an Impending Product Launch Disaster
There are 10 easily identifiable signs that can help forecast a product launch may be in trouble. Signs you can address and fix before the launch becomes a disaster.
The process of introducing a product to market is a serious undertaking. Unfortunately for many companies it’s merely an afterthought; a checklist of deliverables created at the end of product development. When the level of effort applied to the creation of the product dwarfs that of the product launch, it’s no wonder launches fail to achieve the sales velocity anticipated.
Date/Time: August 21, 2009 at 10am-11am Pacific (1pm-2pm Eastern)
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/267576136
Tips for Product launch Marketing Success
A big product launch is coming soon. You’re tasked with creating the marketing plan. You’re agonizing over an array of tactics. Some you’ve come up with and some, others
in the company are recommending.
Imagine a scenario where every time you approached the creation of a marketing
plan for a launch, you had the confidence to know which tactics were most
likely to attract the right kind of buyers.
Date/Time: August 28, 2009 at 10am-11am Pacific (1pm-2pm Eastern)
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/747940592
Product Launch Owner: Superhero of a Product Launch
A product launch is a major undertaking for many organizations. Every important company initiative has someone at the helm, organizing and driving the project to achieve the
desired goals. When a launch is arguably the most important initiative your company will do this year, who do you have in charge of the launch? What you need is a Product Launch Owner.
Date/Time: September 4, 2009 at 10am-11am Pacific (1pm-2pm Eastern)
copyblogger: The Billy Mays 5 step guide to easy selling
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My family loved watching Billy Mays’ show Pitchmen. What fascinated me about the show was the process they followed to select a product, estimate the unit potential and develop a pitch. It’s cool to watch the reaction of inventors who finally see their product take off after years of refinement.
Copyblogger’s post The Billy Mays 5 Step Guide to Easy Selling is a very good summary of the keys to Billy’s success.
I’d like to add a 6th step, which is that Billy had an intuitive understanding of his buyers. With that understanding he could quickly determine which products were winners. Which allowed him to present the perfect solution to the buyer’s problem.
Take the time to understand your buyers and you’ll find that your work as a marketer will be more focused and deliver a higher ROI.
3 tips for product launch marketing success (part 3)
Posted by: | CommentsThe final article in the 3 tips for product launch marketing success series explores techniques you can use to discover the buying process without making the Sales team feel like you’re treading into their territory.
Successful marketing teams know that an understanding of the buying process is fundamental to product launch marketing success
Part 1 discussed the need to develop an empathetic understanding of buyers through the use of a tool called a buyer persona profile. In complex B2B sales we’re likely to encounter multiple buyers, each with their own set of problems and agendas. This requires multiple buyer persona profiles for each person that will influence a buying decision for your product or service.
Part 2 connected the buyer persona profile to the buying process, which is the missing component of many product launch marketing programs.
The sales team owns selling
Now I want to share some tips with you on how you can discover the buying process without freaking out the sales team. There’s a big turd you could step on without even realizing it. The selling process is the domain of the sales team. The moment you appear to be encroaching on that territory you are opening yourself up to a lot of unwanted attention from said sales team. They will be wary of your nosiness and could see it as a threat. And being that they are usually better connected to the CEO, they will win.
Buying process vs. selling process
Most likely you’ve been exposed to the concept of a company’s selling process. It’s the flow of steps that lead to a sale from the perspective of the salesperson. Sometimes the steps in a selling process are well defined and implemented in a sales force automation system (insert your favorite rant here). Other times it’s an informal process. Yet other times it’s completely ad hoc.
The buying process on the other hand represents the sequence of steps the buyer goes through to make a buying decision. It shows where each buyer persona gets involved in the process. If you think about how you buy a car for your family you’ll immediately connect that the way you want to buy a car isn’t in alignment with how the car salesman wants to sell it to you.
Discovering the buying process
There are three things you can do now to get you started on figuring out the buying process. These activities should be done together as part of an ongoing effort because buying processes change. Sometimes it’s because of a regulatory change and other times it’s because of the economy, for example.
Interview your top salespeople
Do this first. It’s a good way to get an understand of how your company sells and it gives you an opportunity to build bridges with the sales team. However, I want to leave you with a caveat shared by Mike Bosworth in his book CustomerCentric Selling. The top 10% of sales guys aren’t always capable of describing the selling process that makes them successful.
You are looking for patterns in the selling process across a number of interviews (avoid a single data point). When the pattern reveals itself you are ready to proceed to the next step.
Win/Loss analysis
At Pragmatic Marketing we can’t say enough about the value of Win/Loss analysis as a tool to gain insights about what’s working and what’s not – products, buyers and marketing programs.
There are two important points about Win/Loss. The first is that the sales team shouldn’t do them. Period. They are too close to the sale and are not in a position to be objective. Second, it’s an open-ended interview, not a survey.
Win/Loss analysis reveals details about the buying process, which buyer personas are involved, and when they get engaged in the buying process.
Buyer persona research
In Part 1 you learned about the importance of building buyer persona profiles. As you conduct research on your buyer personas, you should regularly probe into how the buyer buys. What steps do they go through? Who approves the purchase? How long does this take in your company?
Connect marketing programs to the buying process
Now that you’ve developed your buyer persona profiles and have an understanding of the buying process, you have a blueprint for mapping marketing programs to each step in it. Instead of reacting to demands of the sales team for the sales tool du jour, you can systematically connect marketing programs to discrete steps in the buying process with a more focused approach that influences buyers at the right step at the right time.
Are you constantly reacting to the sales team’s request for one-off sales tools?
How much more power would your product launch marketing programs be if they were based on how the buyer buys?
Blogs and magazines I’m reading
Posted by: | Comments| About.com:Marketing |
| Ad Age |
| InfoWorld |
| B to B Online |
| Drew’s Marketing Minute |
Read a good blog post lately? Pass it along and I’ll add it to the Friday Follow list.
Challenge: You have a lot to offer and share. Show it by commenting on blog posts you like. It only takes a second and it gets you where you need to be – in the conversation not on the sidelines!
3 tips for product launch marketing success (Part 2)
Posted by: | CommentsIn Part 1 of this series I stated the reason why product launch marketing programs fail is because they fail to influence buyers. To get an empathetic understanding of buyers is through the use of a tool called a buyer persona profile. I also stated that in complex B2B sales we’re likely to encounter multiple buyers, each with their own set of problems and agendas. This requires us to build a buyer persona profile for each person that will influence a buying decision for your product or service.
(Buyer personas are covered in much more detail in Pragmatic Marketing’s Effective Product Marketing seminar)
In Part 2 I’m going to connect the buyer persona profile to the buying process, which is the missing component of many product launch marketing programs.
Buyer persona profiles are a marketing tool
First a little more about buyer persona profiles:
- They are a tool for marketing
- They are not to be shared with Sales – ever
- They represent a typical buyer in a market segment (but can never be perfect)
- They go deeper than demographic information
- They give us perspective about how the buyer might behave
- They allow us to get inside the head of a buyer
In the end a buyer persona profile is a marketing tool that gives us the buyer insight we’re missing. It allows us to connect marketing programs with buyers in a way that compels them to take the next step in making a purchase.
The buying process
A lot of attention is placed on the selling process, but how much time do you dedicate to understanding the buying process? The selling process is how we want a sale to go down. The buying process is how the buyer will buy – step by step. When the two are out of sync, marketing programs are all over the map and the ability to predict the outcome of any given sale is almost impossible.
What’s the first action?
Stop for a moment and consider how your buyers might go about the process of buying your product. After they acknowledge they have a problem that needs to be solved, what do they do next? If they’re like me they do a Google search using words and phrases that describe the problem in a way that’s familiar to me. I wouldn’t search for an air movement device, but I would search for a fan. Can your buyers find you online or are you invisible?
Are you providing enough information?
Once they’ve found a set of potential suppliers that can solve their problem, they might spend some time educating themselves on your company and your offerings before they make a call or fill out form on your web site. Are you providing enough information on your web site to enable them to self educate or are you forcing them to contact you before they are ready? Is there negative information they might find during their search that would dissuade them from considering your company?
Different buyers, different steps
If every buyer were involved in every step of the buying process our job would be much easier. But this isn’t the case. One buyer gets the whole thing started and the rest get pulled in as the buying process progresses. And the number and type of buyers will change depending on economic conditions. You will discover that in tight economic times more buyers are involved in the buying process.
Once the buying process steps are defined, map which buyers are involved in which steps. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it has to be a representative example which you will use to focus your product launch marketing efforts.
Now supply the missing pieces
With a basic understanding of the buying process and when each buyer gets involved, you can map your marketing programs (and sales tools) to each step in the buying process. It becomes obvious what is in place and which buyers you haven’t fully addressed. So instead of reacting to requests from the Sales team you can proactively develop marketing programs that influence each buyer from one step in the buying process to the next.
Next Step: How to discover the buying process without annoying your Sales team
The final article in the series will explore techniques you can use to discover the buying process without making the Sales team feel like your treading into their territory.
Are you building product launch marketing programs around the selling process or the buying process?
Is your company’s selling process in sync with your buyer’s buying process?
Read Part 3
