Thanks to Steve, Jeff and Mike for their insight.  You all make great points.  I’m going to align with Jeff on the first step is to establish the goals for the product launch.  Any tactics and strategy will suffice if there are no defined launch goals.  The effort will be all over the map, not aligned with the goals of the business and waste a lot of money - all things where Marketing loses credibility with the management team.

Management Goals

Chen’s next step is to establish the goals for his product launch, but before he does he needs to meet with senior management to understand their primary goals for the year.  After meeting with the CEO, VP Marketing and VP Sales, it’s determined that the management goals for the year are to increase revenue by 50%, improve customer retention from 70% to 80%, and to increase the awareness of Widget Software in the market by 10%.  Improving revenue is the most important of the three goals.

So armed with the knowledge of management’s goals, Chen starts the educated guesswork (strategy) of establishing a revenue goal.  Since there will only be new customers for Widgetizer, he can’t affect the customer retention goal. Since Widgetizer is new, the awareness of it is 0%.

No Sales History

Chen assembles a small team to arrive at a revenue number for Widgetizer.  Robin, the product manager, forecasted $20M in revenue over 3 years in the Widgetizer business case.  But before putting his reputation on the line, Chen wants to understand what it will take to sell Widgetizer.  Since there is no previous sales history he works with a few sales guys he trusts and maps out a sales cycle.  They also strategize on who is likely to be involved in the sale.

Prospect Interviews

Realizing there are large gaps in their guesswork, Chen collaborates with Robin and they begin the process of narrowing the gaps by interviewing 10 potential Widgetizer customers.  They would like to interview more prospects but they don’t have the luxury of time. The goal of the interviews is to understand:

• The buying criteria
• The path to a buying decision (are there others involved that aren’t obvious?)
• The length and steps in the buying cycle

Knowing this information would be a solid starting point for developing a defendable revenue goal for Widgetizer.  While some of this information was postulated by Robin in the product planning process, the type of detail that is needed now is around how to sell, not what should be in the product. It will be fundamental to training the sales team.

The Surprise

After the interviews Chen and Robin discover that the buying process and the people involved in the buying decision are different than the Widget Software team is accustomed to.  This could cause a disconnect with the sales team and cause them to avoid selling Widgetizer.  There were disconnects on three key dimensions:

• A different buyer is involved in the sale (VP Operations)
• A different price point (Widgetizer is priced higher than other products sold by Widget Software)
• A distinctly different sales cycle

The Revenue Goal

Based on a realization that there will be some significant sales training involved Chen establishes it as a significant risk factor in the success of the Widgetizer product launch.  Chen and Robin agree that a first year revenue goal of $1M is reasonable and meets with the management team to make their recommendation, supported by their research and findings.

Your Turn

What will management say?  Is the revenue goal far lower than expected?  What kind of pushback will Chen receive?

Like many other people, I have given the Chief Marketing Officer Council permission to send me their newsletter and typically enjoy getting emails from them.  Usually I find the information relevant and useful in my line of business.  However, I recently received a promotional email for a new report from the CMO Council and based on the copy I thought it was a free report (I skim mostly).  In fairness to the CMO Council the copy didn’t say “free” anywhere but it didn’t say there was a cost associated with the report either (see for yourself).

Dear David,
Companies, on a global level, are struggling to integrate critical demand generation functions, often fueling a harmful rift between sales and marketing groups. This is one of the revelations in Closing the Gap: The Sales and Marketing Alignment Imperative, a new global survey of more than 500 sales and marketing professionals from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMOC) Council. The report goes on to emphasize that  companies still lag in their ability to integrate and align sales goals with marketing activities, thus reducing the overall business performance of their organizations.
The Sales and Marketing Integration Audit reached out to a wide cross-section of marketing, sales and channel management professions worldwide. Key findings showed that: 

• Less than 20 percent of respondents see their sales and marketing organizations as extremely collaborative; most felt the two groups had intermittent relations and interactions.
  
• In looking at ways sales could add value to marketing messaging and communications, survey participants felt engaging strategically with customers to better understand issues and needs was the most valuable contribution.
  
• In contrast, two of the most important roles marketing could play in optimizing sales performance were fielding campaigns that generated and nurtured leads and opportunities, as well as providing customized value-selling content and presentation materials.
  
• Among those who have Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, only 13 percent view the application as highly valued and widely deployed, while 42 percent see growing acceptance and adoption.
  
• While 50 percent of those surveyed said they had pretty good or extensive visibility in to customer accounts and business activity, the other 50 percent said they had trouble finding customer account data, did not have enough information, or none at all.

The 50-page report delivers detailed findings with accompanying graphs, pictograms and charts, along with insight into what value each of these critical functions is looking to reap from their partners. As more executives are being held accountable for process and sales optimization, bridging the gap and aligning sales with marketing is a critical imperative versus a luxury of company culture.

To download the full report, please click here.

Best,

Donovan Neale-May
Executive Director
CMO Council

So I clicked on the link and was sent to a CMO Council Promotional Landing Page where I was asked for too much information (for a first date).  If I provided my contact information (which required a telephone number), I could get a summary of the report for free or I could pay to get the full report.  The form even asked for my email.  Didn’t they already have it?

I don’t begrudge the CMO Council for trying to make money, but this approach is shameful, particularly coming from a group calling itself the CMO Council.  I might have expected this from the “Selling Council” but from the CMO Council I expect a more innovative approach.  This in the old school category.  It takes longer for some to catch on.

Here are my thoughts…

1. The copy should have been absolutely clear about what was free and what would require a fee (and much shorter copy)

2. The landing page should have provided a teaser excerpt of the report summary

3. If the teaser caught my interest, there should have been a way to download the report summary with minimal registration information (ideally an email address only - since they already have that).

4. If I found the report summary to be compelling, give me a link to buy the full report.

Since the registration form required a telephone number you know what was going to happen next - a sales call.  There is no other reason why it was required.  And if I downloaded the free report summary, the call would have been to sell me on the full report.  I wasn’t ready for all that yet.  It’s too much like speed dating.

So how many people are clicking through from the email and then bailing when they see what’s required in the registration form?  Only the CMO Council webmaster knows for sure (assuming she reads the site analytics).

As a product marketer how could you defend this approach?  I’m staying at the Doubletree hotel in Marietta (I-75 and Windy Hill Rd) as part of delivering a seminar.  I love staying at the Doubletree.  However, I was annoyed to find that the free WiFi is only available on the 1st floor.  But in my room they want to charge me $9.95 per day.

It appears that USAir passengers are figuring out how to get around paying for checked bags.  On a flight from San Francisco to Phoenix this week there were at least a dozen bags that were gate checked.  For those of you who fly a lot please pass along the technique mentioned in my previous post to all your friends and family.

USAir is going to eventually figure out that it’s not worth the hassle of charging for bags or they’re going to implement punitive measures for those who try to get around the draconian policy.  In the meantime it’s wide open and remember, when they gate check your bag, you pick it up when you step off the plane.  So there’s not waiting in baggage claim. 

USAir could easily get around this (and make me a lot happier) by enforcing a long standing policy regarding carry ons.  If the bag is too big to fit in the size tester thingy it doesn’t get on board.  No exceptions.

I took a flight on US Airways this week.  I’ve been flying USAir a lot lately. They have started charging you to check bags.  Mind you, I travel light and never need to check bags so I haven’t paid much attention to this “creative” pricing tactic.

I was unfortunate enough to get boarding group number six.  I wasn’t sure why since my seat was 16C.  It turns out the folks at USAir decided that it’s more efficient - for them at least - to board the plan by windows first and aisles last.  As I recall that technique was tried and abandoned in the 90’s.  Apparently lessons are hard to learn. 

Needless to say when it was time for me to board there was almost no bin space.  I’m one of the considerate airplane travelers. I bought a smaller bag that would fit easier into the bins and I always put my laptop bag under the seat in front of me.

In an effort to avoid paying the fee to check bags, more passengers are carrying them on the plan.  Of course.  Easy to predict that one.  But here’s where USAir didn’t think it through. First, it took longer to board the plane.  Toward the end it was just short of chaotic.  Flight attendants were running around trying to get bags into bins, moving items around and moving up and down the aisle.  You know those thingies at the gate to test the size of your bag?  Have you EVER seen them used?  Never.  And there were very few laptop bags and purses placed under the seats. Second, when there is no more bin space where do the extra bags go?  They get gate checked.  Guess what?  USAir has no process for charging customers to gate check bags. So…

If you don’t want to get charged to check your bag:

• Select a bag that is larger than the size checker thingy but small enough to fit through security (bin depth is about 21 inches)
• Carry it on the plane
• Don’t put anything under the seat in front of you

If they run out of bin space your bag will get gate checked to your final destination and you will save a few bucks.  You’ll need it to pay for the $2 Coke they want to sell you.

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?

There is some very exciting Launch Clinic news I would like to share.  Pragmatic Marketing has acquired Launch Clinic effective June 1, 2008.  The advantages to Launch Clinic customers and followers are many.  First, Pragmatic Marketing is the recognized leader in product manager and product marketing manager training which opens up new professional development opportunities for Launch Clinic customers.  Second, the Launch Clinic workshops and toolkits are highly complementary to Pragmatic’s offerings.

I have joined Pragmatic Marketing as an instructor and am in training to teach the Effective Product Marketing seminar.  I am also working closely with Pragmatic to introduce the Launch Clinic content into the Pragmatic Marketing Framework.  Fortunately there isn’t much overlap.  The Launch Clinic content will be “re-launched” over the next few months.  In the meantime the toolkits are still available for purchase online and if you have an immediate need for product launch training or consulting please feel free to contact me.

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.

I recently received an invitation to become a member of CLOSE - Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness. It looked interesting enough so I joined. After the registration process was complete I was presented with a page on the site and noticed a “True or False” item in the Daily Digest. The title was “Myth: Marketing Focus”. So I clicked. What the heck.

The True of False statement was “Marketing should focus on brochures, web site communication, and tradeshow management”. The myth was presented by Paul DiModica of DigitalHatch.

Paul’s answer? False. Good, I agree, continue reading…

Revenue is revenue. Marketing’s primary business responsibility should be creating qualified sales leads for Sales.

I took a look at the link provided to one of Paul’s articles and I agree with a lot of what Paul is saying in his article, but he’s dead wrong on this myth. Stating that Marketing’s primary business responsibility is creating qualified leads for Sales is the typical “I don’t really understand the role of marketing” response that I see from Sales.

Selling is a tactical activity. Always has, always will. Marketing is strategic. People who have the misfortunate title of VP of Sales and Marketing cannot possibly being doing both activities very well. More often than not the focus is on selling (naturally) and marketing becomes a sales support function, reacting to the whim of the sales force.

Marketing is strategic. Marketing’s primary business responsibility is to identify problems in the market and drive the development of products and services that solve those problems. Generating leads is just one of the myriad of tactical activities Marketing performs.

Oh, and by the way, does Sales ever agree that the leads are any good?