Product Launch Checklist: Ideas for Creating One
Good preparation is key to success. Many product launches have failed to live up to expectations due to poor groundwork. Teams simply found themselves caught unawares by something they weren’t prepared for.
A good product launch checklist – or any sort of checklist – helps to ensure things are done correctly. It can assist product managers and cross-functional teams in thinking through all they need to do to improve the chances of having a successful launch. Having a list of things to do can guard against skipping a very important step or task.
Here are some ideas for creating a product launch checklist:
Understand Your Customers’ Needs
A key first step to doing something that delights customers is getting to know them. You need to know enough about them and their needs. Learn about their pain points, motivations, and what they wished they had. A good way to accomplish this is through target audience marketing. This will allow you to get real-time marketing feedback from your potential customers.
Define Your USP
What is the unique selling proposition of your product? Describe what sets it apart from what users can get from the competition and proof that it is indeed different.
Prepare a positioning statement that you can pitch to stakeholders. This short declaration should specify what the product does, its target users, and how it is different from other products.
Test Your Product
Once you have a ready product for launch, make sure that you test it adequately enough and that it is indeed ready for deployment. You should also ensure to re-test if you had to change anything. It is important to avoid doing your testing too close to the launch date to prevent delays.
Develop Your Go-to-Market Plan
Get your go-to-market strategy ready showing how you intend going about the launch. Are you using a flywheel strategy or a funnel tactic? Whatever plan you use should be that which you can easily justify if you have to.
Determine how the product will be presented to customers. Will there be extras and upgrades in the mix? Also, make a decision on how to price the product and ensure that orders are fulfilled.
Set a launch date and make everyone in your organization that needs to know to be aware. Decide how you will build awareness about the launch and the content you’d use to that end.
Define Launch Goals
Of course, you want to have goals for the launch you’re planning. What are the minimum new signups you hope to have? Are you targeting a certain level of revenue after a specific period?
Take note of the metrics that you will be using to know how successful your product launch is. This will help greatly in knowing what you need to pay more attention to so as to achieve success.
Also, communicate these goals, which should be SMART, to all stakeholders. By doing this, you put everyone on the same page regarding what amounts to success.
Prepare Documentation
Make sure to complete and approve all the necessary documentation. Notable among those you need to have ready are the ones for support. These include frequently-asked questions (FAQs), user guides, and maybe release notes.
Also, you should have terms and conditions as well as other legal documentation all set. Your legal team should examine these documents carefully to correct portions that may bring about issues before launch.
Also Read: How to take small business to Next Level
Get Teams Set
It is vital to ensure that all relevant persons in your organization are ready for the launch. One of the ways you can ensure this is by providing necessary training.
Train your support team for it to be truly helpful to users when they need help with the product. Guide Sales and Marketing on how to answer questions from customers and to pitch the product’s USP.
Communicate necessary information to key stakeholders for them all to be on top of the plans you have for the launch.
Have Necessary Systems Ready
All the systems and infrastructure you need for things to run smoothly should be in place. Update the billing system with what you are launching in mind. Carry out the changes that will enable you to monitor how the product is faring, including setting up analytics. Make sure you are ready to keep track of all important financial metrics.
Gather and Review Feedback
Check that you have developed mechanisms that enable you to get direct feedback from customers and work on them. Track how well your go-to-market plan is panning out. After the launch, talk over what you have learned from it with your team to make out what to improve.
The ideas we have in this article aren’t exhaustive for creating a great product launch checklist. However, they provide a good starting point and an inspiration for creating one that promotes the success of your launch.
It will help to save a checklist that led to an excellent launch as a template. You can easily refer to such when working on future launches, and maybe make slight tweaks, to make your work easier.
