Connection from Assess
You’ve conducted a Product Launch Planning Session, and it’s time to reflect on what you’ve learned. If there are glaring gaps in the information you’ve collected, now is a good time to close the gaps before continuing. It may take several planning sessions until you are comfortable with answering the key questions posed in the article on assessing the product and current situation.
You should have a basic sense of the product, why it was built, the problems it solves, who experiences the problems, and a general sense of how the product launch is expected to impact the business. Now it’s time to define product launch success and get key stakeholders to commit to your definition.
Define Your Product Launch Objectives
Launch Objectives are the measure of a successful product launch, and they build on what you learned in the Product Launch Planning Session. It’s time to go one step further and answer more questions.
What is your organization trying to accomplish with this product launch? You teased that out in the planning session. Is it growth, retention, maximizing profit, establishing authority, or something else? What is the metric your organization will use to define product launch success?
How much do you want to get? Be specific and clear. For example, how much is needed to define success if it's revenue or subscriber growth?
When do we want to achieve it? Also, be specific and clear. Clear objectives have a timeframe. They are not open-ended. An objective with a timeframe creates focus.
Defining clear Launch Objectives helps create a center of gravity for your decisions throughout the BrainKraft Product Launch Framework.
Before you propose a Launch Objective based on revenue, you should be realistic about your sales team’s ability to sell the product (or your e-commerce team, for that matter) and achieve a revenue target.
Consider the size of your sales team. How many people can sell? Assume that not all of them will be enthusiastic about selling the product you are launching. So subtract them from your total.
TIP: What your sales team says they can sell can be very different from what they will commit to sell.
Zoom out and reflect on an average sale. Deconstruct it. How long will each sale take on average? How much revenue will each sale bring in on average? How many deals can each salesperson manage? How many sales support staff are needed?
Given that insight, how much revenue is achievable by your sales team?
Don’t ask your sales team how much they can sell. They tend to be overly optimistic or highly guarded.
TIP: When your product involves a long sales cycle consider other metrics like building a quality sales pipeline.
When your team has never sold or delivered a product like the one you’re launching, you should be conservative about your Launch Objectives.
TIP: When defining Launch Objectives don’t just consider what is possible, consider what is achievable.
I created a worksheet to help you define your launch objectives. You can download it by clicking one of the buttons below for your preferred format. No registration is required.
Your Challenge
Between now and the next installment of A Step-by-Step Beginners Guide to Product Launch, I challenge you to download the Product Launch Objectives Worksheet and develop a set of Launch Objectives. Share your proposed launch objectives with colleagues and look at them critically. Are they too optimistic? Are they too pessimistic? Do you have access to the data needed to measure your Launch Objectives?
One final thought. Limit the number of Launch Objectives to no more than three.
If you have any questions about defining Product Launch Objectives (or any launch questions), you can email me at daviddaniels@brainkraft.com or post on the BrainKraft Facebook page.
Find more on the objectives of a product launch (including a new Launch Objectives Canvas) in Product Launch: The Ultimate Guide.
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