Maiden launch of Shuttle Atlantis. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Step 1: Set meaningful goals that unify effort across the entire company. Overall sales, new customer acquisition, product usage and other goals enable functional groups to plan specific actions.

Step 2: Determine the launch strategy, then identify the tactics and deliverables. A step-by-step checklist executed without a strategy could lead to wasted time and energy. At a minimum, identify who you’re targeting and why, how and when you will reach them and what you’ll need to be successful. Think of this as the mission statement and the goals as the intent.

Step 3: Nail the tactics. Now is the time to leverage a prioritized launch backlog in support of the goals and strategy. Consider the following backlog ideas listed by category. Note: You may need to decompose some of these big items into smaller items to be prioritized, completed and validated in short iterations.

Public Relations

  • Analyst collateral

  • Analyst briefings

  • Press briefings

  • Press release

Beta Program

  • Recruit beta customers

  • Execute beta program

  • Gather beta customer quotes

Collateral

  • Messaging

  • Datasheet

  • Brochure

  • Online demo video

  • Demo scenarios and scripts

  • White paper

  • FAQs

  • Competitor comparison

Web Marketing

  • Web site

  • Google, Yahoo, Bing ad programs

  • SEO

  • Social media plan and execution

Advertising

  • Print

  • Direct mail

  • Radio/TV

  • VAR/Channel

Customer

  • Existing customer notification/marketing

  • Training for existing customers

  • Update training for new customers

  • Release notes

  • User documentation

  • Administrator documentation

Internal 

  • Sales information sheet

  • Sales training

  • Sales presentation

  • Product pricing

  • Internal FAQs

  • Support training

Events

  • Industry events

  • In-person events

  • Webinars

Channel

  • Channel training

  • VAR demo purchase program

  • SPIF

  • Marketing programs

While this post provides broad guidance to plan a launch, a future post will dive much deeper into a whole product bill of materials.