Launching of products has been taking place as long as there have been products to introduce to the market. Even in the challenging economic times we see today, products must be launched – it’s not an “optional” job to be done for companies and marketers.
A great launch means the difference between success and failure – profits vs. losses – promotion vs. stagnation in your career and business.
Historically, marketers and entrepreneurs have typically lacked the resources they really needed when launching products, so doing launches right has always been a challenge. Given the tighter budgets and fewer resources available, launching products is tougher than ever to do right today.
Even with great educational products like Product Launch Formula, Mass Control and others that provide tremendous strategic and how-to advice, at the end of the day, launches entail real “work” – and a LOT of it. And somebody has to do all that work.
Add to those challenges the advent of relatively new, online aspects of launch marketing such as social networking, online lead-capture and nurturing, blogging, video and other online techniques – and you have a real problem.
Top that off with the requirement to launch products into markets that are tougher and more competitive than ever, with even fewer resources than before, and you have a seemingly insurmountable set of issues at hand.
All too often, the answer is comprised of taking shortcuts, reducing market coverage and compromising launch results – exactly what you don’t need.
Instead, what’s needed is a way to:
- Single-handedly plan your own launch project
- Quickly create your launch plans, schedule and content
- Outsource certain tasks to subject matter experts
- Invest more time learning and using “new media” – blogging, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
- Invest more time creating top-quality content for your audience
- Invest more time forging partnering relationships to gain access and influence in your target market
- Invest more time ensuring the product is ready for market
- Invest more time researching market conditions and the competition to pinpoint the best positioning and messaging
- Execute a complete launch process with minimal resources
Sound insurmountable? Well, it often is – especially for entrepreneurs, small businesses and product marketers (even in larger companies, where resources are spread way too thin). As an entrepreneur, we don’t have many of the luxuries afforded larger companies – like marketing budgets of hundreds of thousands or more to allocate to a launch, a marcom department, the ability to hire contract specialists and PR firms, etc.
Instead, small businesses must make do with whatever tools and inspiration are available, along with a healthy dose of perspiration, hard work and long hours to get things done. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. Except that it demands numerous trade-offs be made that impact launch results.
That’s why I decided to automate launching products – to make launches more fun again – and more successful and predictable – and importantly, to generate increased sales and profits without as many long hours.
I simply grew weary of doing launches the hard way – the manual way. To be sure, it’s taken a lot of effort and time to develop a solution to this problem, as well.
Late last year, I posted that we were underway on some new product launch software. We’ve been heads down on product development since the middle of 2009 (and in the planning stages for several years prior). We are now in the final stages of development, working with selected customers on their actual launches using the software.
After managing major multi-million dollar, global product launches as Vice-President of Product Marketing for CITRIX Systems and then handling my own launches as an Internet entrepreneur, I gained firsthand knowledge that taught me what works and what doesn’t.
And as a small business owner and roll-up-your-sleeves ”doer”, I truly gained an appreciation for what was actually needed – a software tool that automates and simplifies product launch planning, scheduling and content creation.
This was further validated by working with various customers on their launch projects, which also had to be done the old-fashioned way. A typical launch can easily cost a client $25K to $50K for all the planning, scheduling and content development. This is fine for venture funded startups and established companies, but beyond the reach of many small businesses.
By working with several launch customers throughout this software’s development, it also became clear that customized, step-by-step instructions that make launch execution as easy as following a recipe are also needed.
So that’s what we’ve created. A product launch solution that’s simple enough for a first-time entrepreneur, powerful enough for an advanced marketer and affordable for everyone.
WinningWare QuickLaunch – The Fastest, Most Affordable Way To Launch a Product Right
WinningWare is preparing to unveil a product line in a new category we’ll be calling “Product Launch Power Tools™”. These launch power tools will do for product launches what the hand-held power drill has done to old-fashioned screwdrivers – automate and expedite a common, important job at hand – making it far easier, faster and more convenient to get the job done right in record time, and without the hassles and usual soreness that used to occur.
The product is called WinningWare QuickLaunch™.
WinningWare QuickLaunch does pretty much what the name implies – it enables a marketer to quickly plan and execute just about everything needed to launch a product properly – and to do so in record time, with as little effort as possible. The product is a Web-based software service (SaaS), accessible from any Web browser securely over the Internet.
Here’s the latest screenshot of the Launch Control Center™ that’s nearing development completion, where all the generated marketing collaterals are accessed for a launch project:
How the above Launch Control Center is Created
The product walks a marketer through a series of wizard question/answer panels (not shown here), where information about the product launch is gathered, including product information, launch goals and objectives, audience targets, marketing messaging and offers. The wizard is a simple, step-by-step process that typically takes no more than 30 to 45 minutes to use the first time through (and much less after that).
Then after completing the wizard steps, the software automatically “generates” what’s needed for the product launch project, including:
- Detailed, Step-by-step Launch Execution Instructions (much better than a product launch checklist only)
- Launch Plan Executive Summary (for investors and senior management teams)
- Detailed Launch Plans
- Project Schedule
- Launch Strategy
- Launch Landing Page with Countdown Timer (here’s an example generated landing page)
- Product Sales Page Template
- Launch Email Sequence, including Draft Email Content
- Launch Social Networking Plan with Step-by-step Instructions
- PR Kit with Custom Press Release Drafts
- Marketing Source Document (for working with your partners, affiliates, employees and contractors)
- Product Data Sheet
With WinningWare QuickLaunch, the entire launch planning process start-to-finish typically takes less than an hour the first time through – from the time a new customer actually signs up for the service until all of the above launch-related materials are generated and in the customer’s hands.
Then, the user simply follows the step-by-step instructions to execute the launch process.
And anytime something changes – like the product name, messaging, positioning or other aspects of the product or plan during the launch process – it’s a simple matter of updating the project settings in WinningWare QuickLaunch, and moments later, presto – all the launch materials, schedules and plans are automatically re-generated and up-to-date.
Clearly this solution doesn’t address every launch-related challenge that product marketers and small business owners face during a launch; e.g., website development, partner and affiliate management, etc.
However, it automates the most tedious, error-prone and time-consuming tasks facing every launch manager and marketer involved in a product launch, making it so that now anyone – professional marketer or first-time entrepreneur alike – can plan and pull off a world-class product launch with minimal cost, resources and time investments.
Step-by-Step Launch Execution
Automating the creation of launch plans, schedules and all the various content is useful enough in itself. However, the rubber meets the road when it comes time to put all the launch strategies and plans into action, which is what leads to launch success. So we decided to go the extra mile and include detailed tactical plans that anyone can follow to execute their launch plans. It’s one thing to plan the launch – it’s quite another to execute everything involved…
As shown in the following screen snapshot, Launch Execution is divided into four distinct phases. For each phase, there is a “tab” containing the high level objectives to accomplish during that phase of the launch:
Each phase of the launch project contains a set of links like you see above.
When you click on one of those links, it brings up a separate page containing detailed, step-by-step instructions for accomplishing the objective; e.g., reviewing the launch plan, creating the launch canvassing plan, implementing the launch landing page (not shown, but available in the “Pre Launch” tab, etc.).
Throughout each of these launch execution steps, the appropriate launch content that was generated specifically for the user’s launch is available, making launch execution as simple and easy as it gets.
So WinningWare QuickLaunch aims to provide a complete solution for launching products, taking you from the planning stages through each and every step involved in pulling off a world-class launch.
How To Learn More About WinningWare QuickLaunch
So, if you’re interested in automating your next product launch, stay tuned. There’s more good news coming soon on the product launch automation front. We are at this point just nearing the end of the beginning – of a new era of easier, better product launches.
If this sounds interesting, you can register to receive more information on WinningWare QuickLaunch. As our own launch days grows closer, we will be sharing additional details and insights.
Incidentally, the landing page with countdown timer you see at the above link was actually generated by the software then integrated with our AWeber email auto-responder. In the past, developing a landing page like this would’ve taken several hours – it took about me about 20 minutes to take the landing page HTML template that was generated and finalize it.
Of course, it took about a man-week of effort to develop the landing page generator that’s a part of the product – something that our users can now leverage from now on.
For more information, you may also wish to download the free New Rules of Launch e-book, which provides launch strategy information and explains how and why leveraging online launch technology is so productive and effective.
Please stay tuned. More is coming soon on the WinningWare QuickLaunch front. In the meantime, if you have any launch-related needs, be sure to visit our WinningWare.com Launch Solutions page for more details or contact me if we can assist with your launch project.
Tags:
new product launch,
product launch automation,
product launch checklist,
product launch software
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