Launching a product is not just about hitting the release button. It’s also about ensuring that your product is successfully adopted by your users. This is critical to maximizing the impact you create. If you build it, they will not come, unless you tell people about what you’ve built in a compelling way.
As a product team, you need to plan for a successful launch to maximize user adoption of your feature from the early stages of product discovery and through the entire development cycle. You can only get so far with in-product notifications and tutorials; for the best results you’ll need to use your full range of marketing channels (e.g. email, SEO and ads). This requires working cross-functionally with your marketing team from the start to be really clear on the benefits you are creating for users, and increasing the chances of achieving your goals.
Justin Kan is the co-founder of Twitch In this article, we will provide you with practical advice and tools to guide your product launch process, starting from the early planning stages to the point of successful user adoption. We’re providing three templates that can serve as your blueprint to product launches:
- Product launch plan template - Guides you through a strategic overview of your product launch helping you align your team’s efforts and define key objectives.
- Product launch tasks template: Breaks down the execution phases of your launch into manageable tasks and ensures nothing critical is missed in the run-up to your product going live.
- Product launch comms template: Designs a communication strategy to effectively engage with your target audience, ensuring they are well-informed about your product’s launch and the benefits they’ll receive.
What is product launch planning?
Ultimately a product launch plan is about telling your users what you’ve built in a clear and compelling manner, so you get the best adoption and maximum impact for any new feature.
Defining your target audience and the benefits you are creating for them comes right at the start of the product development cycle, and tools like Amazon’s PR/FAQs, or a good problem definition in a PRD can help you articulate these clearly.
As you get closer to launch you’ll want to get precise about the language you’ll use to talk about these benefits, and the channels you can reach your users through, so you can execute effectively. Bringing that all together, a product launch plan helps you:
- Clarify your target audience: Who are you trying to tell about this new feature? Who can you reach by marketing through different channels? What are their needs and pain points?
- Position your product: How will you tell the target audience about your product? Which problems does it solve for them? What makes it unique and different from the competition? What tone and language resonates with them?
- Develop a channel strategy: How will you reach your target audience and generate interest in your product or service? What message will help you to close deals and drive revenue?
- Execute your plan effectively: What needs to happen when to make your launch plan come together and be really effective? Who is responsible for which elements, and how will you coordinate plans across everyone involved?
Why is launch planning important?
Launch planning is important for a number of reasons:
- Cross-functional alignment - It ensures that all stakeholders, from product and marketing to customer support and sales, are on the same page, working towards a shared goal.
- Resource management - It helps teams anticipate the time, effort, and resources required to create the necessary content, collateral, tooling, or user flows to reach your audience. By understanding these needs early on, teams can effectively allocate resources and avoid last-minute scrambles. Just as building a new feature can take several weeks or months, so too can marketing take several weeks to deliver an effective communication plan.
- Efficient launch schedule - Launch planning pulls together the many moving pieces involved in a feature launch, ensuring teams aren’t scrambling around to get things finished and instead putting the focus on creating an impactful go-live date.
- User adoption - By coordinating the messaging, channels, and timing of your feature launch, a launch plan helps drive towards the goal of maximizing user awareness and understanding.
- Integration into lifecycle comms - Shipping a new feature changes the overall product experience for users, and a good launch plan is not just a one-off event, but also updates your existing lifecycle comms.
Key components of a product launch plan
Launching a new product or feature can be a daunting task, with many things to consider, from market research to sales and marketing strategy. That's where a product launch plan comes in to align the many moving parts.
Our product launch plan template is a comprehensive worksheet that will help you plan and execute a successful launch. It covers everything from identifying your target audience to setting goals and measuring success.
Hustle Badger Product Launch Plan Template 
