Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom How to Successfully Launch a New Product

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom How to Successfully Launch a New Product Once upon a time, businesses announced a new product or service with great fanfare, including activities like press releases and events scheduled over a day or two. Now, though, the launch process can be longer and significantly more complexâ€"requiring businessesto plan a host of activities that will gain momentum for the offering. Many modern product launches may fail simply because it can be so difficult to get something new on the radar.If you’ve struggled with this aspect of your business, there may be a better way. We tapped three small-business owners for insights on their launch processes and learnings: Jessica Mah, founder of InDinero in San Francisco, Abbi Whitaker, founder of The Abbi Agency in Reno, Nevada, and Devon Wright, founder of Turnstyle Solutions in Toronto, Canada. Briefly, what’s your process for launching a new product or service? Jessica Mah: The process is straightforward. I have a problem I want to solve, and I build the solution myself. Ill call my friends and a few existing customers to give it a try. Ill fix the bugs and then launch it to the world. Abbi Whitaker: We launch products in phases. The discovery phase is where we understand the audience, the trend and the opportunities for growth. Because some products are targeted to small audiences, we have to make sure we have a strategy that moves the sales needle, not just makes a big splash. After the discovery phase, we go into a three-step process that ends in owning the audience. We move from participating in the conversation to contributing to the conversation with thoughtful expert commentary on the industry to finally owning the conversation, because we have positioned ourselves as the go-to expert in the area. Devon Wright: We try to strike a balance between investing resources that meet todays customer requestsâ€"incremental features, UX updates, etc.â€"and major functionality or platform updates. To maintain Turnstyle’s technological lead, we need to be thinking 24 months in the future and investing heavily on building the platform that enables brands and retailers to engage in ways they aren’t even thinking about yet. Once a new product is developed, it goes through our internal QA process for rigorous testing, and after that, our marketing team creates engaging material to educate customers and leads. If you were suddenly faced with minimal budget and time, what launch activities are most essential? Whitaker: We launch a lot of new products from a PR perspective, so I’ll comment on that. The most critical activity is often a tried-and true media relations program to get desk-side visits with the top journalists in the top 20 publications in the client’s industry. This not only creates significant press coverage during the launch, but also sets the company up for a long-term relationship with key journalists and industry influencers. Also, make sure your tool chest is full of video, high-quality photography and other assets that harness visual storytelling. Finally, remember that people like people, not products. A product might be what you are launching, but top-tier journalists will latch onto the people and the story behind the product. Wright: Focus is critical in a constrained environment. Making sure we only work on the features that will have the most significant impactâ€"and cutting the fatâ€"is crucial for success. We’d rather release one feature that is really polished and meaningful to customers than five half-baked ideas. Likewise in marketing, we measure the results of our campaigns carefully and only invest in the channels with the best response. Mah: This sounds like every project to me! Less budget and time is actually better because it forces me to focus on what really matters. Ill shoot to get a prototype out ASAP and test it with our customers firstâ€"no matter what. For more of what my interviewees had to say, visit the AMEX Open Forum.