Successful product launches don’t happen by accident. They’re built on processes and methods proven to communicate your value proposition. They’re designed to grow your business and, most significantly, they intentionally exceed the expectations of customers, channel partners, employees, industry analysts and “the Street”. Your product launch shapes those expectations. You get one chance to make that first impression. Successful product launches create the internal and external excitement that drives market adoption.

Scientific product development processes such as the Capability Maturity Model and product development life cycle may be understood by many in your organization, but many product and marketing organizations still approach product launches as art instead of science. As a result, many launches don’t achieve expectations for your product’s profitability.

In a world of shorter product life cycles, can you afford months and years to recover from a launch that falls short or misses the mark? For a highly successful and repeatable product launch, consider implementing the ‘four pillars’ for a successful product launch. We’ll cover the first pillar here and follow up with the next three in following posts.

FOUR PILLARS FOR A SUCCESSFUL PRODUCT LAUNCH

Pillar 1 – Building the Launch Team
Launch management isn’t a part-time job. It has to be your team’s day job for the duration of the launch. Successful companies dedicate teams exclusively to the challenges of building market momentum for a new product launch. Companies that excel at product launch strive for consistency. They use the same team from launch to launch, leveraging their experience and knowledge of shared processes and organizational decision-making.

Dedicated launch teams can include members from project management, public relations, product management, product marketing, engineering management, online marketing, social media marketing, customer support, and events management. You can create such teams with company resources or use a combination of on-site consultants to staff up and down as needed.

Recognize that launch roles can’t be defined on a one-off basis. Your launch plan will help you identify the right resources and when those resources are needed. This plan will drive your search for partners and team members with proven experience and demonstrated skill sets. You may need to augment your current staff to fill in needed skill set. In some cases you may need to hire or contract launch management leadership.

“The larger the launch and the organization, the more a program management skill set is a critical factor,” says Amdocs vice president of Product Marketing Eric Carrasquilla. “Finding people is not the problem. Breaking them free from their ‘day jobs’ is the problem. You can’t do a launch on the side,” he says, adding, “It’s got to be your day job.”

Next week we will cover Pillar #2, “Over-deliver and Exceed Expectations.” What is your experience with Launch Teams?

There is a great deal of hype about new collaboration tools and “collaboration 2.0″ approaches. Indeed more of us are spending more of our time in collaborative efforts with others. But a recent survey of collaboration experiences points out how much of successful collaboration requires some back to basics approaches to team management and proper use of well-established tools.

The survey report at All Collaboration points out the following:

1. Complex collaboration is already a significant work activity for many people, and will only grow in importance. Most respondents have multiple collaborative projects underway at any given time. The purpose of these collaboration projects spans virtually the entire spectrum of enterprise needs. Collaboration efforts extend well beyond a group/department to include collaboration with other departments, partners, vendors, and customers. Collaboration is viewed as being essential across the board in the future, significantly more than the reality today. Individuals as well as organizations believe that they need to collaborate substantially more than they do currently.
2. Successful collaboration requires mostly the good principles of project management applied to dispersed teams. Getting the old-fashioned basics right is critical. Most important advice from the respondents on effective collaboration is to:
   1. Define goals, roles, timelines and deliverables clearly,
   2. Communicate the process and progress frequently and clearly, and
   3. Select team members who bring real knowledge and expertise.

   Key challenges to effective collaboration include organizational culture and priorities, and collaboration process and tools.

3. Keep it simple on the collaboration tools. Email, audio and web-conferencing, and file sharing are rated the most effective tools for collaboration. Wikis, IM, video conferencing and discussion forums rank low on effectiveness for collaboration. Selection of right tools and proper training are identified as potential areas for improvement.

Are you working on collaboration approaches? What challenges are you facing?

Crimson Consulting has effectively helped its clients to evaluate channel offers and optimize programs with sophisticated research design, implementation of program modeling, and analysis of results. Each analysis recommends which programs elements meet the business objectives, and which ones are counterproductive. While each analysis is different, we have discovered several themes that are common to many hi-tech marketing campaigns:

• The decision to purchase based solely on brand may overwhelm all other elements
• Increasing discounts seldom matters to the channel
• Returns processing time is inordinately important
• Technical support is often cited in qualitative research, but seldom affects choice
• Contract length can affect choice
• Larger channel players often need custom programs

In one case, a major distributor found its industry amidst a shift from one type of channel program to another. It was imperative to learn if there would be enough potential sales growth to offset the market hit. In this situation, bankruptcy was a distinct possibility. Modeling with conjoint and logit analysis revealed a need to change virtually the entire channel program, and illuminated which new elements would provide the best returns. After implementing the new channel program, the client increased its annualized revenue by 60 percent in the first quarter. As a result, it went on to become one of the top three distributors in its market.

Your company may be looking to improve the effectiveness of its channel programs. In today’s environment, it’s crucial to create correct programs, messages, value propositions, and go-to-market strategies. By so doing, these will help you to better engage your channel and partners, and enable them to sell your products. By using the same analytical modeling tools you apply to other areas of marketing, you can take control of these challenges and apply them to channel programs. With modeling you can optimize your channel programs with confidence— and know that you are deploying the correct elements that will reap the biggest benefits for lead generation and revenue growth.

For a more in-depth discussion of tuning your channel programs, please contact Dylan Charles, Partner leading the Channels & Partners Service at Crimson Consulting Group. You can get a .pdf copy of the entire paper on Tuning your Channels, on the Crimson Consulting website.

And let us know how modeling in your channel programs is paying off for you.

A key challenge in developing a successful channel program is to anticipate the economic impact of implementing one element versus another. Bear in mind, there’s never enough money to test every element. Determining the evaluation factors of channel programs will become the input variables for conjoint or logit modeling of your channel program. Use of a rigorous statistical analysis will provide you with data to make the hard choices. It will provide evidence to share with channel partners who challenge your choices. (For more information on enabling your channel partners, please see Improving Alliance Marketing on the Crimson Consulting website.) By using analytics, you will also help build confidence with your CFO as you deal with the usual internal budget wrangling. Specific benefits of program modeling include:

• Identifying innovative program elements
• Determining the value of each program element
• Implementing smarter cuts in program costs
• Deploying the best program elements to maximize channel revenue
• Providing the evidence you need to sell changes to your organization
• Strengthening your channel relationships

The ability to value nuances is a big benefit of conjoint or logit modeling. When managing a multi-million dollar channel program budget, the cost of changes is often understood—but the cost of revenue lost is overlooked. It’s in your best interest to incur a minor cost for the research; this is a drop in the bucket compared to the high cost of implementing the wrong program elements. Analytical modeling provides you with a cost-effective way to make better decisions, reduce the price of your channel programs, and maximize revenue.

Modeling also enables economic simulations that may not be obvious to your team or they may not appear in qualitative surveys. Results can reveal cost saving measures by eliminating elements that are expensive or generate a miniscule return. You will be able to justify program designs and changes by using objective analysis. Modeling will help you maximize return on the program investment based on your strategic alternatives. As an added plus, it can also simulate competitive responses.

How do you model your channel programs before you execute and what is working well for you?

A channel program analysis will be tailored to each specific program. One cannot assume that program elements are interchangeable between business sectors, companies, or even the individual brands within a single company. Quite often the lessons learned in one program are confidently applied to another and fail miserably. Your channel program will blend a unique combination of brand, technology, business plans and other channel program elements.

The evaluation will use the same analytical tools you employ with many other areas of marketing. An analytical process such as conjoint or logit modeling demands precision in defining program categories and prioritizing each element. One requirement is to objectively quantify elements in order to avoid emotional judgments in the evaluation. Avoid skewing the analysis with negative reactions by channel partners who tend to voice frustrations on what cost them the last sale.

The table below provides examples of elements you may identify in a channel program. The examples show ways to group the elements and weightings for analytical modeling. Specific elements in your evaluation will vary based on requirements of the particular channel program.

 
What factors do you use to objectively evaluate your programs?

How do you measure the success of stimulus spending? It’s an obvious question for the Government, and it’s one that channel marketing professionals should also pose when it comes to money spent for demand generation. The ugly truth is this – money you spend to boost channel sales often disappears into a black hole. Sadly, your campaign can spend millions of dollars and tie up scarce resources with no viable return. Unfortunately, instead of boosting sales, it reaps just a meager blip. If managed effectively, these programs should bring stories of success. Instead, channel partners congregate to heap undesirable blame on you for hampering their success with “sub-par” support. To make matters worse, your CFO blames you for nuking the budget.

Before you spend a dime, you need to counter these risks with better modeling of channel program options. In coming weeks, we’ll take an in-depth look at how you can optimize your channel o¬ffering and enjoy more accuracy in predicting program revenue. The goal is to know, in advance, how a change in discounts, MDF funds, contracts or other elements will impact competitive challenges and return on investment. For more information on how to align your channels, check out Crimson’s channel articles in the Insight section of their website at http://www.crimson-consulting.com/insight.html.

As we explore this subject, let us know how your channel programs are underperforming or outperforming.

Lead management systems delivered as a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solution have revolutionized Sales and Channel communication. Their capabilities provide enormous benefits for cross-channel selling. With these systems in place, there is now every reason to provide your channel partners with access to the automated lead or deal registration process used by your internal sales representatives. To achieve this capability, be sure to use the best practice of setting up a repeatable and selective process for interacting with your direct sales reps, channel partners, on-line or retail channels.

F500 companies often have multiple platforms to manage sales and channel opportunities. Integrating marketing campaigns and lead qualification into these sales systems provides the sales rep with a prospect’s relevant history of interest and contact with your company.

New automated Lead Management systems now facilitate the means of driving growth in incremental revenue—without attaching significant cost. A particular benefit is accurate measurement of marketing ROI on each campaign. Additional benefits, specifically for marketing include:

• Best leads to go to appropriate sales channels
• More sales coverage through engaged partners

On the sales side, additional benefits include:

• More efficient use of selling time
• More prospects who are ready to buy

For a great synopsis of lead management best practices, take a look at the Crimson white paper “Tuning Lead Management for More Profit”.

What’s working and what needs fine-tuning in your own lead management practices?

It seems so obvious. Sales people want qualified leads. They want prospects that are already looking for the solution being sold, and are pre-disposed to accept a sales call. Success in lead management includes the pillar of Lead Qualification—the process of consistently providing lead pools with a large percentage of pre-disposed buyers. Putting truly qualified prospects into the lead pool motivates sales professionals and improves the odds of more sales.

Qualification Thresholds: A useful strategy for success is evaluating the qualification thresholds for each campaign in relation to engagement activities. You automatically track activities such as web page hits, video views, collateral downloads, and software trials. Be sure to listen for patterns in feedback from the sales team or channel partners. Consistent complaints about non-qualified leads on a particular campaign might justify fine-tuning the thresholds. Scoring allows you to empirically judge the quality of leads previously designated as “qualified.” Data from a scoring system enables rational adjustment of controls, and helps to minimize passage of unqualified leads to sales.

Multi-Tiered Lead Qualification: In a large, global organization, using an automated, multi-tiered lead qualification process will provide more granular control and accuracy. For example, one of the world’s largest computer manufacturers faced declining revenue from an old channel business. Its goal was to significantly grow enterprise revenue without hiring (expensive) direct outside sales reps. The company created a new program targeting end users that directly used channel partners for fulfillment. A closed-loop lead generation system segmented prospects in an existing database. Results were more than 6,000 qualified leads resulting in $15 million in incremental sales during the first two quarters. ROI was 1,250% with $60 million of incremental pipeline sales (for more info, please view the Success Story on the Crimson Consulting website).

Building a multi-tiered process like this one entails the use of technologies to automate the nurturing of leads, along with a team that can help exploit lead management data. These capabilities initiate a growing relationship with a prospect before it goes to sales. With truly qualified prospects, sales professionals can spend their time responding to people who are ready to engage.

What techniques do you use to ensure your leads are well-qualified?

As we continue looking at best practices in lead generation campaigns, it is important to understand how to segment your leads for campaign success. Developing a strategy and a process that prepares the database for easy campaign segmentation will simplify and streamline campaign list building. Assigning accurate profile data will enable your campaign to use relevant messages and influence and ultimately win prospects faster and easier.

Some ways that Crimson has helped our clients ensure their leads are well-segmented include:

Adding a self-qualification requirement to a web-to-lead form.
This can provide instant value in profiling any potential candidates for a quick, short-term marketing campaign. As part of your data mart for Lead Management, profiling will also serve as a basis for future campaigns.

Look for ways to accelerate profiling new prospects.
Fresh data is better for matching prospects to the right campaign. Inaccuracies or changing customer circumstances make these data worth less over time.

A big challenge is that leads come from diverse sources: web inquiries, purchased lists, sales contacts, partner contacts, and customers. Unfortunately, these are often scattered across the globe in various Customer Relationship Management and other database systems. Such data become relatively insignificant and dramatically decline in value if you cannot tap them immediately for an urgent campaign that presents itself.

We’ve all heard of implementations that were too slow and became useless. For example, one company expended three years to build a marketing data warehouse. As a result, they never used it for a single campaign because the data was so outdated!

In some cases, you may need specialized assistance in order to consolidate and cleanse prospects and customer databases within multiple sources. Investing the time and energy to develop new processes to keep data fresh and profiles accurate may seem counter-intuitive to the sense of urgency around touching your contacts quickly. However, these steps will ensure your long-term lead management practices are repeatable, targeted and productive.

How does your company ensure your leads are profiled quickly and accurately?

With the world’s attention on Vancouver, one thing is certain: people are posting, updating, tweeting, and blogging about it like no other Olympics before. NBC recently launched a pretty interesting way to take a snapshot of that real-time conversation. The Olympic Tracker aggregates tweets about live sporting events and Olympians and then overlays these conversations with images. Click on an image, and tweets clearly targeted by keyword are displayed to share live comments and links. The site even allows users to post directly to Twitter without ever leaving the site.

The tracker is a fun new way to experience the Olympics and NBC has utilized it to set up a hub and spoke approach to their social media strategy. The NBCOlympics.com page serves as a social hub, aggregating tweets from Olympians to provide unique perspectives on the games, using the Tracker to create a fun participatory experience, and linking to a number of blogs to provide in depth information. NBC also maintains a Facebook page, a Twitter handle, and offers widgets and a mobile app, each of which serve as another touch point to tap into the ‘pulse’ of the Olympic games online.

The notion of a social hub has become increasingly important as media broadcasters and marketers look to extend their social media presence beyond the often mundane Facebook fan page. Often it is these unique sites that use open API technology to tap into the social fabric of the web that are truly eye catching and engaging.

Channels like Twitter and Facebook are quickly becoming utilities that are directly integrated into every website experience. The challenge for marketers then is figure out how to utilize multiple communication channels to achieve their marketing objectives. Each social tool should be used to its own strengths, but all touch points must ultimately find continuity. The hub and spoke approach to social media allows the marketer to do just that. By integrating social interaction and popular social network channels into a centralized site, companies or broadcasters can maintain a focus in their communication without spreading themselves too thin. Social hubs also have the potential of creating a community beyond the Facebook fan or Twitter follower. Soon we may see Facebook or Twitter serving as just a gateway to an even more vibrant and close nit online community found within a branded social hub. It may be these more niche online communities that make social media even more impactful than today.