3 Things Your Team Must Do When Preparing to Launch an Advanced Product

Even some of the most process-oriented marketing organizations fail to fully prepare when launching new advanced products. Checklists that guide marketers - including product managers - through launch-related tasks are helpful roadmaps to efficiently navigate well-worn routes to hit milestones and produce expected launch materials. While such standardized paths can be effective when promoting familiar or incrementally improved products, they fail to prompt marketers to realize how they need to prepare differently when launching advanced products or new technologies.

Such advanced products and new technologies set a new bar for performance and functionality. They tend to be differentiated from competitors and are either sold at a premium or generate fresh revenue streams. For example, legacy companies that produce durable goods or consumables may choose to expand into data-driven solutions and connected devices. Such products venture into new frontiers with the allure of establishing a ‘stickier’ install base, enhanced services, and a deeper connection to the customer’s operations.

Treating the launch of your business’ new advanced product the same as your legacy products is a recipe for underperforming sales results. To increase your traction on launch day, your team should keep the following three things in mind during each step in the process, from product development to the delivery of sales training.

#1: Remember that customers don’t need your advanced product

When your team is delivering a new solution for B2B clients, your project leaders need to acknowledge that your prospective client already operates a viable business today. This may seem obvious, but it’s frequently forgotten amid the zest to focus on features, product performance, and basic ROI estimations - which subsequently lead marketers to remark that your prospects “need” your solution. In fact, your prospects have systems that have worked for them for years and can continue to work tomorrow and into the future.

The fact that YOUR product works and CAN be used in their environment may be a somewhat effective (though uninspiring) position if your aim is to replace items when they break or provide new units as prospects expand. But when you’re promoting a truly advanced product, you must provide reasons why a customer should CHANGE what they’re doing. Remember: when your advanced product is installed, they aren’t just changing a unit – they will likely need to adjust their processes, re-train their personnel, amend their QA program, and alter how they manage the affected part of their operation. This requires a more thoughtful approach to your marketing messaging and the tools you provide to your front-line; otherwise, you set up your sales teams to get mired in discussions full of questions they’re unprepared to answer. I’ve worked with many outstanding salespeople, but never encountered ANY that liked surprises….

Launching a new advanced product or new technology is a heavier lift than launching a standard product. Make sure your marketing teams are ready to blaze a new path to ensure that your value propositions, messaging, lead-generation campaigns, and sales tools properly acknowledge why the prospect should change their operation and why your benefits are compelling enough to justify that effort.

#2: Monitoring is a trap… dig deeper

When marketing a data-driven product or system, your team must know specifically how a client will use your product to make – and execute – better management decisions. In most cases, offering “monitoring” is insufficient to produce any real ongoing value.

Prospective customers may initially indicate that monitoring is alluring to them and may say that they wish they had such visibility today. Rather than registering that as a positive buying sign or confirmation of a predicted need, your marketer must dig deeper to learn how the prospect’s managers would use the data - then probe further into how the client would achieve measurable results before estimating the value of those results.

If you’re offering something truly novel, customers probably haven’t fully considered what results are possible. This may deter some marketers from digging deeper, but then they miss an opportunity to help the client dream of the full possibilities. Product managers and marketers are best positioned to do this probing as they gather Voice of Customer input during early-phase development of innovation ideas. By digging deeper at this point, marketers will become better prepared to equip front-line sales teams with the tools and talking points they need when they introduce the new product to their customers and prospects.

In reference to digital dashboards and other monitoring devices, the fact that a plant manager or production supervisor may express initial excitement about gaining visibility into something that they can’t see today… is a trap. Your marketers must dig to find ways that users will actually use the data to make better management decisions which generate measurable results. The luster of visibility fades quickly, and a customer that doesn’t use your data to guide their actions will soon question the value of paying for continuing subscriptions and services.

In a future post I’ll expand on what product managers can do to improve the long-term viability of their data-driven systems and how dashboards and reports can be optimized to perpetually reinforce the value of your solution. For now, the takeaway for business leaders is to make sure your marketers avoid the “monitoring trap” and invest effort to enable clients to make and execute better management decisions.

#3: Create thoughtful questions the entire sales team can use

Develop a very short series of “magic questions” that help salespeople show interest in their prospect’s operation, gently introduce beneficial topics, and artfully probe for the underlying interests (including pains, desires, and incentives) that help unearth opportunities for your new product.

Non-salespeople often underestimate the blocking-and-tackling that account managers do every day. Wrangling key contacts, navigating organizations, supporting issues in their client base, and preparing materials for the next call are part of the never-ending stream of activities demanding their attention.

A salesperson’s constant hustle stifles contemplation about how a new product satisfies a client’s deep-seated needs. Their busy schedules don’t help stimulate fresh ideas to craft thoughtful, empathetic questions they can use to open new doors. And being good at selling your legacy products doesn’t mean they’re inherently ready to endorse and sell a different technology.

The role marketing plays as a linchpin of commercial activity means that they’re in the best position to recognize how customer needs and a product’s benefits can intersect in conversation. Doing this well can produce simple, memorable go-to questions that can be shared with an entire sales team, providing a needed force multiplier to help your organization get real traction with your new advanced products.

Final Thoughts:

Business unit leaders need to urge marketers to blaze new trails when preparing to commercialize advanced products and new technologies. Marketers – including product managers – must avoid the temptation to just “check the boxes” in launch roadmaps and instead dig deeper to fully understand the changes your new product will require and how the client will derive ongoing value from it. As your linchpin of commercial activity, marketers who diligently invest in producing thoughtful guidance and sales tools are positioned to disseminate them throughout your commercial organization. Doing so cultivates confidence in your front-line teams at exactly the time when average organizations experience push-back as salespeople resist change or decide that their path to selling your new product isn’t as clear as selling your legacy products.

Meet the Consultant:

James A. Craig has focused on growing B2B companies throughout his career, beginning in small regional companies and startups before following a traditional MBA path into corporate marketing - where he honed his skills empowering B2B sales teams around the world with confidence-building targeting, tools, and door-opening messages. He now enjoys applying the tools and experiences he's gained from world-class companies to help small- and mid-size companies punch above their weight and methodically outgrow their peers. Learn more at www.revulet.com.