Launching a disruptive product doesn’t follow the same mold as traditional products. The traditional planning for a launch won’t work when leading a disruptive product to market. The two are incompatible.
Founder of ViaVerus and creator of the Agile Market Entry methodology and Playbook Chris Morrison and David Mantica talked about this issue in a recent LinkedIn Live, unraveling the complex issue of why product launch planning doesn’t always work and what you should be doing instead.
Why a Traditional Marketing Plan Doesn’t Work for Launching Disruptive Tech
Chris had a recent vacation experience that got him thinking about product launch planning, and why in certain instances it doesn’t work. He found it was fruitless to plan what to do on his first-ever 6-week ski/work trip because it’s impossible to account for all outcomes and potential issues on this first-ever event. He pulled a hamstring on day two, quashing any skiing plans he had for the rest of the week.
The unexpected event meant, first, coping with the emotional distress of plans growing awry. Then, he had to pivot and change plans and behaviors to accommodate the new situation in the best way possible. Having never planned and taken a 6-week working vacation before and then suffering an injury on day 2, accounting for it in advance was pointless. All changes had to take place in real time and expectations had to shift.
This situation parallels what happens with product launches. Particularly with disruptive products, it is impossible to follow an exact plan. People tend to over-plan these launches and set expectations that are doomed. In fact, when doing something for the first time – or launching a disruptive product, any plans are based on assumptions – some are valid, some are invalid and some are hidden. This leads to disappointment and disillusionment, and, often, to dismissing or shelving a product that actually has real potential – not just itself, but to the whole product line and company as a whole.
Product launch planning fails so often because they are based on assumptions and not facts. Particularly launching disruptive tech since there is no historical data or experience to reference. No matter how much customer discovery you do or focus groups you hold, the launch plan is still steeped in assumptions, which are often invalid. Turning those assumptions into expectations disguised as a launch plan inevitably leads to disappointment because things rarely go to plan.
What You Should Be Doing Instead – Find and Follow Your North Star
People like plans because they provide a sense of security, a path forward, but it’s often false security. Instead of creating a product and then working from an inflexible plan, test the market first. Figure out if your target market even wants this product before moving ahead. Test the market demand for your product. You’re looking for that existing customer problem(s) or need(s) that’s going to enliven the market when you suggest it. You’re looking for that existing need that’s going to pull your product into the market.
Once you find that idea or concept that sparks excitement in your target market, it’s time to create an end goal. With a goal guiding you, you can periodically assess your position relative to the goal and make changes as needed. Find one overarching goal to be the North Star that guides your launch. For a disruptive tech, that’s the repeatable sales process (RSP) that your sales team can reliably and predictably execute to achieve market scale.
Focusing on revenue will often lead you away from your desired outcome and down the path of disillusionment. A launch should primarily be focused on the ultimate goal of scalability over revenue and the path to scalability is discovering, testing, and validating your repeatable sales process (RSP). Not meeting a revenue goal doesn’t necessarily mean a product is no good, your sales and marketing team is the right one, the market isn’t ready, or any other common excuse for a struggling product launch.
Now, to reach that North Star, you have to know you have a product that solves a customer’s problem. Is there a market demand for it? Is there customer interest? What makes the product unique or desirable? Answering these questions is much more valuable during early market development than any revenue generated because it gets you closer to your RSP and market scale. Too often I’ve seen teams focused on revenue as the primary goal moving further and further from finding their RSP.
The Mid-Launch Pivot
So what if you launch the product without proper market research ahead of time, and your sales team quickly informs you that the product is not hitting the market quite like you hoped? That’s when it’s time for a “mid-launch pivot”. A mid-launch pivot revolves around being flexible. You cannot be so attached to the “traditional” way of making sales. This is when I see launch teams offering pricing discounts, changing marketing tactics, doubling down the pressure on the sales team to close, or turning over sales leadership. This is the same old, stale thinking. Instead, the key is to take a step back, question the underlying causes, and perform some “market reconnaissance” to find the gaps in your sales and marketing process. Odds are you just haven’t equipped the launch team with the RSP they need to do their jobs. Assessing the situation will provide the data and identify the gaps in the RSP. You can then move ahead and make more informed decisions. It might not happen overnight but you’ll be back on track to market success.
The Importance of an Agile Product Launch Plan
Being flexible and able to pivot mid-stream, like Chris did after hurting himself on a ski trip, is important. When things don’t go to plan, what do you do next? A plan is fine, as long as it can be flexible and change with shifting scenarios and disappointed expectations.
Start with goals, market knowledge, and an understanding of who wants your product and what problem it solves. From there, you can create an agile plan, a plan that shifts with unexpected events in your launch as you uncover your invalid and hidden assumptions and build a market plan based on real data and evidence.
With this in mind, your launch team must include members willing to be flexible and to buck tradition. Not everyone has the imagination or is willing to drop their attachment to traditional methods. Seek out a sales and marketing team who can do this kind of work. It’s a unique but necessary skill set.
Launching a disruptive product is different by definition. Traditional, rigid marketing plans simply don’t work. The smart teams realize this and try something different. That is where Agile Marketing Entry comes in. Agile Market Entry is a framework for efficiently going from pre-launch to market scale – in less time with fewer sales and market resources. We help you create a repeatable process required for achieving market scale and the growth stage of the product life cycle. Let us help strategize a more effective and efficient plan for your new product launch. Contact us here.
