The Launch Doctor - Email Newsletter

The Launch Pad
September 2004

Creating “Launch Central”

During the chaos of launch, it is challenging to communicate with the many people involved with various aspects of launch. The marketing people need to communicate with the technical people and the sales training people and the public relations people and the lucky launch manager needs to keep all the information updated and distributed. To make life easier, I recommend to my clients that they set up a dedicated area on a private, internal network that can function as “launch central”, and appoint someone from the launch team as the keeper of the information that resides there.

A Repository and Hub
The online launch center should contain all of the information about all the company’s launches: the what, when, where and who. It should be the centralized repository where the latest and most up to date information about each launch can be found. Launch information stored here should include high-level information such as the company’s product roadmap, the schedule of launches for the year, and strategic objectives for each launch. There should also be a set of files for each major launch planned that includes a detailed launch timeline, any documents that reflect pre-development market requirements, competitive analysis information, specs for the product, information on the beta customer program, a list of all launch deliverables, and a schedule of launch team meetings and key dates for events.

The launch center should act as a hub for communicating with all key individuals involved in the launch, and employees who need launch information. Additionally, the launch center can store the working copies of marketing materials such as brochures, datasheets and sales presentations, so that individuals can collaboratively develop, review and revise these documents online.

Access
Who should be able to access the information in the launch center? Certainly every member of the launch team and those providing key input for the launch. Sometimes, these key people are not employees, such as external vendors or contractors. These individuals may need password-controlled access to the company’s network.

Sometimes any employee can have access to the launch center, at least as far as reading files; they might not be able to revise or change files that reside there, however. Some companies want to make the information available company-wide, and others worry that company-confidential information could fall into the wrong hands either inadvertently or on purpose. Company policy will determine how access should be controlled. In any case, all internal launch documents should be clearly marked as company confidential.

Updates
Someone from the launch team should be designated to post and update the information in the launch center, controlled by passwords. It’s important to show revision dates, and to notify key members of the launch team by email that the files have been updated. Use of automated date and time stamps can help control versions of documents.

It’s also critical to update launch documents in the center as quickly as the changes are made, especially if there are any changes to the launch schedule or timeline. There are so many organizations that interact for launch that the slightest change will ripple through the whole system. Keeping the information current will also help increase use of the center - if people know that there’s somewhere they can go to get the latest information about the launch, they will begin to rely on it.

Organizing the Content
The information in the launch center should be organized in a hierarchical fashion. At the top level, there should be either a list or diagram that shows the product roadmap for the year, along with a timeline of launches by month for the entire year. This information usually comes from strategic planning documents that are revised at the beginning of a year or a business cycle, and links to the original documents can be placed in this section. These might be strategic plans or the CEO’s last PowerPoint presentation to the employees. In addition to the plan for the future, sometimes companies will post a list of the products already available in the company in this section of the launch center.

Each product or service to be launched should have its own section in the launch center; this may be a folder with many files in it. For each launch, here is a checklist of information that might be useful for the launch. Not everyone will include all of these files because they want to keep things simple, so you can choose whatever is needed most by the launch team and company:

-Launch team members and contact information
-Schedule of launch team meetings
-Detailed launch timeline
-List of launch deliverables and key deadlines, responsible individuals
-Marketing materials in progress (working copies)

-Detailed product description and relationship to product families
-Development schedule, including beta testing
-Target customer description and value proposition
-General market overview and key trends
-Competitive Overview
-Competitive analysis of companies
-Competitive analysis by product
-Key differentiators
-Market strategy
-Positioning against key competitors
-Key messages – corporate and product level
-Distribution channels

-Sales team information:
-Key customer accounts, targeted new customers
-Customer presentations
-Collateral and marketing materials available
-Schedule of key trade shows and events

-Key web links to other documents, presentations, and planning documents

Getting People to Use It
It’s one thing to set up such a center; it’s quite another to get people to use it. The first hurdle is making sure people are aware that there is one. This can be accomplished using an internal email broadcast, or better yet, a personal presentation by the launch manager for each of the key functional groups involved in launch.

Sometimes it takes pressure from senior management to encourage employees to use the center, so it’s a good idea to line up some support before the center is created. Employees are more likely to pay attention if the directive comes from the top.

Another way to encourage use is to make the online launch center as easy to use as possible. If users report errors or crashes, make sure that they are fixed as soon as possible. Also, be willing to take action on any suggestions for improvement that you receive from users. After all, the whole purpose of having a center is to make launches easier for everyone involved.

Quick and Quirky Example
Suppose your company has a large sales force in the field, and they are just inundated with the number of launches; sometimes they hear about your company’s new products from the customers! Anyway, they have requested more advance notice, and because they spend at least two hours a day sorting through so much spam, email has become ineffective in reaching everyone. The Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing has asked you, the Director of Marketing, to work with your IT department to help resolve this problem before the next product is launched two months hence. So then you ask the VP how much budget you have and he says it has to come out of your current marketing budget, because after all, you should have been doing this already! You think, what nerve! But then you remember that you’re up for promotion in six months, so you salute and say “Of course, what was I thinking?”

During your meeting with the IT Director, she tells you that there is a very tiny portion of the company intranet available for launch information, and until the whole company intranet is redone next year, that’s all the space there is. She tells you that there will be room for about 10 files, as long they aren’t huge graphics files. She gives you a quote that you can almost afford within your marketing budget.

Your next meeting is with one of the sales directors whose sales team will be responsible for the next product that will be launched. He gives you a long list of what information they need, but you know it won’t all fit. You ask him what’s most important, and he says: launch dates, sales collateral that’s available, how to update customer presentations, competitive information, product specs, beta information, list of trade shows, press releases and when they’ll be sent out, and overall strategy. Oh, and they also want a place to update what they hear about competitors while out in the field.

You leave the meeting depressed, and ready to update your resume. You decide to have one last meeting with the newly formed launch team, to do some brainstorming about this. One person suggests that maybe some of the materials the sales people want might already exist in another part of the intranet, and maybe you could just create a web link to it, which would free up some space. You ask her to research which of the categories could be handled that way. Another team member suggests that the competitive information could be set up as a small database file, so that sales people could post “news updates” by competitor name. Then, someone from the launch team could do weekly updates on the main competitive matrix to reflect the new information. You assign him that task. The next launch team meeting is scheduled for the following week.

During the follow-up meeting, you collectively develop the following list of files for the company’s launch center. It was discovered that much of the information could be found in existing documents elsewhere on the company’s intranet, so a lot of the information could be condensed:
1.Main launch page: name of launch, launch team members and contact information, list of marketing materials and deadlines, list of key events with dates
2.Launch timeline: PowerPoint file with graphic of all deliverables and dates
3.Product page: Technical specifications, beta information, development schedule, LINK to product development plan residing elsewhere, LINK to company’s overall product roadmap
4.Market and strategy page: Target market description and size, target customer and description, market strategy for launch, LINK to company-level market strategy presentation
5.Marketing materials center: List of planned marketing materials, how to order, and LINK to working copies to view latest versions
6.Customer presentation page: PowerPoint file – evolving customer presentation that is updated as launch date nears
7. Competitive Center: small database of comments by competitor where sales people can update information
8.Competitive Matrix page: Updated status of competitors

You take this to the IT Director, proud of the fact that you even have two files left over for expansion! However, she informs you that the competitive center may take up the space of a couple of files, so that would be your limit anyway. Oh, and by the way, to have the database will require about $5000 more from your marketing budget. You groan, wondering how you will have enough to do the launch and do the center from your skimpy little budget. You meet with the sales director, and he thinks it’s sort of cramped, but worth a try, as long as you agree to have someone from your launch team train the sales people how to use this new center. Yikes, another expense.

Now that you have the blessing of the sales director and IT, you take the plan to your VP for final approval, pointing out the additional hit to your budget. You also point out that by setting up this center now, right before this launch, it will actually help your launch team organize and manage the launch better, so in the end, it will end up saving some time and money. He beams, and decides to give you your promotion six months early.

And then you wake up from your dream.

-- -- Here’s hoping all your launch dreams come true….

Catherine Kitcho
The Launch Doctor