Phil Gibson - Marketing | Building Brand Experience
Phil Gibson - Marketing | Building Brand Experience

Launch Planning

With your direction set, plan your launch calendar and put in place a process for the execution of your campaigns.  Select the campaign themes that align to your brand message.  Look to the product and service schedules of your product line stakeholders.  Integrate those launches with high alignment and high probability into your launch schedule.  Deliver this schedule and enforce the preparation and planning to make it happen with the following in mind.

 

BRAND EQUITY (migration, not abandonment)

Extend your brand from the agreed values that it represents.  Equity exists so the move is an extension that has to keep in mind where the brand was, is, and where it is going.

 

BRAND DIRECTION & CAMPAIGN ALIGNMENT

Know the brand that you want to project and project this message from every aspect of your campaigns.  This messaging should be consistent through your online media: web ads, webinars and online videoos, messaging campaigns: newsletters, blogs, twitter, call center support, emails, and your offline efforts through your direct and channel partners: tradeshows, catalogs, brochures, local seminars, and customer visits.  Integrate your messaging in the training of the entire company.  All of your touch points must deliver the themes just as you or your CEO would.  Do not surprise the sales force with an entirely new brand image.  They are your strongest advocates in front of your customers.  Be sure that they can personally deliver the message.

 

EVENTS & SCHEDULE PLANNING: GROWTH AND MOMENTUM

Research the product, strategy, and delivery schedules of your business units.  Align these with your desired brand and plan the schedule of events for the campaign to generate momentum and growth.  Integrate your lead nurturing and lead scoring process in this planning.  Many schedule adjustments or delays can be managed or bridged through your email or newsletter strategies. 

 

Oftentimes, this requires the investment in a project planning and scheduling system to coordinate the on time delivery of the multitudes of components required for successful launches.  In the past, we built these systems internally but today there are many off the shelf promotional planning and launch systems tailored to various industries or products.  It is likely that one of these will serve your needs for timely execution.  The system is the easy part.  The real issue comes from the commitment from the business units and the company to enforce the deadlines and deliver on time.

 

ROI

It is critical to measure the return on investment for every promotion so that you monitor and feed back to the organization the success or failure of your campaigns, however, the metric should not become the objective.  Don't hurt your business or do unnatural things in order to make the metric.  The long term success of the business should be your decision maker.  That means that the ROI metric is one important metric to consider.  Please also take a look at the whole promotional and brand image impact before doing anything rash.  Don't make decisions on the metric alone.

 

Another learning about metrics is that while they do not always identify the most successful strategy or product exactly from the day of their release, a dead metric with no life in it can absolutely recognize products that have no demand in them or no interest from your customer base.  The process of capturing this status and reporting the progress and the best use of your promotional dollars is a constant requirement in today's competitive landscape. Make these decisions wisely.

 

There is much to learn from the monitoring process.  Just asking the questions of what you will monitor will help you to answer what you want to accomplish.

 

 

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This Web site is aimed at capturing some of the basic concepts I use when creating integrated marketing programs and leveraging the internet.

 

 Phil Gibson ©2016

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