Why You Need a Product Launch Checklist

Whether you’re working with a team or on your own on your next launch, checklists can make or break your launch…no joke!

There are so many different moving parts that go along with even the simplest of launches, and any one of them can cost you conversions, sales and retention.

That’s why before you even start, you need to develop a product launch checklist that is just for you and those on your team to use. You’ll likely need more than one checklist. For instance you might want to create an overall checklist, then create one for each marketing platform, or sales page. This is how you will know that you didn’t skip over something important.

Select Your team   

Who will handle project management, sales, research & development, support services and marketing management? It’s important to select a team to handle all aspects of your product launch from A to Z before you get started. This way, everything will be handled by professionals as assigned.

For instance, would you rather tell one person your vision and let them worry about the team, or would you want to tell each team member exactly what to do on your own? Each person is different regarding how much they want to do in this regard. It’s certainly less of your own time to hire an online business manager or online marketing manager who will concern themselves about the entire team ensuring that what needed to be done will get done.

Choose a Project Management Software 

It’s super important to have some sort of project management software like TeamworkPM to help you organize projects as well as the team. Often times an online business manager will use their own system which is great for you. One less thing for you to worry about. Remember that the fewer things you have to do, the more you can be creative and do what it is that makes you the most money.

There are many types of project management systems out there aside from TeamworkPM. If you want to utilize one on your own you might want to try out a few. Some good ones are: Central Desktop, Wrike, Basecamp, and more. Just do a quick search on Google for Project Management Software and there is no shortage. Decide based on the features you need, and your budget.

Set Deadlines 

It’s important to know when you want your product or program to launch and have a set date in mind. This is something you can pass on to your project manager who will then help reverse engineer when things need to be done. Starting from the due date and working backwards to create a calendar of tasks that must be done for each state of your product launch from A to Z.

Aside from those things, every project has very similar components:

• Understanding the Audience & Competition  — Everything always starts with your audience and the competition. If you know who you’re trying to sell to, you’ll be able to create a better message. If you understand your competition you’ll be able to know where you need to differentiate yourself.
• Clarity of Message — Can you create a  persona for your audience down to their sex, income, age, and other demographics? If you can do that, it’s going to be that much easier to develop the message to get the word out about your new product.
• Developing Your USP — Knowing the competition can help you understand where you are unique and different. What is your unique selling point, that one thing that separates you from the other people selling what you are selling?
• Defining Your Marketing Strategy  — What are the ways in which you will market your product, will you use content marketing, social media marketing, and other methods?
• Testing the Product –– Once you have everything set up, it’s time to ask people to test out the product. This is a great way to get testimonials that you can add to your sales pages and marketing collateral.
• Pre Launch Check Up — Does all your technology work? If someone clicks buy now on your sales page what happens? Is what you thought was going to happen, happening? Your team should already be doing this, but it never hurts to ask a few people that you know to test it out from start to finish to find out what exactly happens during the process to ensure you didn’t miss something.
• Monitoring Metrics — Finally, monitor, and track everything! Not only for this launch, but keep records to compare and tweak everything: clicks, optins, conversions, videos watched, sales, refunds, cancellations, anything and everything.

Checklists are how most large businesses run smoothly. The checklists can be refined and reworked along the way, but the checklist is how a job can be passed on to someone else and you can still be sure nothing was missed.