Every product has a story. HubSpot's story starts with founders Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan taking on a new kind of marketing initiative and turning it into tangible software for marketers. But that's not where HubSpot's story ends - and it continues every day through the new features and functionality we launch that affects our 10,000 paying customers, countless prospects, and a fleet of sales folks ready to sell, sell, sell. How do we handle it all? We've developed our own guide to successful product launches that we practice every day. Come join product marketers Jeff Russo and Maggie Hibma from HubSpot for a glimpse inside how HubSpot does product launches, from setting the story with our development team all the way through tracking customer adoption and further education. We'll talk about our launch strategies, our "menu" of communication channels and what we consider a successful launch on the product marketing team. Because launching a new product isn't about announcing to the world it's arrived - it's about telling the world the story of why it should matter to them.

1. Does Product
Launches
How

2. WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO
Maggie HibmaJeffrey Russo
Product
Managers
Product
Marketing
Managers
HubSpot
Public

3. WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?

4. WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?
Understand
your
audience.
Identify your
differentiator.
Be a great
storyteller.
TAKEAWAY:
Successful product launches include
understanding your audience, identifying
your unique differentiator, and telling a
great story.

5. THE NECESSARY INGREDIENTS...
• A clear, well articulated vision.
(Why are you here?)
“At HubSpot, our mission
is to transform how
organizations attract,
engage, and delight their
customers.”
• Use it as the starting point for
everything you do, big or small.
• Consistency + reinforcement helps
people understand your message.
• An understanding of your
audience. (No, really.)
• Demos, user testing, interviews,
working with customer facing teams
• Informs everything you do. Fodder
for content, identifies anchor
tenants.
• A deep knowledge of
the product.
• Sitting side by side with product &
engineering teams.
• Informs our positioning. Helps us
inform product development.
TAKEAWAY:
Upstream and downstream connections
are important ingredients for great product
marketing and a successful launch.

6. PLANNING YOUR LAUNCH: PRE-LAUNCH
We’re in the business of delightion.
#SFTC
#DFTC
“We try to work backwards
from the customer, rather
than starting with an idea for
a product and trying to bolt
customers onto it.”
- Ian McAllister, General Manager,
Amazon
TAKEAWAY:
Being on the same page with your product
team is critical to a successful launch.

7. PLANNING YOUR LAUNCH: CONTENT
CREATION
BEST PRACTICES • THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
SALES RESOURCES • PRODUCT-CENTRIC CONTENT
CUSTOMER RESOURCES • USAGE-DRIVERS
TAKEAWAY:
Content is a huge lever on your most
important metrics. And you can start
creating it right now.

8. THE DAY OF YOUR LAUNCH
• Check your schedule
• Check your channels
• Check your metrics Are we tracking *everything*?
Are my channels prepped?
Am I available today for Q’s?
TAKEAWAY:
Launch days can be crazy.
Set yourself up for success.

9. AFTER THE LAUNCH
• Measuring awareness
• Track media mentions, social
activity, overall scale of reach
• “Buzz” seems nebulous, but does
translate to downstream demand
• Measuring the success
of individual assets
• Track new leads, reconversions +
assists, team usage, referring traffic
• Gives us a rough idea of the impact
of different assets + efforts
• Measuring lead to
customer conversion rate
• Is the feature coming up as a factor
in won deals?
• Most critical metric – judge of launch
success and product success
• Measuring adoption
• 30 – 60 – 90 – 120 days after launch-
is it being used? How deeply?
• Closes the loop on our efforts +
ensure product success
TAKEAWAY:
Measure what you can, but realize that
some valuable activities are hard to
quantify the impact of.

10. THANK YOU!