Behind the Scenes of a Wistia Product Launch (INBOUND)

We all know that a successful product launch can help you grow your business and meet your goals. But how do you make sure that your next product launch hits the mark?

Elise Beck, Wistia’s Director of Product Marketing, and Taylor Corrado, Wistia’s Senior Director of Brand Marketing, can help with that.

At INBOUND 2023, Elise and Taylor shared insights into how they think about product launches. They uncovered helpful strategies, tactics, and tips to make your next launch a success. And in this blog post, we’ll share a recap of their presentation — and take you behind the scenes of a Wistia product launch!

Correctly “sizing” your campaign

One of the key takeaways from the presentation was how important it is to correctly size your campaign.

As your business evolves and grows, you will likely release new product features. Whether your team is shipping a ton of new features or making just the occasional update, it can be helpful to have a mechanism for scoping and prioritizing your product launch campaigns.

Tee shirt sizing

Wistia’s marketing team uses a handy framework they call “tee shirt sizing” to figure out how big a campaign should be.

They look at how much the new feature or product will affect customers (Y-axis) and the market (X-axis) to figure out the total impact of the campaign. This framework helps them understand how far and wide their campaign should reach.

Let’s say you’re launching a new feature or product line that can significantly improve your product’s functionality or even break your company into a new market. You’ll definitely want to maximize promotion (or, in Wistia’s terms, run an “extra large” campaign).

For an “extra large” campaign, Wistia’s team uses many channels and even brainstorms new creative ideas to make the biggest impact possible.

Want to use the tee shirt sizing model to guide your next launch? Well, you’re in luck. You can grab your own copy here!

Foundational positioning

Elise and Taylor explained that when ideating a product launch (especially a larger one), positioning is the first and most important thing you can do. Foundational positioning provides structure to messaging and makes sure every stakeholder understands it the same way.

Start by hosting a meeting with stakeholders in product, marketing, sales, and customer service to explain what the feature does, how it can help the customer, and how you will communicate this to the market.

To align all of Wistia’s teams and to create a strong foundation for each product launch, Wistia’s product marketing team developed a positioning template that outlines the target market, product category, key benefits, point of differentiation, and brand tie-in.

Here’s a copy of Wistia’s positioning template for your next product launch.

Timeline for a launch

If you want your product launch to go smoothly, you need a well-planned timeline.

Wistia’s marketing team breaks down the launch timeline into key phases, including the kick-off, ideation, and build phases.

Elise and Taylor walked us through how their team handles each phase:

Before the kick-off stage, Wistia’s marketing team loops in various teams across the company, such as sales and customer success. This helps foster collaboration and keep everyone aligned from the get-go.

Next, the team spends about a month on positioning. Once that’s set, they start internal campaign planning (ideation), which takes about two weeks. This phase encourages creativity and allows for the exploration of original, fun, or even wild concepts. While not every out-of-the-box thought is considered in a later stage, it’s important to give everyone free reign so that they can come up with fresh, striking ideas.

And now there’s the build phase. It takes about four to six weeks and it focuses on preparing for the actual launch. If you have a large company with multiple marketing teams, you may want to extend this time period to make sure all the copy and media are distributed to the proper stakeholders for launch day. If you’re working with a small and agile team, you may be able to execute closer to the four-week mark.

The actual launch of the product can take a day, a week, or even a month.

Wistia Live: a launch in action

Last year, Wistia did an “extra large” launch of Wistia Live, their built-in webinar tool. It was a month-long campaign called Webinarpalooza, where the marketing team hosted a webinar every workday for a month.

Here’s a fun fact: The idea of a webinar “music festival” was born at INBOUND 2022. Wistia’s team explored this wild idea and turned it into something wonderful: Webinarpalooza. Its branding and messaging stood out because Wistia’s team thoroughly embraced the ideation phase instead of rushing through it.

Distribution and success

Effective distribution is key to maximizing the impact of a product launch. This takes us back to the tee shirt framework, which can help you choose which channels you can use to promote your launch.

Wistia Live: distribution in action

For Wistia Live’s launch, the team used a variety of distribution channels. It was important for them to have a multi-channel approach because this product launch allowed them to break into a new market: webinar software.

They did a homepage takeover, collaborated with influencers, ran a webinar campaign, and distributed teaser videos, demo videos, and landing pages. By leveraging a combination of pre-recorded and live content, they engaged their audience and generated excitement around the new product.

Additionally, teams across Wistia started using the product internally, and that helped them gather feedback and constantly improve it. Being able to iterate on a newly created product helps show your customers that you care about their success. To gather even more feedback, Wistia let a handful of beta customers test it out. This not only helped them understand product usage, but it also helped develop chatter and hype for Wistia Live.

Make your next product launch a success

To launch a product successfully, you need a well-planned strategy. You can drive meaningful results simply by understanding the key elements of a product launch, from prioritization and reaching new audiences to foundational positioning and distribution.

Take inspiration from Wistia’s behind-the-scenes approach, and your next product launch could capture attention, generate buzz, and create lasting impact for your brand.