8 Ways to Crush a Product Release

A few years back, I was working at a coffee roaster doing education…which meant I did account management, inside sales, events, and a whole bunch of other things in addition to coffee education. One of the “other things” I was involved in, was communicating to our current clients about the new coffees that we were about to release. Sounds simple, right? Wrong! Every single time a coffee was released, I remember it being an intense, grueling, and cumbersome month(s) long process. Once, I remember, we received a coffee early in the summer and didn't release it till we were well into the fall. 

Why? Not because we couldn’t release it, but simply because we didn’t have a good process for product releases. So the product sat in our warehouse costing the company money, taking up space, and weighing over the whole crew for months.

Believe it or not, it was the same at almost every coffee roaster that I’ve worked with over the years. As it relates to coffee roasters, it’s crucial to understand that, yes, they are a coffee roaster, but they are a product company at their core. Meaning, they produce and release products on a regular basis.

For instance, most coffee roasters have between 3-8 staple blends that are around all year long, 2-4 seasonal blends that come and go annually and anywhere from 6-40+ single origins that are released per year. Obviously, the staple blends aren’t products that get released every season or even every year, but the rest of the coffees are. So assuming that you run a coffee roaster with only 2 seasonal blends and 6 single origin coffees that are released every year, that comes out to 8 product releases per year. I.e. your roaster releases 0.66 products per month.

Ok, enough numbers. What I’m trying to say is, on the low end, there's a lot of products to be released and every month and some change you’ll be releasing a new product. If you are a growing or midsized roaster you will likely be releasing 1-4 coffees per month. So you’d better get REAL good at product releases.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that the priorities of a product based business is three fold; Maintain Quality, Innovate, and Release Products. Those first two priorities are a lot of work on their own but if your business isn’t stellar at product releases, it negates the first two priorities. See, the better you communicate to your current buyers what they can buy (i.e. the new products) and what your prospective buyers might be able to buy, the faster you can move the needle.

So here’s 8 ways that you can crush product releases whether you are selling candles, coffee, wine, cannabis or really any products:

1. Start with a Purpose

If you’ve been listening or read any of our content as of late, you could have guessed this one. You need to start with a solid purpose behind your products. If you are simply creating a product for the sake of creating another product, that isn’t a good enough reason. Have a meaningful purpose in mind that both your team, partners and buyers can connect to.

It could be as simple as you are sharing a new product to further your mission as a company or it could be that you innovated a brand new product to improve the life of your consumers. It’s 2021 yall, people need to be compelled by more than good looks or a pretty label. Yes, it’s hard but it's a better way.

2. Curate Your Releases & Products For Impact

Focusing only on “selling the most,” will result in your audience feeling that they are being sold to and it’s a matter of time before they leave you for your competitor who does make an impact. If you are focused on the impact you can make, that will completely shift the process all together. There are enough folks seeking to “sell something’ but if you can develop your products and their associated releases to make an impact on your audience, you will create a compelling reason for them to say, “I’m interested in that.”

Perhaps there's a social cause you care about…associate that with your product. Perhaps there’s a deep reason that you are releasing this product right now verses earlier or later in the year…share about that. Share the reasoning behind it all, instead of just saying, “buy this thing!”

3. Question - Plan -Process

Much of the reason for the cumbersome product releases that I mentioned above, was due to a lack of process. When you are starting out, what you need is a plan. In order to begin to develop your plan you need to ask quite a few questions to fully understand all of the needed pieces of the product release. This plan will eventually lead to a process that will become your rubric for product releases. Here are the questions we start with to develop a plan:

• Important Details

  • What is it?

  • Who’s it for?

  • Why are we producing this?

• Timeline?

  • When will the product be released?

  • What are the important dates leading up to this?

  • Are there conflicts with other product releases?

• Cost

  • How much will this cost us?

  • How much will this product be sold for?

  • Are there other costs that we aren’t thinking about?

• Key Stakeholders - Internally & Externally

  • Who will be included in this internally and externally?

  • Do we have everyone we need for this project?

  • Do we need to create any new relationships to execute on this release?

  • Divy roles and responsibilities.

• Promotion

  • Will this go outside of the traditional methods of promotion?

  • Will we emphasize the promotion of this product in any specific way?

• Content Creation

  • To communicate about the release to staff.

  • For promotion, social channels, and announcements.

  • For partners.

  • Do we currently have the resources needed to execute this release?

Answering these questions may seem cumbersome, but once they are answered it will give you a clear sense for the whole project and a rough plan. Once you do this a few times you’ll want to standardize the pieces that you keep doing every single time, subtract any items that are not applicable, and add any unexpected items. Once you do it a few times it will become muscle memory for you and your team. However, this is not a one and done situation. You will likely spend a few months honing the process, moving the steps back, forward, up and down until you find an ironclad process.

You may be asking, “Why the need for so much specificity here?” Well, there's a few reasons but perhaps the most important one is that different releases require different elements. For instance, releasing a special process coffee and releasing a mug, require some similar steps but they likely both individually require specific steps that the other doesn’t require. Once you have the muscle memory of what all the steps are, adding or subtracting a step here or there won't feel tough but will feel like a slight shift versus a significant change in process.

The point here is that you need to understand every single step in releasing a product and what different product categories require that others don't.

A final note, you may have a few different product release processes based on the different categories of products you produce and sell.

4. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate…like a human

Remember that time that your spouse or partner told you something important in passing that you totally forgot about? Now, remember that time when you were out to dinner with your partner and they mentioned something important to you, you had a conversation about it, they sent you a text about it, added it to your shared calendar, and then reminded you the morning of the important thing they brought up over that dinner? You probably remembered it, and didn’t look like a fool like the first instance. If you think of communicating about your new product in this way, it will sink in deeper into your staff and audience’s mind. Think of communication not as a one time/in passing/fyi and more as multiple reminders that your staff and audience are invited into participating in.

We are all human, and everyone involved in the process of releasing a product, both on the giving and receiving side, is a human. So remember to communicate about your product releases as if the people in the process are humans…because they are. This isn’t about being at the top of the feed as much as it is about serving the folks along your supply circle, whatever it looks like.

Who should be communicated with? Good product release communication comes down to communication with 3 parties: 1. Communicating to your team (i.e. your production, fulfillment, account management, sales, and of course…marketing), 2. Communicating to your current accounts / partners, and 3. Communicating to your potential accounts / partners. Sounds simple, but it’s a huge ball drop if one or none of the three are communicated to, not to mention it's a waste of precious time and resources.

All of this “communication” is not just about “telling” but rather inviting each of the folks along the circle to learn what the product is, key dates, how this product is different from the rest and how their lives and businesses will improve or change because of it.

Now, remember, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Your audience can become fatigued by the same thing over and over. If you have a product that you will be teasing, announcing and launching over a few months or even a year, be sure to spread it out. Your audience needs a chance to breathe. This circles back to the first point about starting with a purpose. You want to make sure you are communicating about this product in a way that aligns with the purpose of the product and the company at large.

So, communicate, communicate, communicate as if the folks on the other end are humans, because they are.

5. Content - Have a Variety 

People don’t buy what they don't see, so creating content around your product releases is crucial. Again, some products may require more images or video content while others may require more text or advertisement for their release. Whatever the case may be, you should develop a variety of content so that you can share about the product being released on all of your platforms (i.e. your online store, your retail locations, your wholesale partners, via social media, via email and the list goes on).

The point here is to recognize that your audience is spread over a variety of platforms and locations and you’ll need a variety of content to communicate the launch of the product internally and externally. See, when you tweet an announcement about your product launch and then post a video on TikTok, you are reaching two completely different audiences. The folks on twitter aren’t the exact same folks on TikTok. Sure, there may be some overlap but especially as your audience grows, they become different across platforms and locations. So it’s important to create a variety of content that is contextual to each of your communication, social, and sales channels.

6. Stay Focused

This is especially challenging for longer releases or for ongoing releases such as a series that has multiple parts. To make sure you keep things consistent, keep your focus by circling back to your purpose. That big goal you started with, is the thing that will keep you and your team focused throughout the process.

7. Engage

Unfortunately, I have seen the opposite of this happen more often than not but it’s detrimental to your big goal. See, folks put in so much work into planning, building and preparing for a product release and the release comes and goes and it’s on to the next thing.

By way of a caution, here's a few key reasons that this happens:

• I Caught Entrepreneurial-itis

I like to refer to Entrepreneurial-itis as the trap that many creative folks who are entrepreneurs have, where they are so creative and inspired that their focus can only be held if they are creating something new instead of building and growing something they already have. I personally get it and have to fight it often so I understand the struggle, but it’s a trap! You've got to fully squeeze the juice out of the project that is in front of you before moving along to the next thing.

• Because I’m Tired

This is a big challenge for long product releases. It comes from working so much on a project, talking to the folks internally about the project leading up to the release and then getting the feeling that everyone is already tired of hearing about this because I am. The issue here is that we've talked a ton about these projects but our audience has only heard a few bits and pieces about the release if they’ve heard anything at all.

• Lack of Execution

The worst of all…lack of execution. Meaning, you did all the steps, you prepped, you built all the things needed but when the rubber hit the road you didn’t execute. Could be from laziness, could be from burnout, or it could be that there wasn’t the intention or tenacity to execute in the first place. 

It’s important to engage your partners, have conversations, bring it up in meetings, answer questions that come in, etc. Don’t pass the release of a product too quickly but make sure to squeeze every last drop of juice out of the engagement orange.

8. Review

This is hands down the most important part of a product release. The review or debrief from the project or release. Why? Because it’s where you analyze how things went and learn from them. You’ve got to get in a room or a virtual space and listen, offer feedback and receive feedback. This is how you and your team will be able to hone your product release process and get better.

It’s not about getting in a circle and holding hands, but rather getting in a circle and shouldering the responsibility for what failed, sharing the high fives for the things that totally succeeded and putting your minds together to keep the failures from happening next time.

Are you looking for help creating content around your next product release? We’d love to help! You can reach us at thelevco@gmail.com or you can find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @thelevco.

Be well!

Author: Luke Waite