Crafting the announcement campaign
What is an announcement campaign?
A marketing campaign is simply a series of tactics (listed above) that work together to reach an audience and drive them to a single goal. There are all kinds of marketing campaigns:
Brand awareness campaigns that reach new audiences to introduce them to a brand—think billboards, social media campaigns, or sponsored events (think Just Do It).
Product or feature specific campaigns that are driving people to buy or sign up for a specific part of the product—think
Upsell/cross-sell campaigns that are aimed at getting existing customers to use more.
A typical announcement campaign for B2B SaaS companies looks like this:
Reach new audiences:
Post to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn driving people to an announcement landing page on your website.
Blog post on Medium with a link at the bottom to learn more (product landing page).
Have your product “hunted” on Product Hunt with a link to learn more on your product landing page.
Notify existing audience:
If you have existing users, send them an in-app message!
Email your list letting them know about the new product and driving them to learn more on the product landing page. Best practice is to send tailored emails to leads (people who need to buy) and users (people who already have access but can now use it).
Explain what’s new
Product landing page
Video overview
Call to action to sign up, talk to sales, etc.
Your tactics, assets, and campaign execution will likely look different every time, but the key is that all of your tactics are working together to drive a single goal.
Exercise (and template): Create an effective product announcement plan
Next, create a product announcement campaign plan that documents all elements of your announcement and helps you iron out the finer details. The template we’ve created below will help you plan an effective announcement and map out the details of your landing page, emails, in-app messages, change log and more. Create a copy of this template and adapt it to your needs for your next launch.
Some questions to answer before you can start crafting the campaign:
What specifically is in-scope for the upcoming release?
When is the soonest this will be ready to release to customers?
Who is this product/feature available for and what pricing plan will it be on?
What is the customer experience like for implementing the product/feature? Is it automatically turned on for people to start using? Or do we need to approve apps that can use it?
Will there be sales enablement (resources, training) to support this feature?
What should the announcement priority level be and what tactics will we use to announce?
Marketing Assets
Product Landing Page
A page on your website dedicated to the product—the benefits, how it works, and the features.
Product Video
An overview video, usually 1-2 minutes long (strongly advise against anything longer) outlining the key benefits and features of what’s new. Can be as simple as a Loom video or you can go big with animation, voice over, and music. Wistia has great resources for producing a DIY video. The Olivine Films produces cinematic product films if you’re looking for something polished and impactful.
Either way, your product video should live on the product landing page but can also be posted to YouTube, embedded in your email campaign and blog post.
Design Assets
Imagery—product screenshots or mockups that can be used across the announcement campaign. Think hero image of the landing page which can also be the main image in the email and across social.
Sales Enablement
Internal battle card, slide deck, 2-pager.
Testimonials
If you had happy users in your beta, get their approval to use their testimonial throughout your announcement campaign.
