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launch PR

Organizations need to speak directly to their customers and buyers with targeted messages that help them solve problems.

David Meerman Scott

bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR now published in 24 languages

launch PR > Corporate

B2B

In 2004, Joan Schneider, president and creative director of Schneider Associates, published a landmark book entitled New Product Launch: 10 Proven Strategies. Through our research, Schneider Associates has greatly advanced the quality and quantity of information available on how to conduct successful consumer product launches. With our B2B Survey conducted in conjunction with Babson's Center for Business Innovation, we sought more information on how to effectively launch B2B products and services.

Babson's Center for Business Innovation, which closely tracks trends in innovation, brought important expertise to exploring how companies launch products and services that evolve from innovation efforts.

Methodology

The qualitative portion of the research consisted of in-depth phone interviews with 15 marketing executives about their most recent B2B product or service launches. Interviewees were selected from students who had participated in Babson Executive Education programs over the past three years. Based on the information gathered from these conversations, a detailed online questionnaire was designed to gather quantitative data from a larger study sample. One hundred fifty-three respondents whose companies had launched a new product or service within the last five years completed the survey.

For purposes of our Business-to-Business Launch Survey report, we focused on results from only two groups:

Respondents who were directly involved in a launch. The data in this report comes only from people who either managed or participated in the launch.
People who rated their launch as either "moderately successful" or "highly successful." We decided to focus on what can be learned from the practices of companies that had successful launches. Of this group of 98 completed surveys, 62% rated their launches as "moderately successful" and 38% said their launches were "highly successful."

Top 10 B2B Launch Success Factors

Create a documented launch process.
Set a separate launch budget and make sure it is adequate to meet the launch challenges you face.
Establish your launch budget as early in the product development phase as possible.
Keep your launch budget stable throughout the implementation phase.
Determine your launch performance measures before the launch begins.
Measure the "right" success metrics.
Include the "right" external launch professionals on your team.
Fight for bigger budgets.
Educate your sales force and other internal audiences about your new product or service. Also focus on distributor, retailer or dealer education.
Spend money on word-of-mouth campaigns rather than on advertising.

Download the full report here.

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