New Saas features need love too: 9 steps to launch your next feature

New Saas features need love too: 9 steps to launch your next feature

Stop wasting time, money, and team effort building things nobody sees.

Teams put massive energy into building new features. But if you don't tell customers (and the market) about the new stuff, why bother?

Product Marketers: A 9-step guide to planning and executing a successful feature adoption campaign.

1. Define success. Ask product and engineering teams what successful adoption means. Write it down. This is your target outcome.

2. Targeting. Some features are for everyone. Others are for segments. Write down who should use this feature. Say no to as many segments as possible -- stay focused.

3. Goals. Write 1-3 SMART goals. Goals should support other teams' work, too. Helping other teams win is important.

4. Timeline. Start building your knowledge as soon as a feature goes into development. Plan your campaign before testing starts. This way you can share your plans with key stakeholders before launch.

5. Ask more questions. Where do customers find product info? Are there use cases this feature supports? How can we help customers change so they can adopt this feature? Who will use this feature and can we reach them?

6. Pick channels. Content, social, email, community, ads, webinars, PR, in-product, channel... Which channels will you use? How will you use them? Don't forget that support is a channel.

7. Budget. Feature releases don't always happen during a budget cycle. If you need funding, get clear on how much and the potential ROI. Then ask for money.

8. Measure. Measure these key metrics. Percentage of users using the feature (breadth). How often key users access the feature (depth). How long it takes users to start using the feature (time to adopt). And how long users keep using it (duration).

9. Schedule a retro. Every feature release and adoption campaign is different. Block the time to review your campaign, find lessons, and improve the next one.

Peter Preston

Peter Preston

I'm a Saas marketing manager at ThinkTilt, makers of ProForma for Jira. I'm also the founder of Dear Video, a recovering podcast host, and learning how to grown a brand on YouTube.
Brisbane, QLD