I’ve found it’s deceptively difficult for many organizations to establish the fundamental reason for their launch and, subsequently, the measures by which they evaluate success.
On the surface, a sentence that starts with “We need to launch…” seems to be a common answer to asking for the project’s objective. Yet, more often than not, launching something is actually a strategy or even a tactic - a means to achieve something else, something greater.
The reason “why” to embark on a launch should ladder-up to a broader, organizational objective. For example, if it’s a new luxury product, the company could have prioritized longer term customer retention. A new internal charitable donation or volunteerism program may be contributing toward employee engagement. Or, in the case of a re-brand, it may have multiple motivating factors.
Once clearly set - and, crucially, agreed to - the objective illuminates the strategies and tactics needed. Let’s play-out a potential scenario for the launch of a new charitable donation and volunteer program cited above…
Based on the available resources or corporate structure, a central, physical event is not feasible. So, the organization has decided to focus on cascading the new program down from leadership in the form of team meetings or huddles, reinforced by an email campaign to the entire operation.
The content of that email communication will be defined by how success will be measured. In this case, it may be a percentage of employees that signed-up within the first month. Here, leveraging the latest research and insights will be key.
PoliteMail, in a blog post, advocates for “Shorter email messages with one action item perform better and produce the highest click-through rates.”
Taking the time to define the reason “why” the organization is entering launch mode goes a long way to ensuring the proper plan is in-place to execute.