It’s going to be perfect. You’re launching a new brand. There’s a clear gap in the market and your business has the credibility to enter the space with kudos. Your product’s been masterfully co-designed with your consumers and the creative has been tested to within an inch of its life. What could possibly go wrong?
One of the biggest oversights in launching a product lies in getting your team behind the launch itself. Stakeholder management is key when embarking on a new launch or a different direction for a brand. People need to understand their role in the unfolding drama of your company’s fortunes and believe it’s worth playing a part. Thinking through the product launch story and sharing it with everyone involved in making it a success, will ensure their contribution makes sense to them as individuals.
In our experience, there are often internal barriers to overcome which have the potential to impact on the success of a launch and these should be addressed upfront before the communications plan is formulated. Marketing teams need to take ownership of this and drive the agenda. We split this into four steps:
Step one: define your business goals
Put your launch into perspective. What is the wider business trying to achieve and where does the brand need to be? It’s easy for individual departments to get wrapped up in what they’re working on day-to-day and forget the bigger picture. Educating teams about the wider business needs and how they can help contribute to this will unite employees towards a shared goal.
Step two: set your objectives
Be clear about what you’re trying to achieve and back it up. The team at Adidas Body Care, for example, knew the brand’s ambition was to become a leading global fragrance and body care brand, but it was operating in a high-spending, low-interest category with very little differentiation.
The brand was reliant on price promotions and, as a result, was losing brand equity. However, there was an opportunity for Adidas to own an area of the marketplace that competitors had ignored by engaging with the target audience emotionally and reflecting what they really valued.
The key was having solid statistics and research to back up the strategy. This new direction for Adidas would impact marketing, sales, pricing analysts, field marketing and distribution teams, so stakeholder management was vital. Moving away from price promotions and towards emotional engagement would almost certainly cause a stir internally, so its reasoning had to be watertight with detailed research and market analysis to support it.
Step three: identify your stakeholders
Who do you need to engage with to get the campaign off the ground? Identify your internal allies and those that have the potential to be barriers to the success of your launch. This might be any department from finance through to distribution. Ensure you have covered all bases.
Step four: stakeholder communication
Now you know what you’re trying to achieve, establish how this feeds into the wider business goal and the people you need to get on side. It’s time to engage with them and arm each team with the information and tools they need to make this a successful launch.
What type of communication are they most likely to respond to? Consider their needs and interests and how you can meet these.
Work out the challenges you need to overcome. For example, we worked with Activision, the games publisher, on the challenge to create brand ambassadors in-store to help combat ‘title fatigue’ due to the continuous cycle of game releases.
By creating bespoke communications we were able to engage and excite stakeholders about the Activision game launches using a language and process they were familiar with. The communication was fun and interactive but also informative, so the sales teams were fully equipped with the knowledge they needed to sell the games.
So, while there’s no predetermined formula to winning over your internal stakeholders, having a tailored strategy and action plan in place will certainly help you get the buy-in you need. Remember that a successful launch starts from the inside, so provide the best chance of success by building this into your plan from the very beginning.
Michelle Mitchell is strategy director at Five by Five
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