Timeline Management for Product or Program Launch

After being a project manager in the digital marketing industry for 10 years, I am pretty sure I know a thing or two about launching stuff. So here are a few thoughts on taming the timeline monster and the tasks dragon...

When it comes to launching a product or program, there is usually a deadline, date that you start work, and how much time you need to achieve all the steps. The best way to go about planning your timeline is to reverse engineer, starting from your launch date. Of course, this launch date has to be reasonable, not two weeks from today, but know that you can compress and/or overlap some tasks in your timeline so that you don't have to have absolutely the "ideal" amount of time to bring everything to perfection (which is overrated).

Your launch date can be affected by many factors - your target market's schedule and lifestyle (is middle of summer a good time if you want to attract busy moms whose schedule may be filled with shuttling kids around?), you own marketing calendar, seasonality of your offerings and of course, you own schedule such as travel, vacation, and family obligations.

If you are starting today, your reasonable launch date should be around at least 8 weeks away for a product that is relatively small in scope, and at least 10 - 12 weeks away if you are more ambitious. Then work backwards from you launch date to plan out the tasks and the milestone. If everything fits nicely with time to spare, great. If it turns out that, after putting down your ideal schedule, you should be starting 2 weeks ago... don't panic! You can usually find some tasks that you can work on simultaneously or in parallel, or compress the timeline for a couple of deliverables. If you do this, you just need to make sure that your schedule, your workload and your sanity allows a more aggressive work schedule. If not, you may just need to go back to your launch date and see if you can bump it down by a few days to make some room.

Keep in mind that your project plan or timeline should be a living document and you should be able to adapt as your project evolves so that your timeline meets the objective of your project. Use it as a reality check, and if you are not meeting the milestones, it may be an indication that you have to re-evaluate your expectation, change the way that you work, or see if there is something that is blocking you from buckling down and taking the necessary action.

So You Want to Launch a Product?

Launching a product can be one of the most lucrative and successful moves that any entrepreneur can make. It can also be one on the most confusing, overwhelming, and stressful projects that you ever complete. The number and series of tasks that are part of a successful product launch can certainly cause paralysis in any of us which is why it is important to do your research and learn how to launch a product successfully.

This article provides an overview of the steps involved in a successful product launch. There are many ways that one can go about launching a product and there really isn't one specific formula to apply. In fact, the way you go about launching your product depends on your industry, your target audience, and the type of product that you have. In order for your launch to be successful you really need to plan out your launch and not skip or overlook any important steps.

A product launch consists of 5 major areas of activity:

Product Feasibility Assessment - Do you have a quality product? Are providing a real solution or something of true value? What is the market demand for your product? How about the competition? Is someone else out there offering a similar product? If so, how are they marketing it? Are you a leader in your industry or at least perceived as one? These are all very important questions that need to be considered as they can very well influence whether or not your launch will be successful. Strategy Development and Preparation - This is the stage when you plan out all of the activities and sequence of events that will make up your product launch. You will literally map out the next 3 stages of your launch. What needs to happen before, during, and after the pre-launch, the launch, and the follow-up stages? This is a very important step that involves a lot of organizing, research, and skill. This is the stage when you build your team as you will more than likely need to outsource several activities. Pre-Launch - Do you have a squeeze page set up? Are you actively building your list? Do you know how to build a list? Have you set up all of your social media marketing activities? Do you have articles and press releases ready? Are you blogging consistently? Have you researched a list of potential joint venture partners? Launch (The Main Event) - Is your shopping cart set up properly? Are your auto-responders set up? Do you have a compelling sales page? Have you created an event for your launch day? How about an affiliate program, is it ready to go? Have you considered other advertising methods such as pay per click ads? Post-Launch - Are you tracking your stats properly? Do you have ongoing communication activities in place? Are you listening to your customers and their feedback? Are you continuing with your blogging and social media activities?

As you can imagine there are countless areas of activities each requiring research, strategy development, and implementation. Launching a product is not an overnight task but with the right team members and tools, it can come together within a month or two, that is if your product is ready to go. If you are interested in learning more or want to become a Certified Product Launch Support Specialist, I highly recommend VA Classroom's Product Launch Support Specialist Program. Their program has really helped me put the pieces of the puzzle together nicely so that I can offer quality service to my own clients.