When at the helm of communications for an innovative product, marketers have an enormous opportunity to move the needle for their team.
The best product release posts can deliver value far beyond your customer-base. They can inspire movement in your sales cycles and gain the favor of a wider audience.
But the best way to communciate your product’s value is not always obvious, as it’s dependent on so many factors. Here are 9 things to consider before writing your next product release blog post:
1. Other elements of the product release campaign
Product releases can come with emails, videos, in-app feature tutorials, sales assets, case studies, webinars and more.
Your blog post should take into account all the other items in the campaign and play a part in getting your customer to adopt your new feature.
Consider how your customers may go from email to blog post to in-app feature tutorial, and figure out how each step can be used to bring them towards your goal.
2. Who is impacted the most
Features are often built to serve an identified segment of your larger audience. Some solve problems your current customers are having; others open the doors for another vertical of prospects.
Your copy is more effective when focused on the audience that the feature was designed for.
3. Your company’s goals
Your short and long term company goals can have an effect on the way you release product.
Are you fighting competition for retention? You’ll want to focus your post on your customer’s specific pain points and show them how your tool delivers.
Or maybe you’re prospecting hard this quarter, so you may want to write the post in a way that can be sent in addition to sales collateral or can be easily syndicated by industry news outlets.
4. Your product release schedule (or lack thereof)
Having a release schedule affects your product release blog post strategy because it enables you to roll multiple features into a single post (although you don’t have to do it this way). This style post is often referred to as a ‘feature round-up.’
A lack of release schedule—on the other hand—can lend itself to product release campaigns focused on a single feature.
5. Your timing
Has your product already been shipped? Product release posts that come after the feature is live can incorporate customer feedback, data or a case study. These methods are effective in educating prospects on the value of a product or drawing the attention of a larger audience.
Sometimes blog posts go out before the feature is live in your app to give your customers a heads up as to what changes are coming to your app.
6. Your customers
Your customers are the most important thing to consider. If their jobs depend on their success in using your application, then they will want to know about changes in detail and weeks in advance. This is often true with enterprise software releases.
7. Coordination with Customer Success
The involvement of your Customer Success Team can also effect your product release blog. If your posts are the main source of information for your customers, then you’ll want to make sure your content is detailed and incorporates how-to’s.
However, if your Customer Success Team prefers to walk each customer through your product updates individually, your post can serve as a broad overview or announcement.
8. The significance of your brand
Established brands get a lot of attention, and feature release posts should be privy to that. Press will pick up interesting product releases from highly visible brands, and so if that’s you, you’ll want to seed the article with quotes from your execs and data to help them tell your story.
Also, if you’re working with press or on a press release, you’ll want to coordinate the timing of your press release with the timing of your blog post.
9. Availability of the new feature
SaaS businesses often limit features depending on the package that a customer purchased. If the feature you are releasing is limited to a specific customer-type, you will want to make that clear in your post.
You’ll also want to consider what the different CTAs in your post might be and where they should point to. If this feature could inspire some customers to upgrade, you’ll want to incorporate a CTA around that.
Let’s write this thing!
Now you’ve thought things through. It’s time to get to work writing your post.
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