Product Launch Plan Template

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Product Launch Plan
Overview

Use this product launch checklist template to plan and manage all tasks related to a product launch. Tasks may include product research, marketing materials, sales materials, and more. Assign tasks to owners, and tag all tasks with their current completion status. View a timeline of all associated activities, or a Kanban board with tasks arranged by status or owner.

Filter tasks by status and due date to make sure you don't miss any deadlines. Shared views for "My tasks" allow collaborators to focus only on their deliverables. And collapsible parent categories keep the whole thing organized.

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Project Management
Product Development
Marketing
What is a product launch checklist?

Launching a new product is more complicated than just thinking of an idea and then telling people to buy it. Enter the Product Launch Plan template. It’s designed to help you build awareness (and hopefully, excitement) around your product. It will help you lay out the steps that you and your team need to complete before the launch, as well as the processes and assets necessary for those steps to happen. That's the benefit of a product launch plan checklist, which details everything that needs to get done in order for the product to launch on time. This can include anything from market research and design, to marketing and sales, to making a sacrificial offering on the altar of Mercury, god of commerce.

Did you know?

Roughly 45% of all project launches end up delayed by at least a full month. Consequently, if you are not using a product launch checklist, it is strongly recommended that you avoid putting down a deposit when making reservations for the launch party.

Confusing messaging can cause problems for product launches, which benefit from being clear. That's why products like plastic wrap and glass orbs are such a success.

According to an unscientific survey of medieval siege warfare experts, the three most popular ways to launch a product are cannon, catapult, and trebuchet.

How does it work?

Each major Task is created as a parent category, with rows seen in blue in this product template. Component tasks are each added under the appropriate category. All tasks have a Start and End Date, defining their Duration.

Each task is tagged with its Type and Owner, for easier filtering. Status of all tasks is tracked with a Status tag, RYG stoplight system (for quick reference), and Completion %.

Additional information may be supplied as Notes or as Attachments directly into the spreadsheet. Tasks may also be given Priority flags or linked to other tasks as Predecessors, to identify tasks that are high importance or must be completed in a specific order.

Use the upper-left dropdown menu for a variety of viewing options. Filtered views show all delayed tasks, or all tasks assigned to the current user. Kanban views show tasks sorted into columns by status, owner, or stoplight status.

Timeline views show a visual timeline of all tasks spanning their start and end dates, with the green vertical line representing the current date. Completion percentage is represented by color filling the task. Parent tasks bracket associated child tasks, with gray arrows linking predecessor tasks.

Why do I need a product launch plan?

Most new product launches each year fail.

In other words, the expected result for the average new product launch is failure. That's just a cold, hard fact. So if you want to have a successful launch, your job is to be better than average. Part of that is having a product that's well-positioned and well-designed. But another key to success is making sure that you manage to get everything done on schedule and haven't skipped any steps—and that's where a product launch plan checklist comes in handy.

A successful product launch requires a wide variety of important tasks to be completed on schedule, across multiple disciplines, often with different departments relying on each other's work. You can spend months alternating between worrying and asking people for status updates... or you can use a new product launch checklist to coordinate everything and make sure your whole team is on the same page.

By having a full spreadsheet of necessary tasks, you can track all deliverables, and identify and address any bottlenecks that threaten to delay your launch. And with a detailed checklist, you can rest assured that you've done everything required for success before the big launch.

Who would use a product launch checklist?

Anyone who is serious about having a successful product launch.

That may seem like an unreasonable generalization, given that many people launch products without ever using a proper product launch plan. But keep in mind that many people also have product launches that fail, and a lot of them are probably the same many people.

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