Marketing launch tiers

Product releases and their respective launches vary in size and scope. Launches should all be designated with a size—Small, Medium, or Large—to communicate their significance. These size tiers also set a basis for how much scope Marketing will put behind the launch moments & what types of activities they will pursue.

The launch size should be set based on the significance of the product or features that are being released and the impact they’ll have to our customers and internal teams. The size should be set as early as possible (by PM & PMM in collaboration) since it will determine how planning for the launch is done.

The following table provides general guidance on launch activities to consider based on size of a launch.

Launch Tiers
Activities Small Medium Large
Launch blog x x x
Community promotion x x x
Social media promotion x x x
Customer comms & emails sometimes x x
Dedicated sales enablement x x
Product page updates sometimes x
Dev community posts sometimes x
Analyst briefings x
Livestream / live event x
Launch video x

Read below for more detail.

Large (L1) launches

What makes a ‘large’ launch?

Large launches are extremely significant product launches, which happen fairly rarely (1-2x / year). They typically involve:

  • Net-new products
  • New SKUs
  • Significant new product positioning
  • High impact to existing customers, prospects, or both

Marketing support for large launches

Large launches demand significant, if not full, marketing support. At a minimum, these launches should typically include:

  • Press coverage
  • Launch blogs
  • Customer comms and emails
  • Social media promotion
  • Product page / website updates
  • Analyst briefings
  • A launch ‘event’ (such as a livestream)
  • Full sales enablement, including demo paths and messaging

PMM should be embedded with the Product team as early as possible for these types of larges, ideally as early as product work begins. This allows PMM to provide market research and customer research support alongside the PM, and develop deep product expertise to support the launch.

Medium (L2) launches

What makes a ‘medium’ launch?

Medium launches are significant moments that impact many of our customers, but they don’t involve major changes to our company GTM strategy. They typically involve:

  • New features within existing products
  • Release stage advancements, e.g., a feature going from Beta to Generally Available
  • Impact to a moderate number of customers or prospects
  • No significant pricing or SKU changes

Marketing support for medium launches

Marketing support can vary for medium launches, but they shouldn’t require maximum marketing support. At a minimum, these launches should typically include:

  • A launch blog
  • Customer comms and emails
  • Social media promotion
  • Sales enablement

PMM should be embedded with the Product team far enough in advance of medium launches that they have product familiarity. This typically means involvement ~2 months prior to launch, or in the case of feature GAs, involvement at the beta stage of the feature.

Small (L3) launches

What makes a small launch?

Small launches are small moments that impact at least some subset of Sourcegraph users in a small capacity. They don’t involve radically new features or new messaging, but they do serve to bring feature awareness to our users and continue to build our brand image. They typically involve

  • New minor features
  • Minor feature stage advancements, e.g., a feature going from Experimental to Beta
  • Impact to a subset of Sourcegraph users
  • No changes to overall product positioning/messaging
  • No pricing or SKU changes

Marketing support for small launches

Marketing support for small launches should typically include:

  • A launch blog
  • Social media promotion
  • Promotion to our community (Discord)

PMM is typically not embedded with teams leading to small launches, but should be brought in to assist with launches ahead of time (ideally ~1 month ahead of launch). PMM may also provide consultative support for these launches, for example, helping the PM or Engineering team of a small launch put together a blog post.

Product & Product Marketing launch collaboration

The Product team also has documentation on how to work with Product Marketing based on launch tiers: