How are companies readying for product launches in 2026? After a turbulent year of tariffs, supply chain delays, uncertainty, and conservative investments, many companies have the opportunity to differentiate, increase revenue, and enter new markets with new product launches, but they share some challenges:
Here are 4 recent product launches you can learn from.
This company planned a midyear product launch after the product passed all testing successfully. Thanks to an unknown leak, the product ‘launched itself.’
The company had decided to wait for the testing data before planning a rigorous US roll-out for a new product. In the process, a leak appeared in industry groups on Reddit and later Facebook, prompting many calls and direct messages to their customer service team to confirm the availability of the new product.
Leadership, marketing, and sales moved quickly to address the information and misinformation in order of importance, first customer service messaging, then web, social media, and PR—based on customer inquiries and approval timelines. They kept the message simple and added information as available to address and slow down the rumor mill.
Given the number of partners, reps, and employees involved in product development, this isn't a unique circumstance. NDAs will not fully protect you from someone mentioning to a customer that a solution may be coming. This can stall sales for existing products and breed misinformation. Here are takeaways you can use for your next product launch:
Years of re-organizations and workforce shortages have left many deep tech companies short on experienced product managers and without a robust program management function. This can result in product development delays, and a rush to product launch without the marketing strategy in place.
This global company had an experienced marketing team, but both the product marketer and the product manager lacked a shared process to create team alignment and momentum.
Working with Launch Team, we quickly created a product launch plan with marketing, engineering and sales. An agile methodology meant weekly sprints to get to market faster, gather customer feedback, and strengthen the value proposition, cutting waste and expense. This company quickly built a full pipeline of deals for the new technology, and is on track to meet first quarter sales goals.
M&A deal flow has been slow in past years, but with money sitting on the sidelines, there's an urgency once the deal is done. When one company made an acquisition that expanded product lines for both companies and created the opportunity to increase customer penetration, they needed to act together for a unified, clear vision and message to the market.
The acquired company offered new products and capabilities, many of which could compete and create confusion. There were now two business development teams with their own customer bases (some overlapping), sales processes, and goals. Timing depended on the deal closing and was not readily tied to a major tradeshow or in-person event.
The acquiring company invested in the sales toolkit and in-person sales training in anticipation of the deal closing. Company messaging and a three-month roll-out plan were developed collaboratively to leverage both companies’ audiences best and create a clear and cohesive story for the market. By rationalizing product families, the newly combined company could better tell a customer-focused ‘problem and technology’. A virtual live social announcement and on-demand video can generate buzz and leads instead of a live event.
It’s not one-and-done. To maximize returns from your news, plan on a three-month (or even longer!) rollout.
Are you looking to launch a B2B or B2G product in a niche market? ABM, or account-based marketing, might be the right approach to rapid product penetration into a narrow audience.
This systems technology offered a clear advantage to 20-30 companies worldwide. While tradeshows still work, especially to build initial intrigue—to build a pipeline that matched product availability and launch timeline, this company used a targeted ABM approach to product launch.
Working together with leadership and business development, marketing created the product launch strategy, account targets, and product positioning specific to those companies and buyers. This product positioning and key messages were played out in a white paper for lead generation, video demos, and ads for LinkedIn, targeted specifically to those companies and job titles identified.
With increasing market uncertainty, budget constraints, and lagging product development in many companies, we expect an increase in fall product launches. Proper product launch planning and demand generation can help you gain awareness and hit your revenue targets in 2024. Request a consult or download our product launch planning resources.