Looking to hire a product launch manager? Here are some things you need to know before hiring one.
First you need to make sure that your product launch manager is someone who understands copywriting and market research there.
95% of the success of your launch is going to come down to copywriting and copywriting largely comes down to market research.
Someone who is has done their homework with little copywriting skill will outperform the best copywriter who does not understand the marketplace.
You need to make sure that your product launch manager is going to have the necessary market research done.
This means going to Amazon and looking at book reviews.
searching twitter, searching Google groups and searching blogs for the language and emotions your market place is feeling.
Your product launch manager is going to need to sync up the emotional pain of the market with the direct simple answers that your product or service will provide.
One thing that is going to happen when you're look for a launch manager is people will try to impress you with all of their writing skills or launch strategies or marketing gimmicks.
But at the end of the day if they cannot do the market research and come up with a compelling offer you're screwed.
You need to make sure that 60% of the time you hire your product launch manager for is going towards this market research.
It's important that whoever you decide to hire also has a track record of successful selling.
Now your product launch manager can be new as it is a new field but make sure they know how to do copywriting and sales.
If they have a history of doing any online projects that have done decent sales then that is generally good enough.
You will want to avoid working with new managers unless of course you're on an extremely tight budget and that's all you can afford.
When it comes to making money you don't want to cut corners and investing time in finding the right manager it definitely worth the effort.
So what are some questions you can ask a potential manager? •What's the most important thing about copywriting? Answer: market research •How long do you plan to dedicate to market research? Answer: 60% •What are your areas of strength? Answer(s) traffic generation, SEO, market research, pay per click/adwords, squeeze page design, email marketing (all these types of answers indicate strong grasps of online marketing) •What things have gone wrong in launches you've done before and what have you learned? Answer: open-ended, just make sure they tell you something went wrong and they learn from it (if they never had any failures they haven't had any successes!) One final suggestion when you're listening to prospects is to listen close and hear how he pitches himself.
If he is trying to sell you on his skills and ability be very weary.
If the bulk of the conversation is spent on asking you what your assets are and what you're trying to do then that's a very strong sign that your potential product launch manager knows what he's doing.
If you find that the he is selling himself rather than probing you then that means he doesn't understand selling and he's just trying to pitch for a fast pay check.
But if he's asking you questions about what your product is, what your assets are, how big your list is (and so on), that means that product launch managers is also screening you and hence is a sign that he's pretty competent at what he does.
Bottom line: listen to how your potential product launch manager tries to screen you - if he does it's a great sign, if he doesn't that's a bad sign.
Armed with this knowledge you should have a pretty good grasp of how to interview a new potential product launch managers.
Best of luck with your product launch (it really is the most amazing tool I've ever seen).