A Launch Worthy of a Standing Ovation

Historically, the company’s solutions had been better suited to medium-sized and enterprise organizations.

The new product would allow the business to compete more effectively in Canada’s expansive SMB market, but the opportunity came with significant complexity.

The solution needed to be:

• Compliant with Canadian payroll and employment regulations

• Available in both English and French

• Supported by localized messaging and product content

• Understood by Sales, BDRs, and customer-facing teams

• Introduced to an audience that had not previously been a primary target market

This could not be treated as a simple product announcement. It required a coordinated go-to-market effort across Product, Marketing, Sales, Operations, and Enablement.

Building the market before the launch

We did not wait for the product to become available before building demand.

Several months ahead of the projected launch date, we expanded our marketing strategy to reach smaller organizations and began increasing brand visibility among Canadian SMB leaders.

A custom national webinar became the anchor of this pre-launch effort. Featuring a highly credible speaker and Canadian data, the session focused on best practices for building great workplaces in small and medium-sized organizations.

To reach this new audience, we:

• Expanded our existing database criteria to include smaller employers

• Added media partners serving Canadian SMB leaders

• Ran six weeks of targeted advertising

• Adjusted audience targeting across other channels

• Continued nurturing new contacts with thought leadership and event invitations

The webinar generated well over 1,000 registrations, earned a very high attendee rating, and added hundreds of new SMB contacts to the database.

This gave Sales and BDR teams time to qualify new leads, begin conversations, and build momentum before the product officially entered the market.

Bringing the launch to life

The Canadian launch was the result of a year-long effort involving dozens of GTM employees.

My team played an instrumental role in bringing the brand and product to life in Canada, collaborating across:

• Product Management

• Product Marketing

• Brand

• Social Media

• Digital Marketing

• Web

• Marketing Operations

• Sales Enablement

• BDR and Sales teams

Our work included product marketing support, translation and localization, launch messaging, website content, digital advertising, and internal Sales resources.

We also created the first internal SharePoint sites and centralized content repositories dedicated to Canadian product materials, giving Sales and GTM teams easier access to approved English and French assets.

Making a splash on launch day

The official launch took place near the end of the second quarter.

To create immediate market visibility, we coordinated a digital campaign promoting both the launch and a live product demonstration scheduled for the same day.

The invitation encouraged SMB leaders to:

Be among the first to see the new solution for small and medium-sized businesses in Canada!

You could say that the message resonated. Advertising delivered three times the click-through rate of previous campaigns with our media partners!

Hundreds of people attended the live demonstration, and many raised their hands to receive more information or speak directly with Sales. The product demo helped turn launch-day awareness into immediate engagement and identifiable sales interest.

Keeping the momentum going

The launch campaign did not end after the announcement. Post-launch activities included:

• Targeted display advertising

• Retargeting campaigns

• Ongoing website promotion

• Product demo follow-up

• Lead nurture

• Sales and BDR outreach

• Monthly pipeline reporting

• Continued English and French content development

I shared monthly updates with Canadian Sales teams and the Product Marketing organization, helping maintain visibility into Marketing’s pipeline contribution and overall launch performance.

The launch, combined with increased localization, also contributed to historic website traffic and engagement, particularly on the Canadian French site.

Sales and Marketing in step

The results depended on strong collaboration across the entire GTM organization.

Sales and BDR teams were fully engaged in the launch and actively used the messaging, content, demos, campaigns, and follow-up tools provided by Marketing.

Marketing created visibility, demand, content, and qualified opportunities. Sales and BDR teams converted that momentum into conversations, pipeline, and closed business.

That alignment was essential to the launch’s success.