Strategic Launch Planning: How Zenhub Sprints Revolutionized Project Management
Launching Zenhub Sprints alongside the seed funding announcement made a huge impact. As a result, we saw a significant increase in signups and adoption rates, resulting in happier and more loyal customers.
🎞️ Overview
During my time at Zenhub, an agile project management software for GitHub teams, we received feedback from our users that they were spending a significant amount of time on administrative tasks, such as updating project progress, which was taking away from writing code and developing software.
To address this issue and reduce manual overhead for developers, we realized that automation was the key solution. This led us to develop Zenhub Sprints, a feature designed to help developers work more efficiently and focus on their most meaningful tasks. What sets Zenhub Sprints apart from other products in the market is its unparalleled automated experience in planning sprints and seamlessly rolling over unfinished work between sprints.
🦸🏻♀️ Role
As the Marketing Director, my main responsibility was overseeing the launch of Zenhub Sprints and equipping the go-to-market teams with compelling messaging and positioning to effectively communicate the product's value to prospects and customers.
To achieve this, I collaborated closely with the product development team to fully understand the features and benefits of Zenhub Sprints. Additionally, I worked with the marketing and sales team to educate them and devise a launch plan. The executive team and the CEO were actively involved in the discussions, and we strategically decided to launch Zenhub Sprints alongside the seed funding announcement. This allowed us to leverage the media attention and investor interest to raise awareness of our new feature.
🚩 Main challenge
The main challenge we faced was how to generate buzz and attract attention to Zenhub Sprints in a market that is highly competitive. We recognized that having an excellent product alone might not be enough to capture the attention of our target audience. Therefore, we needed to develop a well-coordinated marketing strategy that would highlight the unique automation capabilities of Zenhub Sprints and make it stand out in the market.
To overcome this challenge, we decided to delay the launch of Zenhub Sprints (already developed in December 2020) until February 2021, aligning it with the announcement of our $4.7M seed funding. This approach allowed us to craft a compelling narrative around Zenhub being the "most automated solution" and leverage the media attention already generated by the funding news.
"Mariana was amazing in helping us with our product launch and rollout. Launches can be a bit hectic, but she was incredibly helpful. With her messaging briefs, Mariana helped our team take a step back and really think about the direction we should be going. Her smart approach to strategy and systems saved us a lot of time that we would have otherwise spent going around in circles. We all became more confident in working together towards the same goal and growing our brand."
Jess Cooper
Former Senior Manager of Marketing at Zenhub
🏆 Achivements
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Launching Zenhub Sprints alongside the seed funding announcement made a huge impact. The media exposure and investor interest significantly increased our brand awareness. This led to a lot of attention from software development teams and brought new users to our platform.
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The marketing campaign effectively showcased the unique value of Zenhub Sprints, highlighting its outstanding automation features for sprint planning and work management between iterations. As a result, we saw a significant increase in signups and adoption rates, resulting in happier and more loyal customers.
Hi 👋
I'm Mariana Racasan.
I’m a product marketer with over 12 years of marketing experience in crafting impactful messaging and devising go-to-market strategies.
I excel at helping early-stage tech startups identify their target audience, speak to them like actual humans, and drive growth with messaging strategy.
