So you just launched a new product. Your marketing team crushed it. Demo requests are flooding in. The product team is thrilled. Then you check the conversion rates and…they’re terrible. What happened?
Sales probably didn’t know the launch was coming. Or they didn’t know what to say to prospects who are suddenly asking about features they’ve never heard of. If launches go badly, it usually comes down to broken coordination between teams. When product marketing creates messaging that sales never sees, or when launches surprise the people who actually have to sell them, even the best campaigns fall flat. And, unfortunately, it happens all too often.
This is a challenge that Nicole Gates, VP of Growth Marketing at Varonis, knows all too well. Nicole joined Varonis three years ago as their first demand gen hire and has since managed over 10 product launches annually while building their global growth marketing function. As she said on our Best Story Wins podcast, she’s become known internally as “the process person” for good reason, as her systematic approach to launch coordination has dramatically improved conversion rates and sales alignment.
With that experience, Nicole knows what can go right with product launches, what can go wrong, and what can become a disaster. Lucky for us, she was kind enough to share her hard-won knowledge to help us all avoid those mistakes.
5 Steps to Coordinate Product Launches That Convert
If you want your next product launch to drive pipeline instead of confusion, here are Nicole’s best tips to get every team aligned and moving in the same direction.
1) Get everyone on the same page from day one.
The foundation of any successful launch is communication. Specifically, over-communication. Most launch problems stem from teams working in silos, creating materials based on outdated information, or simply not knowing what’s happening.
Nicole says a crucial step of her launch process is setting up clear communications across all key stakeholders. When Varonis has a new launch coming, Nicole brings together people from each department, including product marketing, content, social, sales enablement, and sales leadership to get everyone on the same page.
Nicole shares the launch date and goals, the product marketing team presents their positioning, and then she sends everyone back to their teams with a clear directive: Put together your plan and come back in a week to present it to the group. This ensures everyone is working from the same foundation and can spot conflicts or gaps before they become problems.
Tip: Create a launch brief template that serves as your single source of truth. Include positioning, target audience, timeline, key messages, required assets, and team responsibilities. Share it with every stakeholder, and assign someone to update it as things evolve (because they will).
2) Tier your launches based on customer impact.
With 10+ launches to manage in a year, Nicole quickly realized that not all launches deserve equal resources. The challenge is figuring out which ones matter most, and to whom.
Initially, Varonis tiered launches based on internal factors: How much marketing power does this require? How much will this drive sales? But Nicole discovered this approach was backward.
Now, they consider a tier one launch to be something that’s market-changing or hugely significant to their customers. That means products like their data access management solution or their move into email security. Those are genuinely new offerings that customers needed to know about.
Tier two launches are for specific customer segments (e.g., Varonis’ new Salesforce offering), while tier three covers customer requests, integrations, and improvements that matter without needing a full marketing blitz.
Tip: Focus on launches that matter to customers, not internal teams. Your internal enthusiasm doesn’t translate to customer urgency, and misaligned expectations can burn resources fast.
3) Make sales enablement your launch partner.
Sales can’t sell what they don’t understand. This sounds obvious, yet it’s the most common launch failure point.
Nicole learned this lesson the hard way during an early launch disaster. Even though marketing generated strong interest, sales couldn’t convert because they weren’t prepared. “Sales didn’t know how to talk about it. They didn’t know what the offer was. They didn’t know what marketing we were doing around it,” Nicole says. Because they didn’t know how to carry the conversation forward, conversations stalled.
Now, working closely with sales enablement is Nicole’s non-negotiable at Varonis. The sales enablement team runs training sessions before every major launch, ensuring the sales team understands how to position the product, what objections to expect, and what assets they’ll have available.
Nicole also does kickoff calls with the full sales team to set expectations. The goal is simple: Make sure sales can anticipate what’s coming and get excited about it instead of being blindsided.
Tip: Before you go to market, create a core asset package for sales. This should include pitch decks, battle cards, data sheets, email templates, and any customer-facing collateral. Most importantly, train sales on how to use each piece, not just what it says.
4) Hold weekly standups to kill blockers fast.
Even with the best planning, launches never go exactly as expected. Messaging evolves. Timelines shift. Dependencies reveal themselves. You need a mechanism to adapt without derailing everything.
For Nicole, that mechanism is weekly standups, which she considers the best way to work through blockers, problems, or changes. These aren’t status update meetings (those can happen asynchronously). Standups are specifically designed to surface issues, make decisions, and keep everyone aligned as the launch evolves.
Tip: Keep your standups focused and time-boxed. Use a shared project management board so people can see progress before the meeting, then use the actual standup time for blockers, dependencies, and decisions that require multiple people.
5) Think of launch as phase one.
Your launch day is just the beginning. The real optimization happens after you see how the market responds and how sales conversations actually unfold.
Varonis typically has several demand gen campaigns, paid advertising efforts, and email sequences ready to go at launch. Nicole considers these to be phase one. After the initial push, she gathers feedback from sales: What messaging resonated? What objections came up? What assets actually helped close deals? Then she tweaks the campaigns accordingly.
This symbiotic approach helps marketing understand if their messaging is resonating, and it makes sales feel like partners in the launch instead of passive recipients of leads.
Tip: Schedule a formal post-launch review 30-60 days after launch. Bring together sales, product, and marketing to discuss what worked, what flopped, and what surprised everyone. Use this feedback to refine your ongoing campaigns and inform your next launch process.
Remember: When Sales Gets Excited About Your Leads, You’ve Won
Again, having a strong process in place is everything. When everyone knows their role, has the information they need, and can spot problems early, you can move fast without breaking things. Nicole says the ultimate goal as a growth marketer is to get sales excited about the leads she sends their way. So if you can effectively improve your processes and cultivate that trust and excitement, then you know you’ve cracked the coordination problem.
For more insights on creating successful launches, shifting strategies and mindsets, and implementing AI strategically, listen to our full conversation with Nicole on the Best Story Wins podcast. And if you’re struggling to get your own launches to stick, or if you need help building the systems that make coordination possible, we’d love to chat about how we can help.
