Managing a World-Class Beta Program

Successful beta program implementation and measurement is a critical element to your firm's next product introduction, whether a V1.0 launch or a V2.0+ feature-maintenance release. Many vendors short-change their beta programs for the sake of bringing their products to market more rapidly. However, do not loose site of the most basic of business objectives - delivering bona fide "solutions" to true customer problems, ensuring long-term customer satisfaction, adoption and retention (aka repeat buying behavior) and revenue-profit generation.

As a long-time Silicon Valley product marketing manager I can also atest to the fact that well-managed beta programs are invaluable for the all important "time to revenue ramp" - in other words meeting or exceeding your 6-month, 1-year and 3-5 year P&L goals. A large number of satisfied beta customers ready and willing to purchase and adopt your new product give your P&L a solid boost from NPI Day 1. Moreover, the willingness of these lead-adopters to provide a customer testimonial or even a case study provide immediate credibility to their industry peers, partners and competitors.

VOCOnline provides an overview of beta program management tools in the marketplace. It is undoubtedly a good investment of your firm's PLCM time and budget to use a high quality tool.