Your product team ships 47 features this quarter. Your CEO wants a launch event for the new dashboard redesign. Sales wants battlecards for every minor update. Marketing wants comprehensive campaigns for each release.
You have exactly one product marketer.
The problem isn't the number of releases—it's that every release is treated the same. Major product launches get the same process as minor bug fixes. Strategic releases get buried alongside trivial updates. Nobody can tell what matters.
The Launch Tier Framework solves this by categorizing releases into three tiers based on business impact and allocating launch resources accordingly. Not every release deserves a keynote. Not every feature needs a campaign. But strategic releases need significant investment to succeed.
What Is the Launch Tier Framework?
The Launch Tier Framework categorizes product releases into three levels:
Tier 1 (T1): Major, strategic launches that significantly impact the business. These are new products, major feature releases, or market expansions that drive revenue growth, enter new segments, or fundamentally change competitive positioning.
Tier 2 (T2): Important releases that enhance product capabilities and support business objectives but aren't transformational. These are significant features that serve existing customers better or address competitive gaps.
Tier 3 (T3): Minor releases, enhancements, and fixes that improve the product incrementally. These are important for product quality but don't change go-to-market strategy or messaging.
Each tier has different launch activities, timelines, stakeholder involvement, and success metrics. The framework prevents over-investing in minor releases and under-investing in strategic ones.
Tier 1 Launches: Strategic, Game-Changing Releases
Tier 1 launches are rare—most companies have 1-4 per year. These releases deserve significant investment because success or failure meaningfully affects the business.
What qualifies as T1:
- New product launches entering new markets
- Major platform releases that redefine capabilities
- Features that enable selling to new buyer personas or segments
- Releases that create new revenue streams (new pricing tiers, add-on products)
- Strategic repositioning that changes market category
- Major partnerships or integrations that open new distribution channels
T1 launch activities:
Pre-launch (8-12 weeks before):
- Comprehensive market research and competitive analysis
- Full positioning and messaging development
- Executive briefings and alignment on strategy
- Beta program with key customers for validation
- Press and analyst pre-briefings under embargo
- Complete sales enablement materials (decks, battlecards, demos, objection handling)
- Customer marketing campaign to existing base
- Partner enablement for ecosystem launches
Launch (launch day/week):
- Press release and media outreach
- Analyst briefings
- Launch event or webinar for customers and prospects
- Email campaigns to customer base and prospects
- Social media campaign across company channels
- Paid advertising to drive awareness
- Sales kickoff or training session
- Launch blog post, case studies, and product tours
- Internal all-hands announcement
Post-launch (4-8 weeks after):
- Performance tracking against KPIs
- Win/loss analysis focused on new capability
- Sales feedback sessions on messaging and tools
- Product analytics on feature adoption
- Customer interviews about experience
- Iteration on messaging based on market response
- Launch retrospective to improve process
T1 timeline: 10-14 weeks from kickoff to launch.
T1 team involvement: Product marketing leads, with significant involvement from product, sales, marketing, customer success, PR, and executive team.
Tier 2 Launches: Significant but Not Transformational
Tier 2 launches happen more frequently—most companies have 6-12 per year. These releases matter to current customers and sales, but don't fundamentally change strategy.
What qualifies as T2:
- Significant features requested by customers or needed for competitive parity
- Integrations with major platforms that support existing use cases
- Enhancements that improve user experience or performance meaningfully
- Features that help retain customers or expand usage among existing base
- Releases that support sales in specific verticals or use cases
- Platform improvements that enable future capabilities
T2 launch activities:
Pre-launch (4-6 weeks before):
- Positioning doc and messaging brief (streamlined, not comprehensive)
- Sales enablement: updated pitch deck slides, one-pager, FAQ
- Beta testing with 3-5 customers for validation
- Email announcement drafted
- Product tour or demo video created
- Documentation and help articles updated
- Internal stakeholder briefing (no executive alignment needed)
Launch (launch day):
- Email announcement to customer base
- In-app announcement for active users
- Blog post explaining new capability
- Social media posts from company accounts
- Sales team notification via Slack/email
- Update website features page
- Release notes published
Post-launch (2-3 weeks after):
- Usage analytics tracking
- Sales team feedback on reception
- Customer support monitoring for issues
- Quick win/loss check on affected deals
T2 timeline: 6-8 weeks from kickoff to launch.
T2 team involvement: Product marketing leads with input from product and sales. Minimal executive involvement. Marketing executes defined activities but doesn't create custom campaigns.
Tier 3 Launches: Minor Enhancements and Fixes
Tier 3 launches happen continuously—weekly or monthly batches of improvements. These are important for product quality but don't change sales or marketing strategy.
What qualifies as T3:
- Bug fixes and performance improvements
- Minor UI enhancements
- Small feature additions to existing capabilities
- Maintenance updates and security patches
- Quality-of-life improvements
- Internal platform updates that don't affect user experience
T3 launch activities:
Pre-launch (1-2 weeks before):
- Product writes release notes
- Documentation updates if needed
- QA and testing completed
Launch (launch day):
- Release notes published in product
- Inclusion in monthly product updates email (batched with other T3 releases)
- Documentation updated
- Customer support notified of changes
Post-launch:
- Basic usage monitoring
- Support ticket monitoring for issues
T3 timeline: 1-3 weeks from development complete to launch.
T3 team involvement: Product owns launch process. PMM reviews but doesn't lead. No sales enablement unless specifically requested.
How to Classify Launches
Classification should be objective and consistent. Use these criteria:
Business impact assessment:
- Does this enable new revenue opportunities (new segments, pricing tiers, markets)?
- Does this significantly affect competitive position or win rates?
- Does this change who can use our product or how they use it?
- Does this require new messaging or positioning?
- Would customers consider this announcement worthy of their attention?
If yes to 3+ questions: probably T1. If yes to 1-2 questions: probably T2. If no to all questions: probably T3.
Revenue impact guidelines:
- T1: Expected to drive $1M+ in new ARR or significantly affect total revenue
- T2: Expected to drive $100K-$1M in ARR or improve retention/expansion
- T3: Improves product but doesn't directly drive measurable revenue
Customer impact guidelines:
- T1: Affects all customers or enables serving new customer types
- T2: Affects a meaningful subset of customers or addresses top feature requests
- T3: Affects small subset of customers or improves edge cases
Create a simple scorecard that product and PMM complete together for each planned release. This prevents disagreements about tier assignments.
Common Launch Tier Mistakes
Everything is T1: Teams treat every release as critical, diluting resources across all launches and doing none well. Discipline requires admitting most releases aren't transformational.
Never doing T1 right: Some teams classify launches appropriately but still don't invest sufficiently in T1. If your T1 launches get 4 weeks of prep, you're under-investing.
Letting politics determine tiers: The executive pet project becomes T1 regardless of business impact. Classification must be based on objective criteria, not organizational politics.
No consequences to tier assignment: If T1 and T2 launches get the same activities and timelines, the framework is meaningless. Tier must determine resource allocation.
Product team dictates tiers: Product teams often see every feature as critical. PMM and product should jointly assess based on market and business impact, not just development effort.
Upgrading mid-launch: Deciding a T3 launch is actually T1 two weeks before ship date creates chaos. Tier assignment should happen during roadmap planning, not mid-development.
Adapting the Framework
Many companies customize this framework:
Four-tier model: Some add T0 for company-defining launches (new product lines, acquisitions, major pivots) that deserve even more investment than normal T1.
Two-tier model: Some simplify to "major" and "minor" launches. This works for smaller companies with fewer releases.
Stage-based tiers: Some companies tie tiers to company stage. Early-stage startups might have 1 T1 per quarter. Growth companies might have 1 per month.
Segment-based tiers: Some companies classify by customer segment. Enterprise-focused releases get different treatment than SMB releases.
The core principle remains: differentiate launch investment based on strategic impact.
How Product Marketers Use Launch Tiers
Resource planning: Tier assignments drive quarterly PMM capacity planning. If you have 2 T1 launches, 6 T2 launches, and 20 T3 releases planned, you know where to allocate time.
Roadmap influence: PMM can push back on unrealistic launch timing. "We can't do 3 T1 launches in one quarter with our team size. Which is highest priority?"
Stakeholder expectations: Tier assignment sets expectations. When sales asks why a T3 feature didn't get battlecards, you point to the tier definition everyone agreed to.
Launch quality: Proper tiering means T1 launches get sufficient time and resources to succeed instead of rushed execution across all launches.
Success metrics: Each tier has appropriate success metrics. T1 measures revenue impact. T2 measures adoption and satisfaction. T3 measures product quality.
When to Use Launch Tiers
Use this framework when:
- Your company ships frequently and PMM is overwhelmed
- Stakeholders disagree about which launches deserve investment
- Launch quality is inconsistent—some under-invested, others over-invested
- You need to set realistic expectations about launch scope
- You're planning quarterly or annual launch calendars
Don't use it when:
- Your company ships 1-2 major releases per year (everything is T1)
- You have large PMM team with capacity for all launches
- Your product is single-purpose with binary release decisions
Launch tiers work best for companies with regular release cadences and capacity constraints.
Getting Started
Review your last quarter's releases. Classify each retroactively as T1, T2, or T3 based on business impact.
Did your resource allocation match? Did T3 releases get T1 treatment? Did T1 releases get T3 attention?
Define tier criteria for your company. Document what qualifies as each tier and what launch activities each tier receives.
Share with product and leadership. Get buy-in that these definitions and resource allocations are appropriate.
Apply to next quarter's roadmap. Classify each planned release. Validate you have capacity for the planned T1 and T2 launches.
Every release doesn't deserve equal investment. Strategic releases deserve significant resources. Incremental improvements deserve acknowledgment but not full launch machinery.
The Launch Tier Framework ensures you invest where it matters most.