Here’s a scenario we’ve seen happen before:
The data collection vendor wanted to skip the soft launch, they were most interested in moving fast. So, they went straight to full launch.
200 completes later, the client reviewed the data:
❌ Brand awareness at 73% for a brand with 15% actual awareness
❌ Three “CEOs” of the same company
❌ Revenue figures that didn’t match public records
❌ Open-ends copy-pasted from competitor websites
The client then had 200 bad responses they’d paid for, and a choice: Do we continue collecting with changes, or simply stop and start over? Neither option was good…
A soft launch could have caught the issues early. After just 25 completes, they would’ve seen the brand awareness was wrong. After 50 completes, they would’ve spotted the duplicate “CEOs.” They could’ve killed the bad sources and pivoted before it was too far gone.
The takeaway was this: The cost to fix 50 completes is minimal, but the cost to fix 200 completes meant a complete restart.
Soft launches aren’t about slowing down. They’re about not having to start completely over.
Do you soft launch every project? 👇