You just created an amazing product and you want the world to know!
Even though things should be easy with the abundance of product management tools at your disposal, they are not. Without a proper launch strategy in place, your product will be lost in an ocean of competitors or be overshadowed by other features that your business already offers.
There are certain key steps to keep in mind in order to create a successful product launch strategy.
1. Define your audience
When you were creating this product, you had a certain audience in mind.
To define your audience, you need to define some basic demographic information. If you don’t know who you expect to buy it, how are you going to sell it to them?
Age
Defining the age correctly is important because consumers will respond differently based on their age. Being clear on who your primary target market is will also allow you to choose the right channels for your product.
Gender
Men and women respond differently to different marketing techniques. Failing to understand who your primary audience is might result in both genders not being quite sure if they should buy your product or not.
Income level
This is critical as it will help you price your product correctly. Is your product designed to save money? Is your lower price your competitive advantage? Then, maybe your target audience is middle-class individuals.
Location
Targeting Europe as a whole is great, but it is too large of territory for a launch. Zero in on the most likely location that will respond favourably to your product and start from there.
Spreading out your marketing budget over a large area will not give you any results (unless of course your startup has been funded with USD$20 million and you can afford it).
Also Read: After launching our product, here are lessons learned about products and customers
There are other parameters to use to narrow down your target audience further. The more you learn about your potential audience, the higher the chance of reaching them effectively.
2. Define the problem and the solution
People do not have that much time to spare these days. In fact, according to The Digital Information World, their attention span is in the area of 0.05 and 0.08 seconds. If you fail to get your point across in that time, you might miss your opportunity to sell your product.
Letting your audience know right away “why” they should buy your product is essential. A common method that high-tech innovative companies use these days is “if you can explain this to your grandmother in under five minutes” then you have your “why” cleared up.
3. Choose your channels
Once you define your audience, you will be in a position to research and find out which channels work best to reach them. Different generations prefer different social media channels for example.
Facebook is popular with millennials, while gen X is choosing to split their attention between Facebook and Instagram. Then you have teens who, by a majority, spend most of their time on Snapchat.
The more you know about your target audience, the easier it will be to target them on the right channels.
4. Design the buyer’s journey
This is not a cut-and-paste situation. Each product solves different pain points, and the buyer journey needs to be in a position to guide the potential customer accordingly.
1. What are your customers’ expectations?
2. What is the major pain point your product is solving?
3. Who is most likely to influence them into buying your product?
The perfect buyer’s journey is supposed to move your leads through the sales funnel with ease. This means that you need a lot of content to satisfy the informational needs of your audience at every stage.
You will first need to create content for awareness purposes, then establish the problem, explain why your product is the best solution, convert the lead into a client, and finally have the client rave about your product and refer more clients to you.
Make sure you inform your content development efforts with relevant data. To do so, you can use content marketing and analytics tools like Cortex to understand what colours, themes, subjects, and messages resonate with your audience. You’ll be able to use these insights to create an effective product launch content strategy.
5. Define your competitive advantages
You have to perform a lot of research and clearly define how you are different than competitors.
1. Is your product cheaper?
2. Is it built from higher quality materials?
3. Is your product innovative, in that it solves a problem that no one else has been able to fix so far?
Also, you need to know where your potential competitors are.
For example, a successful launch strategy might mean that you’re targeting an entire location that no one else is servicing yet. This immediately removes the barrier of competition during the sensitive launch time.
6. Create a compelling offer for your audience
When you are about to launch, you need to consider offering a free demo (if you have a software company, for example) to people.
If you are selling a traditional product, create small samples. Consider free trials for any subscription-based products or services, as you want your audience to feel less anxious about trying your product.
Also Read: A comprehensive guide to handling product returns carefully without upsetting customers
Change is not easy for most people. By removing the stress that comes along with spending money, you are increasing your chances of people using your product. From that point on, you will need to have a good retention strategy in place.
7. Sort out your branding
Branding is always important, but even more so when you are about to launch a brand new product. Choose your branding carefully so it speaks to your target audience.
Communicate your branding guidelines to everyone involved in marketing and sales, and ensure they are following the guidelines correctly. This creates consistency and trust.
8. Collect data
You might get everything right and your launch is extraordinarily successful. But, in most cases, marketing strategies need a lot of adjusting before they start working properly. Make sure you have your key performance indicators (KPIs) defined, and your analytics tools set up correctly.
This way you will be able to measure your clicks, keep an eye on your funnels, identify where you lose potential customers, and see what is working according to plan.
9. Keep testing
Use any data you collect and continue to test your audience. For example, create various landing pages and use different ways to explain the problem. Then observe to see which landing page is getting the most clicks.
Keep testing and refining your campaigns, even after the launch period has passed. You can test content, CTAs, images, offers, etc.
Wrapping up
Make the most of the steps given above to organise your efforts.
Have you implemented any other steps to help you successfully launch a new product? If so please share them with us in the comments.
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Image Credit: Jason Leung
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