If you really have a good product then there has to be an equally good plan for a product launch. Only then your product will get maximum sales and will be successful.
A successful product launch needs careful planning and time. Rushing out to the market without full preparation can result in a huge disaster. To ensure you create a successful product launch plan, here we list some amazing strategies, which virtually any company can implement.
23 Elements of a Successful Product Launch Plan:
1. Research the Market Space:
To make sure your product launch is a success, you need to research the market for having enough space for your product. It is important so that your product does not become the next item being displayed on the shelf. Even if your product is not entirely new, still it must offer customers something, which other similar products have failed to provide till date.
2. Research About Your Target Audience:
Understanding your target audience is the next important tip to consider. The channels, language, and information you use to communicate with your audiences must be effective enough to influence them. Having a clear understanding of your target audience gives you a clear direction to promote and facilitate your product. This way, you can authentically link to your customers.
3. Focus More on People and Less on Product:
Your product might have great specifications, technicalities, and features. Probably your team must be excited about it. But this is not what the people out there are looking for. The core focus of individuals is on their problems and the best solutions that can solve their problem.
When you plan a product launch, it is best to focus on solutions that it can offer to help people solve their problems. People are keen to know about the style, simplicity, and productivity of a product. Hence, frame your marketing in a way so that people can believe that your product will be a perfect fit in their lives and will make their life better.
4. Figure Out the Relation Between Your Product and Buyer’s Persona:
Before you pitch your product to others, you first have to understand how your product will be beneficial to them. This implies that you must invest enough time in the pre-launch phase. For this, talk to people who you think will be the best fit for your product. Understand their challenges and get yourself familiar with solutions that your product can offer them to combat those issues.
Rather than trying to seek feedback, it is better to try the product yourself. Once you have understood the buyer’s persona, you must then treat yourself as a consumer and check for benefits that the product will bring to you.
5. Gain Knowledge about Buyer’s Journey:
All your sales and marketing activities are grounded in the buying process. In addition to having a clear understanding of the buyer’s challenges, you must gain knowledge about their source of information and factors that influence their purchase.
Promoting your product to specific events can increase purchase. Clients have distinct expectations and you need to meet it successfully in order to gain huge returns.
6. Get Opinions On-Board:
Having a good history is of great advantage to any product, but customers are interested to know what the product might do and not what he has already done. For example, everyone knows that Apple has a history of introducing useful and innovative products, and this is what that brings immense success to their every product launch.
But not everyone has a history like Apple. You can build a strong reputation with the media in advance of your product launch. This will give you coverage to at least some extent. The media will get to know who you are, what your product is when your launch is, and what problems it will solve.
7. Draft a Press Release:
Before the final product launch, it is great to write a mock press release. It would be great if you do this very early in your product’s life. It is because this will increase your chances of getting everyone involved in the launch.
Folks like Amazon follow this approach as offering as this makes it quite easier to get familiar with customers. But writing a press release is not enough. This is only the partial work done. There is more work to be done.
8. Practice Messaging:
Messaging is an approach related to refining your product narration. Its key role is to focus on the valuable aspects of a new product through a message. Though this practice is quite tough, it is highly beneficial. During product launch, you may have only a few minutes to narrate about your product. So, use messaging and make the most of it by ensuring that it is unique, simple, and persuasive.
Some elements of a good message are:
- Product tagline
- Problem it solves
- Its prominent features
- Value Prop
- A positioning statement
But don’t overdo messaging!
9. Share Messaging Across Channels:
Once your message is prepared, the next step is to share it with everyone. You need to take it in front of your customers, prospects, and co-workers. Even if it is not fun, still you must do it. It takes some time to pitch down and not everyone will receive your message.
Do send messages to people who are honest and who can give you genuine feedback. Also, conduct meetings to pitch people and gather as much information as possible from them.
10. Practice Product Validation:
A great idea to earn your very first dollar is by making the sale as validation. This will help you build your product even before it is launched. If people are interested to buy the product based on the pitch, then a large number of them would actually buy it when it really exists.
The simplest way for product validation is by developing a landing page. You can run ads and check if anyone hits the ‘buy now’ button. If this happens then your product validation is successful.
11. Explore About Your Competition In-Depth and Be Different:
A large number of brands these days, follow the ‘we too’ approach where they want to get cash for their products right away. Here you have to be different. Consider aspects that will make customers believe that you are different from your competitors.
Try to identify your brand differentiators and if possible then try not to follow the trend. Rather, try to create a new trend by becoming a leader.
12. Set Achievable Goals:
You have to set achievable yet ambitious goals, which can be a challenging task. As you only have a new product without any benchmarks. In this case, be positive about your product and then set goals that you would want to achieve.
13. Let the Market Get Prepared:
To create enough space for your product in an industry, which is absolutely new and you hadn’t hold any authority in that space ever, then let the market get prepared first. Generating content for pre-launch is what you have to do.
Use this content for SEO so that it is easier for you to establish your company as an expert in the market. This will give you a chance to see content that resonates prior to launch and will also eradicate all sorts of surface issues.
14. Offer a Free Demo or Trial:
Offering a free product demo or trial for service is another way to get feedback about your product before it is officially launched. Also, this will let users experience the product themselves and see how it works. Having a sound understanding of what your service or product can deliver will help meet the expectations in real-time. Most importantly, it can determine the failure or success of your product.
15. Outline a Comprehensive Plan:
No matter what your product and brand are, it is of utmost importance to practice strategic planning before the final launch of the service or product. Here, you have to do multiple things like an evaluation of competition or marketplace, determining ROI, SWOT and ways to measure success and communication planning.
16. Be Revolutionary
One major reason why brands like Apple get huge customer attention is that the company is not afraid to offer something unique and revolutionary. Their products are revolutions and have changed the way we perceive the entire product category. And most importantly, their news is real.
Even if your company does not have a reach like Apple, but you always have that opportunity to revolutionize the business. Offer product or service, which none of your competitors has offered before. If you are confident, then there is no harm in taking a step that is imaginative and bold. Place your company in a motion where you can create a vision for what you have always wanted.
17. Collect Your Line of Assets:
You are now very much close to launch, and hence, you must build your launch assets. You must define a path to draw people’s attention, which can be a landing page or an email. Once you are done with it, work on building site pages, actual forms, emails, videos, social posts, and other ways that can drive users to your conversion point.
18. Select the Right Channels to Promote Your Product:
Promotion is equally important as the product itself. Nowadays there are abundant of mediums available to promote your new product. But this does not imply that you must try all of them. You can select one or more channels which you think are strong enough. In this context, a website is the simplest and most economical channel.
In addition to this, you can use social media to exhibit photos and news of your product early and create excitement for the launch. From Facebook to Pinterest, you can select a social media platform as per your choice.
19. Let Your Product Launch be a Huge Event:
Stage your product launch as an event so that everyone gets to know something important is happening and they must pay attention to it. Define a budget for it and throw a huge press event for the product announcement. If you don’t have the budget then you can even throw an online event. If you make your product launch a big deal, then the media, as well as your potential clients, will too take it more seriously.
20. Maintain the Momentum:
Definitely you will reach out lots of people with the product launch, but still, you have to take numerous touch points before someone gets convinced to buy your product. Hence, you still have to make continuous efforts. This can be done through free trials, nurturing emails, conducting product-focused activities and webinars.
21. Book Pre-Orders:
Every company around has a set of loyal clients who will buy any product they release. Once you announce the product, such clients will line up and would be eager to purchase the first units released. Therefore, it is best to book pre-orders, which are orders that came within a week of the launch of the product. This will also open a way for prospective buyers.
22. Perfect the Product Before it Goes to the Market:
Taking a too long time to rectify your product’s limitations can be a big reason for its failure. As soon as you have pre-booked the launched order, start working on the next model. If there are mistakes or limitations then rectify them right away. This is what an ethical innovator and a loyal businessman does.
23. Focus on Retention:
Finally, you must focus on retention. Marketing can bring you novel users but you can keep them engaged only if you focus on retention. Hence, keep sharing success stories and case studies of your product so that users know what all they can get with your product.
Final Words: Planning the Product Launch
Since your product is unique, so you must plan a unique product launch that is worth attention. Even if you don’t have separate departments for each task, still you can plan a product launch that works for you. All you have to do is follow these tips!
Happy Selling!