Every company deserves a launch, a great launch indeed. Irrespective of the size of the company. In fact the smaller the company, the greater and stronger the product launch strategy you should apply. This article will show you how to have a great product launch by applying the following product launch strategy.
Launching is not the same as product release, though when launching, you definitely would have a release date. Launching isn’t that 2 hours event you organize to create awareness for your product, then post on various social media and get people to come around and celebrate it. It can be better than that. A product launch strategy can be activated months, weeks or days before the product release. It doesn’t matter if its a book you want to launch, an app or services, you need to organize a great launch.
Read more: Why every brand or product needs a launch
According to Jeff Whatcott (@bcjeffw) Chief Marketing officer of Brightcove, a leading online video platform for publishing and distributing video across PCs, smartphones, tablets and connected TVs, a product Launch strategy can be implemented from two perspectives.
1. Externally
2. Internally.
Externally, it’s a public announcement that secures widespread coverage in the press and social media and builds your brand leadership position and drives a surge in demand for your products
Internally, it’s a massive rallying force that promotes alignment across the company and prepares the go-to-market machine to execute well.
This cannot happen in a day. Let’s get it started on how to have a great product launch that your market cannot resist. The following are the 10 launch strategies you can use
1. Take care of every registration:
Most people have created awareness for a brand or product without registering the brand, have not secured the domain name, no registered business name and other legal registration required. You could be running someone’s product name or brand name without knowing which can lead you to legal issues or your new names can be stolen and you’ll be made to pay thousands of dollars for a domain name from re-sellers which ordinarily would have cost less than 20 dollars. Secure your business names and put all registrations in place before launching
2. Create awareness:
Most people do this the wrong way. You first would have to define your target audience or market. Who is your product meant to serve? Where are they? Not necessarily a location. Can be a platform, groups and forums these audiences dominate. What type of information do they consume and from what source? Use those channels to bring awareness to them. You wouldn’t create awareness on Disney programs when your target market isn’t kids. You wouldn’t run Facebook ads targeting the whole country when your target is just citizens living only in the cold regions or business cities of that country. Creating awareness must be deliberate and calculated. With good awareness, you can create loyal customers.
Read more: 7 vital steps to creating loyal customers.
3. Educate the in house.
Before launching Externally, launch internally first. Prepare the in-house to be able to face whatever question that comes to them. Let the in-house understand every process and be carried along in every decision making especially those concerned with the go-to-market plan. In simple terms, get everyone on the same page.
4. Stir interest:
If launching doesn’t gain widespread coverage then, it’s not good enough, the purpose is to bring about a surge in demand for your product. Therefore the awareness should be able to stir interest and keep people waiting for the product release day. If this is done well, you can get people to pay ahead of the release date with a little subsidy in price as an “early bird” incentive.
Read more: Hidden sales secrets that increase profit
Be it a book you want to launch, a training service or a product, it works. Towards the release of apple’s iPhone 11 pro Max, the awareness was so strong that people were so interested to see for themselves. The goal is to create an expectation in people so much that they can’t wait to get the product. For Apple, this resulted in long queues in their sales shops that people had to put their footwears in the queue and went home for more than 3 days.
5. Timing is key:
This can work for your benefit or disadvantage. As a small company, you wouldn’t want to launch your product when another big fish in the market is launching theirs. However, one can leverage on big events like mother’s day to launch a great product for women or children’s day to launch a product for kids. Choose wisely. Missing timing can kill your product launch strategy
Build enough expectation and try not to be swallowed up by a bigger event, choose release dates that would favour your market.
6. Engage.
Create various platforms that engage your markets, they want to know the product features, how the services would operate and other various answers to their questions. Social media outlets can help engage the large audience.
7. Don’t Tell, Show It!.
Imagine doing a video on how your product solves security issue. An example is ring.com, apple exhibited by deeming their phone in water to prove how resistant it is to water. Have a demo if it’s an app people can play around and see for themselves. A picture is worth more than a thousand words, what then would you say about a demo or video. Creating a wonderful experience is the best storytelling.
8. Give chance for trial.
This might not apply for all products. It might go more for services than products. However, if you have an app and you’re confident about the value you’re offering you can give out some features for free or time-bound trial periods. It could be 3 days free trial period. Do this only if you’re confident have irresistible value! This can help you earn trust. This is called a freemium strategy, it’s a key to developing a good product launch strategy
read more: 4 Essential pillars to earning trust in business
9. Create urgency.
When people feel like they have an opportunity forever, they might never take action on it. So, create urgency. A simple way to do that might be asking them to pay earlier and have a 35% discount. Pay now and get an added value product. Whatever thing that would create urgency, use it to close the sales. Always remember that the purpose of implementing the product launch strategy is to create a surge in demand and enforce your brand to the market.
10. Start the next launch.
Be it an added feature to the previous release or an entirely new product. Keep launching.
