The “Launch” of a start-up is an extremely critical phase of the company’s life cycle. This is your big announcement to the world and that usually takes a bit of planning, especially when it comes to marketing.
You have heard the saying “failing to plan is planning to fail”, right? Well, that is particularly true if you want to seriously launch your latest invention.
A product launch plan consists of the strategies and procedures you may use to develop communication channels for your chosen target audience. The process of planning will also help you to pick up on some of the opportunities otherwise missed.
Having a marketing plan will help understand how to target your potential customers. Most modern businesses depend on a purely digital marketing strategy and that requires planning and appropriate execution at its launch stage.
Having a product launch plan helps you to:
- List all the channels you will use to promote your product (Facebook/Instagram/YouTube/Twitter/TikTok/Pinterest…you get the point).
- Develop an ideas bucket for your creative content and crazy video ideas.
- Research some of the resources you will need (Adobe Creative/Canva/Automation Apps/External Resources etc).
- Dive deep into the persona journey to understand your ideal customer.
- Understand your competitors and what they are doing in terms of marketing their own products.
- Explain your business to a complete stranger and also to document the messages that truly resonated with others.
Before your get started...
Before you get stuck into the planning, a key part of the overall process is to understand the following things, all of which will help you to build out your marketing plan.
The Intent of Your Business
In this phase, you must figure out what your business intent is to meet. By doing this, you are helping your customers to know and understand your business better.
Your Brand Statement
A simple yet comprehensive statement of how you will meet your customers’ needs while edging out the competitors can do wonders for you.
Identify the Potential Audiences
With the growing rate of choice in the marketplace, now is the best time to hyper-focus on a particular niche. It will also help you answer the questions “what makes you think that they will buy your product instead of the alternative?”.
You should describe your ideal customer in detail to have a clear understanding of who you want to target.
Know the Competition
It is useful to understand that some competitors do not like new entries to the game and it is worth keeping this in mind.
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses with a strong analysis of your competitors can give you a head start. Keeping a close eye on your competitors will help you to understand where you fit within the market you are trying to tackle.
Test the Market
Could you send your product to reviewers for feedback? Your audience may just tell you what you are doing right, or wrong. This will help you shape any future releases or developments.
Identifying Marketing Strategies
So, we have done the initial prep work of identifying the internal and external factors of our plans. Now to figure out ways to reach your customers.
Social Media
Social media is the face of modern-day marketing. It has become a crucial part of any business’ marketing plan because you can target a wider audience, which in turn may lead to potential customers.
Email Marketing
Email marketing, indeed, a tried-and-tested concept, is an effective and popular medium of promotion and marketing for many start-ups.
Blog Strategy
Blogging is considered a building block of modern marketing. It helps in amplifying a company’s social positioning and promoting the brand. Maintaining and regularly updating your blog with helpful and useful articles will help keep visitors coming to your blog and get familiar with your business.
SEO and Link Building
A strong SEO strategy can help in extending the content and have a better impact on your potential customers.
Online Advertising
Advertising is key. First, you have to get familiar with your brand and then you can advertise it to the proper audience and your target market. By targeting your audience and advertising the appropriate messages to them, you can woo them and amplify your business.
Tips for Writing a Press Release:
- Write an attractive Headline
- Write in the inverted pyramid style
- Tell your story
- Don’t forget to add your contact information
Every good news story has an angle.
Local impact. How is your story impacting the local community?
Progress. Is your press release highlighting progress made towards a certain problem?
Drama. Does your press release evoking an emotional response for readers?
Image Source coschedule.com
Product Launch Marketing Checklist:
- Develop a story behind the product launch
- Prepare a launch plan
- Identify a budget
- Define your success metrics
- Identify marketing channels for launch
- Select your product launch date
- Build your sales funnels and processes
- Get the creatives ready
- Prepare for the launch event (if any)
- Plan social media posts and articles about the product launch
- Place lead magnets on your website/blog
- Follow-up with customers for feedback
GO!
The most important thing to remember here is to just have some fun with it. Unless you are a ginormous corporate brand, you can make some mistakes here. You have time to tweak some stuff and really get to know yourself as a brand. You will inevitably make some changes as you figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Once you find a solution that works for you, focus more energy to that, but don’t forget to try new things and play around on different platforms. Dabble in something new. If it doesn’t work, you can always stop doing it. Unless you really upset your audience, most of your customers will forgive you for trying something different – even if it doesn’t work.