1.

7 PRODUCT LAUNCHING STRATEGIES

New Product Launch Strategy

A successful new product launch takes research, planning and a skilled and knowledgeable
marketing team. The product must fulfill consumer needs and provide an emotional connection
through its promise and brand. Businesses often make the mistake of presenting new products to
consumers without adequate research or strategic planning. Todays savvy consumers demand
products that satisfy them on many levels including quality, price, status and function. Prepare a
new product launch strategy for the best chance of success with your new product.

Purpose

The primary purpose of a product launch is business growth. Businesses must master the concept
and process of a product launch to enable growth through successfully introducing new products
into the market. Product launches build sales and revenue through expansion of customer base.
By introducing new products, a business can target previously untapped customer markets. The
resulting growth allows businesses to hire additional sales and support staff.

Stages

A product launch strategy defines several stages of the launch including development, internal
testing, external testing, objective and goal setting, positioning, excitement building and event
timing. The design team must develop a product that fits a customer need and works to fulfill this
need reliably. The objective and goal-setting stage involves setting sales and revenue goals for
the launch event for a set future date. The marketing team positions the product relative to the
competition and begins marketing tactics designed to build excitement. The launch event must
take place at the ideal time for sales maximization. For example, swimming accessories should
have a spring or early summer launch date, and new-technology snowboards should have fall or
early winter launches.

Post Event

A comprehensive new product launch strategy provides a plan for maintaining the momentum
gained during the pre-launch activities and launch event. This plan may consist of post-launch
promotional campaigns and customer incentives, as well as informational vignettes about the
history of the products development, challenges overcome along the way and lessons learned.
People often enjoy reading about the details of new product development and the anecdotes can
gain consumer trust and loyalty.

Considerations

Consider if adding the product to the current line-up will augment brand equity or detract from it.
Brand equity is an intangible asset governed by consumer perception of the overall company
brand. Introducing products that do not align with business objectives and vision may detract
from brand equity, causing customers to back off from the brand entirely. Make certain new
products offer value in conjunction with current products or keep with the product theme.

Pitfalls

A poorly planned product launch may not have sales force support or adequate customer
awareness to succeed. Avoid building false excitement in consumers about a poor quality
product. This causes customers to lose trust and confidence in the business as a whole. A failure
to maintain initial momentum can result in an unrecoverable decrease in product sales and
positive brand influence.

STAGES IN PRODUCT LAUNCH

While some companies are guilty of drafting a press release, crossing their fingers, and hoping
that the users will come, there's actually much more to it than that. If you have big news, you
need a big plan. And that's where the product launch comes in. From establishing the proper
messaging and creating the assets to enabling your sales team and keeping momentum, there's a
lot that goes into putting together a solid product launch plan.

Pre-Launch

Before you launch, take the time to get really close to the product. Work with your product team
to understand the problem they are trying to solve. Join them as they do users tests. Chat with
them about their product philosophy. And most of all, ask a ton of questions -- especially if
youre not familiar with the space.

Focus on understanding their vision and becoming a product expert. Outside of the product
manager, the marketer launching the product should be the most knowledgeable person at your
company about that product.
1) Research the market space in-depth.

At most companies, the product manager will own the problem that the product solves. Theyll
have a deep understanding of who the end user is and what their unique needs are.

The product marketer's job is to understand the market. They must be able to answer questions
like:

Whats the larger narrative around this space?

How do current customers feel about it?

What do people like and dislike?

Is it growing and cutting edge or old and getting disrupted?

What are the leading strategies and tactics in this space?

What is your company's unique point of view when it comes to this space?

How does your new product fit in?

2) Focus on a single buyer persona.

You may not need to reinvent an existing buyer persona, but you should outline who amongst
your target audience is a great fit for this new product. What kind of challenges do they have?
How do they work? How big is the group? Talk to people who fit this profile to really understand
their needs and goals.

3) Write a mock press release.

Write a mock press release before we launch a product. Do this very early on in the products life
to ensure that everyone involved in the launch is aligned on the messaging. Many organizations
like Amazon follow this. The idea is that when you work backwards and start with the press
release, it's easier to put yourself in the customer's shoes.

If the press release doesn't sound very interesting or fails to conjure a reaction, it's likely that
there's more work to be done.
4) Build your message

Messaging or positioning is mostly about refining your product narrative to focus on only the
most valuable aspects of the new product via a simple message.

At launch, you may only have someones attention for a few minutes or seconds, so your
messaging needs to be persuasive, simple and unique. It needs to communicate what your
product actually does and communicate its high-level value.

Elements of good position often include:

A tagline

The problem it solves

A list of core features

The value prop

A 10-word positioning statement

5) Share your message with everyone.

Its time to take the messaging youve been slaving over and get it in front of your co-workers,
customers, and prospects. Its good to start with individuals who may be a little more forgiving
and honest before presenting to executives. Use every meeting to pitch people and ask questions.
Idea is to gather as much info as possible here and root out any confusing or bad messages.

6) Get involved in the beta.

Having a group of beta testers evaluate your product before you release it to the public is a really
important step. Release products to a group of folks -- our beta testers -- that have opted-in to
give us feedback in exchange for early access.

Capture their stories, review their performance, and validate your value prop with them. This is
your opportunity to test your messaging and build real-world proof to support your pitch with an
audience that is ready to share feedback.
7) Change your message and find the best hook.

After talking to prospects and salespeople, and seeing how beta users use the product, its likely
that you've uncovered a thing or two about your message that you might want to adjust.

8) Take the time to get the market ready.

If youre launching a new product that enters your company into a new space -- potentially a
space where your company doesnt have a ton of authority -- start creating content about that
space pre-launch.

Youll want to seed this content for SEO purposes and to establish your company as experts in
the market. Itll also give you a chance to see what kind of content resonates prior to the launch,
as well as help you surface any issues.

9) Build Launch Assets across Customer Journey

At this point, youre close to launch and its time to start building launch assets. But before you
start writing emails or building landing pages, think about the customer journey:

How do people make purchase decisions in your space?

What do they need before buying?

Is it a free trial? A demo?

Is it best for them to talk to a sales person?

What do they need to know before they get to that point?

Once you've answered those questions, outline your conversion path. How will you first get
people's attention? Perhaps it's an email, that drives people to a landing page, where users are
encouraged to fill out a form.

Once you have this, get to work building the actual forms, site pages, videos, social posts, emails
and other tactics that will drive users down your funnel and to your conversion point.
Launch

This phase is much shorter than pre-launch: it can take a day, or a week -- depending on how
long you feel you need. As you prepare to move on to the launch, you want to stay focused on
the execution and be ready to put out any fires.

10) Choose the right channels.

During the planning phase you should have outlined the channels you want to use to share your
message. Be sure to avoid channels where the audience may not be the right fit. Pick one main
channel -- an event, a Product Hunt post, or blog post -- and use email, social, paid, and other
channels to support that main post.

Before you launch, do a final check to ensure that everything works -- buttons are functioning,
forms are working, copy and creative looks good, and so on.

If youre at an event, make sure youre over communicating with your team. At this point,
anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Be prepared for that.

11) Activate your sales team.

Work with your sales team to coordinate meetings and outreach the day of the launch, or directly
after. And use signals from your marketing efforts to drive the hottest leads to sales right away.

If you running an event, make sure your sales team has the opportunity to talk to customers in an
organized way. That might mean ensuring there is a comfortable space for them to meet with
customers, computer access, or a system for booking meetings.

12) Make it an event.

Even if your launch isnt a live event with speakers, you can still make it an occasion.

Post-Launch

13) Dont lose your momentum.

Youll reach a lot of people with your launch, but it often takes several touch points before
someone is convinced to start a trial or get a demo. Make sure to continue to move folks whove
raised their hands as "interested but not ready to buy" down your funnel.
This means nurturing emails, free trials, demos, and more in-depth, product-focused webinars
and activities. Build extra creative, like a longer video or social media posts that you can save for
after the launch. This will give you fresh assets to share.

And don't forget about educating your sales team. It will take a while before all your salespeople
feel comfortable with this new product, so its important to arm them with amazing sales
collateral (demo video, one pagers, etc.).

Beyond that, you can make a big impact by joining their calls: Getting on the phone and pitching
the product with them the first couple of times will give them the confidence they need to carry
the torch.

14) Shift your focus on retention.

Now that youve successfully launched a new product, shift your attention to retention.
Marketing can generally play a bigger role in driving new users, but its important to work with
your product team to figure out how you can help keep those users around.

This means more ongoing education like post-launch product webinars, as well as sharing case
studies and success stories to show your users what they can achieve with your product.