Creating a new product can be a challenging task, but what does it take to properly promote your new product? Before your next product launch, take the quiz to make sure you’re as prepared as possible to have a successful launch campaign.
Product Launch Quiz
Answer yes or no to the following questions.
1. Can you recite the product’s unique selling proposition?
Consider this to be your “elevator pitch” for the new product. You should be able to describe exactly what makes your new product so special and unique, and describe it in ten seconds. Memorizing the unique selling proposition will help you guide all of your messaging and ensure that you have a consistent message throughout the promotional campaign.
Once you can recite this from heart, help your product launch cohorts do the same. Whether you send an email, post it by the office coffee maker, or leave a sticky note on a conference room door, do what you can to ingrain this messaging into the minds of each person that’s working to create a consistent tone and message to launch the product.
2. Do you know how to set your product apart from your competitors?
Do some research. Specifically, take a look at your competition’s marketing campaigns to see how they choose to describe their product. You could either take the approach of highlighting features that your competition lacks or showcase how your product is better than the rest of the market. Having direction on which features you’ll highlight and how you compare against your competitors will impact all of your launch messaging.
3. Can you map the typical buyer’s journey with your eyes closed?
If you don’t understand your ideal customer, then you’ll have a much harder time gaining new customers. Before a product launch, you should know the common path to purchase your products. What kinds of messaging are effective with your leads that are in different stages of their buyer’s journey? How do they navigate through your website? What are some top-viewed content offers? Plan to nurture your leads to purchase your new product by creating marketing materials that follow the typical buyer’s journey successfully in the past. A similar strategy for a new product may be quite effective.
4. Have you decided on the communication channels that you’ll use to promote the new product?
The possibilities for how you communicate with your intended audiences can be overwhelming, especially when the promotion timeline is short and there’s a small number of people (sometimes just one) working on the campaign.
When choosing a communication channel, don’t forget to set aside some time for follow-up. There’s nothing more frustrating for a prospective customer to ask a question about your amazing new product on a social media channel or in the comments of your blog only to be greeted with silence. You’ll want to use both one-way communication channels (e.g. product page, email) and two-way communication channels to engage with your prospects.
5. Does each communication channel have unique marketing goals?
During the planning phase of your product launch, you should decide not only which channels you’ll communicate through but create specific goals for each channel. You’ll create goals for each communication effort, so you can evaluate and learn from your marketing campaign. Set SMART goals for each communication effort. How many views, clicks, shares or submissions will it take for you to deem the communication effort successful? That is up to you to decide.
6. Is the dedicated product page optimized for search engines (and people)?
Search engine optimization is especially important for new products. Search engines certainly haven’t crawled the product page before now. While it’s great for search engines to understand what your new product and dedicated product page are about, you’ll want the product to be easily understood by people. A clear meta description is paramount to gaining organic search traffic to your product page. Ensure that the new product page is fully optimized for search engines with this hands-on Academy project.
7. Did you create a demo video or product photos for your new product?
Describing a new product to a large audience can be difficult or at the very least, take many words to describe it well. A video showing the new product in action can resonate more than what you may choose to write. Let the product “speak” for itself through visual communications. (If you want to learn how powerful video can be for your next product launch campaign, check out this blog post. )
8. Will your promoters have what they need to evangelize your new product?
Consider creating something special for your brand promoters. This could come to fruition in the form of exclusive access to some promotional communications, a targeted email campaign to your evangelists, or perhaps a complete media kit for your promoters. Make it easy for your loyal promoters to promote for you. A promoter of your brand should have easy access to your logo, product shots or videos and any downloadable content offers for the new product launch. Making a launch kit for your promoters is likely to strengthen your relationship and gain some new leads from your promoters’ networks.
Are you ready to launch?
If you answered yes to the majority of the questions above, then you are in great shape to launch a new product. But, it’s nearly impossible to prepare for all potential hiccups and unforeseeable events that impact your marketing. Even with great preparation, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll need to make some last-minute changes and pivot some aspects of your marketing campaign. Hopefully, your next product launch is a great success. Shoot for the moon with your marketing goals in support of the next great product your company dreams up.
Have you launched a new product? Do you have any lessons learned to share?
We’d love to hear about your experiences with product launches in the comments.
