Running a business can be busy and hectic at any time. There’s a constant stream of emails to respond to, meetings to attend, inventory to manage, customers to serve, marketing strategies to develop, employees to supervise, budgets to balance, and always unexpected challenges to overcome. However, during a product launch, everything is turned up a notch. The last thing you want to see is all of that extra effort go to waste.
If you’re planning to invest a ton of time, energy, and resources into a product launch, you want to make sure you’re doing so effectively. In an ever-changing market, that means doing your research. You want to find the latest and greatest tactics that offer a high ROI for your product launch investment.
Here are some thoughts on how to make a splash in the market with a product launch this year. Use them to get your wheels turning and ensure your launch is a smashing success.
1. Find that throughline to your target audience
Understanding your audience’s pain points is a key initial step in launching a product. This isn’t anything new. Companies have always conducted market research and aligned products with audience needs. However, you can be innovative even within this otherwise predictable step by looking for creative throughlines that uniquely speak to your audience.
Asking the right questions can help you begin to connect those dots. For instance, understanding your audience and creating buyer personas is helpful, but how do these data sets connect to your product? What one-of-a-kind factors about your business’s unique story have the potential to speak to your audience? How can you integrate these into a message that will catch consumers’ attention?
Rewind Greens is one excellent example of maximizing consumer throughlines. The health product primarily sells super green powders that are loaded with nutrition and easy on the palate. Rewind Greens is uniquely convenient and effective. And yet, it can be difficult to differentiate any health food product in the overly-saturated health and wellness market these days.
To help stand out, the brand has deliberately woven an intimate understanding of user needs and pain points into its marketing message. Right on its homepage, there is relatable messaging regarding the struggle between eating healthy and maintaining a busy lifestyle. On its About Us page, the brand has also highlighted the fact that its top brass was invested in the health food world before joining the company.
The brand’s Director of Operations, Erika Albertini, was serious about green superfoods long before working with the company. Owner Tom Shieh’s testimony goes even further as he, in his own words, was “a faithful customer of this amazing product for years before joining the company.” At every step, Rewind Greens sends the message that it understands its customers’ struggles — and its products provide a genuine solution.
Finding pain points and understanding a target customer is one thing. To truly create a product launch message that resonates in a data-heavy world, though, you need to find your most relatable throughlines to your target audience — and then focus on them.
2. Launch a waitlist
One of the most difficult things about launching a product is circulating knowledge about the product before it’s available. It’s difficult to create hype or encourage buy-in when there isn’t a product to engage with yet.
One way to beef up pre-release buzz is by creating a waitlist. Website building brand Unicorn Platform emphasizes all of the ways that this can supercharge a product release. For instance, a waitlist:
- Builds anticipation by tapping into the psychological concept of scarcity. By creating a waitlist, you encourage people to get in line as a way to enhance the value they get out of an experience. This is especially true if you offer incentives for being an early bird during sign-up.
- Gauge the potential demand for a product before you launch. This gives you the chance to adjust your plans if you find customer interest is either above or below your expectations. If demand exceeds expectations, you might consider ramping up production, expanding marketing efforts, or exploring opportunities to scale your business operations. Conversely, if demand falls below expectations, you may need to reassess pricing strategies, refine product features, or pivot your marketing approach.
- Generate first-party data. In a world where Google is phasing out third-party cookies, first-party data is extremely valuable. A waitlist gives you a flood of high-profile, opt-in user data that you can use to hype up an existing product launch and lay the groundwork for future ones, too.
Bringing your message to your audience is a challenge, especially when you’re working with an unproven product. Waitlists are a great way to bring your audience to you and build hype around an upcoming product, not just through traditional consumer education but by building up the mystique surrounding the entire campaign.
3. Partner up with your launch plan
Finally, don’t be afraid to get other brands in on your launch plans. Look for companies that are in your niche and have complimentary product lines. Get in touch and see if you have a mutual interest in launching products to the same audience simultaneously.
Asem Galal, Managing Partner at Galal & Karawi Consulting, recently pointed out on LinkedIn that exploring “potential alliances” is a great way to launch a product, especially if you’re on a budget. “Look for vendors with complimentary products, of comparable size, and where you can both provide the other party with additional value add,” Galal explained. The executive consultant added that this generates a win-win scenario.
You can reach your audience more effectively, but you can also often do so in a cost-effective manner. Collaborating with other brands allows you to share resources, split marketing costs, and leverage each other’s existing customer bases. You greatly maximize the impact of your launch efforts without significantly increasing your budget.
That said, there are some things to watch out for when using this approach to a product launch. The biggest of these is ensuring that there are clear parameters in place. You don’t want a partnering brand to overshadow, water down, or contradict your own product with their marketing messages.
Look for those synergistic pairings. Galal uses the example of a toy brand partnering with a battery brand. Other common examples include fitness apparel brands collaborating with fitness equipment manufacturers or skincare brands partnering with beauty salons. Look for partnerships that naturally enhance one another’s message without overlapping or competing. When you work together, your product launch practically doubles its chance of being successful.
Planning an Innovative Product Launch in 2024
This year is shaping up to be a year of unpredictability. In fact, it’s already been described as a rollercoaster for small businesses. If you’re going to release a product, you want to build a resilient launch strategy that maximizes your ROI. Don’t risk overlooking the importance of innovation in your approach. Embrace agility in your planning process to swiftly adjust to evolving market conditions and unexpected challenges.
Relatable marketing messages help potential customers connect with your marketing message. Waitlists build pre-launch hype and buy-in. Joint launches enhance and add synergy to your promotional power. Use these cutting-edge tactics to take your next product launch to the next level.
Featured Image Credit: Photo by Kindel Media; Pexels; Thank you.
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