The only thing more enjoyable than inventing your product and coming up with an effective marketing strategy is the actual product launch. This is the time when you will finally unleash your product upon the world. You may start off small at first, but if you play your cards right and you put enough energy into your actual product launch, you may find your business scaling up to enormous proportions. Here are a few tips to get you started when seeking the best way to launch your product upon an incredibly hungry target audience.
Product Launch Step 1: The Planning Stage
The first step when learning how to launch your product effectively is to come up with a solid plan you can follow. A plan will keep you from derailing your efforts at the first sign of trouble. Your plan should include your goals, such as how much money you plan to make and how you plan to make that money.
How do you plan to offer the product to your customers? If it’s a virtual product, you’ll have to set up download capabilities and make sure your web host is prepared in case your product launch goes viral. If you are offering a physical product, have your shipping options prepared in advanced and shipping prices prominently displayed in order to avoid any confusion amongst customers.
You will also want to set a final date of launch. For best results, set your product launch about six weeks out. This will give you time to build hype around your launch, which is essential if you want to learn how to launch your product the right way.
Product Launch Step 2: The Pre-Launch Stage
If you want your product launch to go off without a hitch, you’ll want to map out your launch campaign from beginning to end. List out all the blogs and emails you plan to send out and really bring it with the emotionally-charged copy. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes when crafting your content and make them feel the emotion required to make your product seem extra enticing. This is how to launch your product while also creating desire – a recipe for success.
You will also want to create hype during this stage. Start a social media campaign that really builds excitement around your product launch date. Let your customers know that the secret to their problems is coming, but you don’t want to give away too much yet. Use mystery and a sense of urgency (the approaching launch date) if you want to learn how to launch your product to a successful outcome.
You’ll want to spend the most time making sure that your product launch message is consistent, that it focuses on the benefits of your product and that it builds excitement around the date you’ve set.
Then send out regular emails and social media blasts reminding of the launch up until the big day. For extra effect, you might want to put a countdown timer on your website and on your social media profiles to generate even more buzz. Then prepare your team and your web host, as your product launch is about to go live.
Product Launch Step 3: The Mid-Launch Stage
If you want to learn how to launch your product like the professionals, you will want to include a mid-launch process where you handle all the administrative work and double (and triple) check all of your bases to make sure there are zero complications during the actual launch.
In order for your customers to be able to buy from you, you’ll want to include a checkout process. This process should be checked for any and all leaks. You would hate to go through all the trouble of planning and staging a product launch only to fail right out of the gate because your checkout process breaks down. You’ll also want to read over your sales page for any typos; and while you’re at it, you might want to hire an editor or at least get someone else to read over everything to make sure it passes muster.
When you’re finally ready, when affiliates have been notified and when your team is ready to start fielding orders and pleasing customers, you’ll want to send out email and social media blasts informing everyone that: Ok, this is it. Your product launch that everyone’s been waiting for is finally about to go live.
Product Launch Step 4: The Actual Launch Stage
Open the gate and let the crowds rush in; your product launch has just become a reality. This is not time to rest on your laurels. This is the time to make sure everything’s running smoothly. Remain extra vigilant for bugs and complaints and put out any fires that come your way immediately to avoid interrupting the positive energy flow.
Don’t be freaked out if you don’t get a rush of customers right off the bat. Some launches take hours, days and some take weeks or months to show positive numbers. When learning how to launch your product like the professionals, you’ll need to keep in mind that patience is key. Even if you’ve planned everything to a ‘T’, expect things to go wrong and be there in sound mind and body in case they do. And most of all, keep a positive outlook. If you’ve prepared properly, the customers will show themselves and they’ll have their credit/debit cards out ready to snatch up your latest product.
Product Launch Stage 5: The Post-Launch Stage
Relax, have fun and celebrate with your entire team. You did it! You successfully put on a product launch and hopefully you sold out of your current inventory. If you didn’t succeed, it’s a good bet that you learned some valuable lessons that will help you put on successful product launches in the future. Now that you know how to launch your product, you’ll be able to replicate the system again and again in order to eventually find success. Again, remember that patience is a virtue and it’s crucial if you want to join the ranks of the product launch elite.
