Product launch

Product launch is the release stage of a product to the market, accompanied by intensive communication with the target audience, a marketing campaign with a certain tactical sequence, and various communication channels.

In the article, we describe the purpose and advantages of product launch, ideas, and examples of a successful launch. In addition, we give a 4-step product launch checklist.

What is the purpose of a product launch?

The product launch aims to attract attention to the new product before it appears on the market and generate demand at the start of sales. You should interest consumers during the product launch and convince them to purchase your product through communication with the target audience.

Product launch tasks:

• inform consumers about the new product;
• draw attention to the product and generate demand;
• increase brand awareness and brand loyalty;
• accept pre-orders for early birds.

Now you know the tasks and the advantages of a product launch. Continue reading to discover its benefits.

Advantages of Product Launch

Here we provide 6 reasons on how a product launch can influence your business.

1. It draws attention to the product and increases brand awareness. Product launch is a great way to attract attention to the new product using proper marketing techniques. You can tell people about its features, make them consider your product and convince them to buy it. Moreover, product launch is a great source of publicity for the company. It leads to more sales for both the new product and other of your company's products.
2. Product launch boosts sales and increases revenue. The first few months are the time when a product has the highest demand. It is a great time to increase revenue and attract as many customers as possible. With a marketing campaign, people become aware of the product features faster, and they can buy it right after its launch on the market. So, when you release the product successfully, you can cover the development cost and get higher profits.
3. It gives an image of required resources and motivates your employees. A product launch helps you discover the estimated demand for the product and training for the staff required. It also motivates your staff to work more productively. A product launch brings fresh ideas, shows the employees that your company is developing, and encourages them to grow with it too.
4. It can influence a company's reputation. A product launch helps create a positive image of the company and get a reputation for industry-changing brands. For example, if you launch a cutting-edge product that solves customers’ pains that сompetitors have not been able to solve, your company can become a leader in the industry. It can help your future products sell much better because the target audience will already be loyal to your brand.
5. A product launch can provide more business opportunities. If you launch the product successfully, it can generate new partnerships, attract business offers and investments from bigger players on the market.
6. It increases market share and opens new revenue streams. A launch of a new product provides a marketing campaign that can help you attract more customers, increasing your market share. Moreover, you can explore new revenue streams, which means that there will be more routes of money, such as Internet orders, retail sales, over-the-counter sales, etc.

Now you understand why product launch is so important. In the next section, we provide a 4-step checklist on how to organize your launch successfully.

4-Step Product Launch Checklist

There are four stages in the standard product launch scheme: preparation, pre-launch, launch, and post-launch. You need to make people interested in your product and encourage customers to wait for the start of sales.

1. Preparation

This step includes analysis of your target audience and competitors, idea generation, and determination of product benefits.

Analysis of your target audience. When you think about producing and developing a certain product, firstly, you should analyze your target audience. Conduct market research to discover their interests, habits, needs, demographics, etc. Collect as much information as possible and then think about the features of the product potential customers need. Use different resources and statistics to make your research more accurate.

Analysis of your competitors. If you have already analyzed your target audience and highlighted the product's main features, the next step is to analyze your competitors. Discover the availability of similar products on the market, their prices, advantages, and disadvantages. Then take a look at your competitors’ marketing strategy and find the reviews from their customers. This research will help you improve your product idea, find customers’ pains that сompetitors have not been able to solve and make necessary changes to avoid possible weaknesses of your product.

Idea generation and creating an offer. Now you know the main trends in the market, so it is time to generate a final idea and think about a unique offer. Focus on its strengths: design, long service life, usability, quality, favorable price, etc. Cover as many needs of your target audience as possible into your offer and convey them accurately.

2. Pre-launch

After thorough preparation, you should test your product on a limited number of potential customers. Ask them for feedback and collect the reviews to improve your product. Start a marketing campaign to spread information and generate interest around the launch. Try to pitch celebrities to attract more attention. You can also use a waitlist to estimate the approximate demand and make people feel that they play a vital role in the product’s destiny.

3. Launch

This step is extremely important because your product should meet the users’ expectations and give them an excellent customer experience. Use different platforms and channels, such as email and SMS campaigns, to make an image that your product is everywhere and everyone needs it. Advertise it on social media, press, web resources, in mass media, attract bloggers and other famous people. Remember that you should concentrate on your target audience and the channels they often use.

4. Post-launch

When you have already launched your product, you should work actively with an attracted audience. Think about methods to improve customer lifetime value and make the product better based on consumer needs.

Remember that the launch cycle is repeating. After the post-launch, it is important to analyze the results and improve your product, create new ones and develop your company in the changing market.

Continue reading to discover some ideas to launch your products successfully.

5 Product Launch Ideas

If you are still unsure how to organize your product launch, we can help you. In this section, we’ll share 5 ideas on attracting more attention to the campaign.

1. Use all the opportunities of social media

According to Backlinko, more than 4 billion people use social media in the world. So, it might be a good idea to promote your product there. Below are some tips on how to launch a successful marketing campaign on social media platforms.

1. Develop an online marketing strategy and combine different types of content for advertising.
2. Create eye-catching photos and videos of the product.
3. Post teasers to create excitement among the audience.
4. Use countdowns before the launch.
5. Hold a contest on social media and give your product to the winners.
6. Create your hashtag and use it with your posts on social media.
7. Share backstages and details of the product development to build trust with potential customers.
8. Encourage people to create UGC content with your product.
9. Use chatbots to answer frequently asked questions as fast as possible.

Follow these tips to empower your marketing campaign on social media. Continue reading to discover how to advertise your product on other resources.

2. Make use of influencer marketing

It might be a good idea to use influencer marketing to promote your product and the launch event. Choose influencers in your niche whose values you share and collaborate with them. You can ask influencers to review your product or invite them to the launch event to attract more attention.

Look at the screenshot below. There is a post from Lady Gaga’s Instagram account where she advertises the new tutti gel-powder ALL OVER ROUGE created by HAUS LABORATORIES. It is a great example of influencer marketing and marketing on social media.

3. Use a waiting list and accept pre-orders

You can create a waiting list and give people an opportunity to register to get early access to the product. Accept pre-orders and give users a certain discount to create more excitement around the launch. You can also ask them to share information about the product on social media to get a bonus.

Below is an example of Black Friday Pre-Sale from Revolve that advertises discounts up to 80%. Customers can buy certain clothes much cheaper during a certain limited period of time.

4. Provide a free trial

If you work in digital, you can offer a free trial to your customers. It gives people an opportunity to try your product, like it, and make them want to continue using your product. You can provide a free trial only for those who registered on the waiting list. It will give users the feeling of exclusivity and make more people interested in the product.

5. Organize a product launch event

It is an excellent opportunity to attract more attention to your product and make the target audience more loyal. You can choose a theme of the event related to the product or the industry you work in. When demonstrating the product, remember that it is crucial to focus on people’s needs. Highlight the product features that can help customers solve their problems and attract attention to ones that can be useful in everyday life. Offer users a chance to try your product.

The more people talk about your product and event on social media, the more audience you can cover. Depending on the product’s peculiarities, it might be a good idea to organize an afterparty to encourage people to create posts and stories during your event and post them on social media.

Now you have some ideas about how to organize your product launch. Read the next section to find some inspiring examples.

5 Inspiring Product Launch Examples

Below we provide the top 5 examples of amazing product launches. Get inspired to create a memorable product launch.

1. Starbucks VIA Instant Coffee

Starbucks spent about 20 years developing VIA. Its peculiarity is that VIA is a high-quality coffee option and is “not instant coffee, but coffee in an instant.” This slogan helped to differentiate their coffee from other ones.

Moreover, before the launch, they treated people right on the streets and asked for feedback. It helped them improve the product and attract attention to the new development. The result was great: Starbucks launched VIA in a range of grocery stores, including Target and Safeway.

2. KFC Double Down

KFC decided to improve sales and change the usual sandwich with chicken. They replaced the bun in their sandwich with two boneless white meat chicken filets and called it “Double Down.”

There was great hype around this new development because the sandwich can cause harm to the heart. However, KFC created a huge social media advertising campaign and managed to sell about 10 million sandwiches in the first 6 weeks.

3. Robinhood

Robinhood is a stock-trading service, which lets people trade easily without any commission. Before the launch, they created a campaign and provided users early invitation-only access to their service. After registration, users were added to the waiting list and had to wait until they got to the top of this list. There was also an opportunity to gain priority access by inviting friends to Robinhood. The more people users invited — the sooner access they got. As a result, Robinhood had more than 500,000 signups before the launch.

4. Absolut Vodka

Absolut Vodka launched a new limited edition “Unique” vodka in Argentina and organized a party for their young customers. Visitors had to charm a fictional doorman “Sven” via WhatsApp to get to the guest list. Its number was written on all banners and advertising materials. During the party, “Sven” chatted with more than 600 contacts and received more than 1000 photos and videos.

5. WePay

WePay decided to get one over PayPal and attract more customers to their service. There was a great scandal around freezing member accounts in PayPal, so WePay used this opportunity.

During the annual developer conference in PayPal, the representative of WePay dropped a huge block of ice with frozen money and said, “PayPal freezes your accounts.” As a result, this incident was on the front pages of many popular tech sites. WePay increased traffic by 225% and signups by 300%.

If you are looking for a platform to automate your marketing campaign and raise the effectiveness of future product launches, LIKE.TG will be a good choice. There are chatbots for social media, services to launch email and SMS campaigns, and a landing page builder to lead traffic to your page.

Look at the product launch email created with LIKE.TG. You can design all the elements according to your needs. There is an opportunity to add a background image, pictures, video, text, buttons, social media icons, and links. You can customize your email by changing the font, color, width, and alignment of the elements.

Congrats, now you know all the necessary information about the product launch. Create successful marketing campaigns and raise your income with LIKE.TG products.