New Product or Service? Launch Marketing

Thought developing a new product or service was hard? Marketing your new creation is the most critical phase on the path to success and fortune!

Launch Plans

Planning a Successful Launch

Marketing the new awesome product or service that you developed is just as important, if not more important than the product itself. Marketing your new product is a extensive process that needs to be carefully researched and developed. There are countless failed companies that developed ground breaking products, but did not go to market properly. Don’t risk your investment in time and money!

Product Launch

The ultimate success of your new product or service depends on many factors. The form and function of the product is of course a vital element, but the marketing effort surrounding the product is most often the deciding factor determining its success or failure.

Developing a successful launch plan can be overwhelming if you haven’t developed one before. From pre-launch activities to planning the launch event itself, there are numerous factors that need to be taken into account. Then there is the post launch stages that need to be planned in advance.

All too often many of these launch details are overlooked. Business owners concentrate mostly on product development and the technical aspects, but often forget about the customers that they want to attract and please.

Below we have listed some of the essential pre-launch and post-launch events that need to be taken into consideration. We have expertise and experience to help you develop a successful product launch!

 The Launch Process

The Launch Process is one of the most critical phases of a new product’s success. There is no doubt that a well planned and executed launch can make or break the success of your product. Know your customers and the value of your product, plan your launch in such a way as to generate the most appeal and desire. Be prepared for the unexpected and have an plan post launch. We have broken the launch process down into approximately the following 9 phases:

  1. Research Market: determine the product’s market positioning and potential.
  2. Identify Product: develop product identity, market position, and sales proposition.
  3. Build Hype: develop publicity campaigns to build pre-launch anticipation with customers.
  4. Engage Influencers: find and engage individuals that help influence potential customers.
  5. Launch Event: plan and coordinate venue and method of launching new product.
  6. Distribution Channels: develop distribution channel strategy and path to end customer.
  7. Ongoing Promotions: plan marketing and advertising strategy to continue building sales.
  8. Product Support: implement customer support and care programs.
  9. Rapid Response: have a contingency plan in the event of unforeseen issues.

The Launch Plan

Research Market

Properly understanding your market is paramount to developing a plan that will be successful. This starts with researching the market your product will be launched in. What companies and products will you be competing against? What are their strong and weak points? Which competitors succeeded and which failed and why? Who is your target customer? Researching your Market is Step 1.

Identify Product

Following up on your research it is time to properly identify and label your product or service. How where similar products labeled and marketed? What made them attractive to their customers? What exactly are your customer searching for? Will your marketing appeal to them or will they be confused by your product’s identity? Learn to speak with your customer, not to your customers.

Build Hype

Start building anticipation long before you release the official details about your new product. Start build hype and teasing your customers with what is coming. A careful release of information can build anticipation and create a demand long before your products launch. But make sure that you are able to deliver on your hype. Nothing is worse than a disillusioned customer.

Engage Influencers

Find people that will help you promote your new product. These should be people who are viewed as experts by your customers. These influencers are often product reviewers and testers. Multiple reviews by these experts legitimize your product in potential customer’s eyes long before you launch the product for purchase. Choose carefully, a flat review can do as much damage as good.

Launch Event

The Launch of your new product or service should be carefully coordinated to achieve maximum impact. The product launch does not especially require an extravagant event, but it does need “spread the word” that your product is available and its merits. Tradeshows, conferences, or other events where the media is present is a great way to get noticed. Follow up with Press Releases, email blasts, and updated website landing page.

Distribution Channels

How will your customers purchase your new product? Will it be available at their local retailer? Online via a reseller, or on your website? Maybe they can only order over the phone with the help of a trained sales person? Then there is distribution that sells only to trained trades people. Each channel has its advantages and disadvantages. But few companies have successfully sold through multiple channels.

Ongoing Promotions

Launching your new product and getting it to market is only the first part of your Launch Plan. Customers are fickle and without a constant marketing and promotion campaign, they will quickly move onto the next new product. Keep your customers captivated with ongoing advertising, promotions, and feature release to continue making the news. Properly planning in advance enables you to manage a successful product lifecycle.

Product Support

Inevitably customers will have questions, issues, and unforeseen complications. Establishing a product support plan of action will greatly enhance the value of the product for your customer. Complicated products many require training, how to videos, and 24/7 human support. Even simple products require support. Be prepared with easy support access and respond promptly to customer queries.

Rapid Response

Develop a contingency plan should disaster strike. Possibly an unforeseen defect or software issue could result in a large share of your products requiring attention. How will you respond? Having planned for the worst-case scenario will ensure that you can successfully handle the situation and maintain loyal customers. The inability to handle even minor disasters could result in the loss of customer confidence.

The Success

The phrase “the devil is in the details” perfectly describes a product launch marketing plan. Most entrepreneurs spend all their time and effort concentrating on developing an exceptional product or service. And since they have this awesome product on offer, customers should come flocking in to buy it, shouldn’t’ they? Unfortunately, the misconception is that “just build it and customer will come” does not work. The correct customer must be courted and enlightened on what this new product will do for them before they will even consider purchasing it. Don’t risk all your investment in time, money, and effort without a properly laid out product launch plan and strategy.

The Perfect Launch

We have the expertise and experience to help you develop and implement a marketing plan that will help ensure that your product launch will be successful. Give us a call today or fill out the quote request form below. We offer assistance with both product and service launch plans and strategy development.

PRODUCT LAUNCH MARKETING QUOTE REQUEST

If you would like a quote on a Product Launch Marketing campaign, please fill out the form below to request a custom quote.

Please be as detailed as possible. This will help us to determine what services would work best for your application. Once we start with the quote, we will need to setup a call to review all the details. Depending on the requirements, a consultation fee maybe required.

Product Launch Marketing Quote Request

Product Launch Frequently Asked Questions

How much should I spend on a Product Launch?

Well that does all depend on the product, there is a big difference between a television and a car. But here are some quick price range estimates;

  1. Research Market: $5,000 to $50,000
  2. Identify Product: $7,500 to $30,000
  3. Build Hype: $3,000 t0 $15,000
  4. Engage Influencers: $1,000 to $10,000
  5. Launch Event: $5,000 to $100,000
  6. Distribution Channels: $2,000 to $5,000
  7. Ongoing Promotions: $1,000 to $15,000 per month
  8. Product Support: $500 to $5,000 per month
  9. Rapid Response: $1,000 to $5,000

Again these figures are a very rough estimate and vary significantly in real life depending on the product and marketing scope.

Why include Support in a Product Launch?

How a product is supported after the sale can mean the difference between success and failure. Say you build up the hype, the product looks awesome, and you generate lots of sales after the launch, but the buyers have a hard time using the product and support is unprepared, negative reviews will start flooding in and sales will start dropping dramatically make the investment in your product launch worthless. This is why we like to include the support and other post launch details so that our customers have a successful result.

Why? I already know my product and market!

Products are designed by technical people, engineers, designers and the like. They know and understand their products better than anyone else, and have designed them for any number or reasons; to fill a gap, compete with another product, do something better than the competition, it sounds cool, and so on. But the question is, will the consumer of your products understand and appreciate the value that you are offering them? This is where the product launch marketing goes to work, to make sure that your new product appeals and provides value that the consumer will understand.