The ultimate guide to planning a successful product launch 

Each product you develop is unique and needs a marvellous launch.

Not only does it need, but it must have a grand product launch if you want to attract the public’s attention. A fantastic product launch gives it more significant chances of succeeding in the market and building a great relationship with the audience. Having a recognizable brand name doesn’t guarantee that your product launch will be successful. Many famous brands have failed because they didn’t focus their efforts on properly marketing their services. There are also brands no one has ever heard of them before launching their products, and a well-planned event brought them overnight fame.

You get one chance to make an everlasting impression on your audience and create buzz around your product. Use it wisely! Competition is fierce these days, but if you put effort into marketing and promoting your product, you’ll reach the target audience and draw attention to your product.

Why should you plan a product launch?

A product launch is a well-developed plan that implies customer-centric marketing procedures and methods you need to use to create communication channels for its targeted audience. A well-crafted product launch enables you to target your potential clients and evolves information channels and ways to target them effectively and fast. Your entire brand depends on a solid and well-established marketing strategy that requires timely execution at this stage.

A product launch helps your business in countless ways:

• You identify the marketing methods necessary for the process
• You identify your brand with its services and products
• You understand your competitors and clients
• You make a list of the required resources
• You estimate the effectiveness of the marketing plan

Steps to launch a product and draw the public’s attention

Every product has unique characteristics and targets different customers. No one can guarantee that the marketing strategy ensures the product’s popularity and success on the market. Still, a well-developed product launch can eliminate failures and take the brand to another level.

Here are some essential steps to planning an outstanding product launch.

In-depth market research

Only if you conduct proper research can you identify your target customers correctly. If you skip this step, you boost the chances of a product launch failure. When you run market research, consider the following areas:

• Identify market position because it’s crucial to understand how your audience views your competitors. A perceptual map can help you understand how your clients rank your brand compared to competing brands and in terms of characteristics.
• Fragment your target public to understand what impression your product leaves on different people.

Identify buyer personas

After completing market research, move a step ahead and identify your buyer persona pertaining to the market segment you found interested in your product. In order to develop a buyer persona, you need to search for your targeted clients via surveys or interviews. List down essential user details like age, demographics, characteristics, customer behaviour, and goals. With the information at hand, create different user personas for each segment.

Decide on a competitive price point

Set the price balancing the needs to be value-focused and competitive, and make a profit. The product’s price should reflect how you intend to market the product. Let’s say that you intend to introduce a luxury product to the market, it would make sense to set a premium price point. Consider having an introductory price for the clients who pre-order.

Upload the product on the website for pre-order

If you want to offer the product on pre-order, introduce it on your online shop a month before its official launch. Collecting pre-orders helps you forecast demand and determine how much product you must manufacture. You can also estimate the number of sales and prevent the issue of unsold stock. To help your clients understand what they should expect from the product, provide them with a document with instructions and recommendations on how to use the product appropriately. Suppose you need to create a voluminous document; consider using a tool to split PDF and create separate files for different pieces of information and purposes.

Choose a launch type

You can choose from two primary product launch types, soft launch and hard launch. The problematic launch presents the product to your entire audience simultaneously, and the soft launch introduces it in steps. A hard launch is the right choice when the market pressures you to launch it before your competitors. On the other hand, a soft launch lets you generate buzz around the product and build suspense to make the public curious about its features. When you pick the soft launch option, collaborate with influencers and reviewers to provide feedback on the product and help you create viral interest around it.

Develop a marketing plan

The product launch should be approached as a formal process, rather than a wing it instance. The marketing strategy you use determines the way the public receptions the product. Therefore, you need to plan every aspect of your marketing plan, address every issue, and focus on every detail. You need a set of tactics, channels, goals, and messages to create an effective marketing plan. Decide if you want to use traditional marketing strategies or use social media and influencers to draw attention towards it online.

Involve the customer as the influencer and tester

Make your clients brand advocates for your product and let them test it before launching it. This strategy implies advanced use, samples or a trial period so they can provide you with a review and feedback to improve it before the official event. This technique gets the public excited about the product and generates buzz on social media and across the industry.

It’s easy to find influencers and testers willing to offer objective feedback with the help of an agency. Working with influential personas provides you access to your target public with less effort than you’d promote the product yourself.

In a nutshell

By following the above recommendations and steps, you’ll definitely find your way to a successful product launch and draw the attention of your target audience.