According to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, thirty thousand new products are launched every year. In the same year, roughly about 28,500 of them, or 95%, fail.
There could be many reasons behind this statistic, but one is definitely the lack of attention paid to social media marketing.
? Read Creating a Marketing Strategy that Works: Benefits, Steps, Tools
How can you join the lucky 5% and set your new product or service up for success? Read on to find out!
What is a New Product Launch, and How to Prepare For It?
Creating a new product is a big thing. It usually takes months of preparation coordination between many people, and it costs a lot of money. But, none of it matters without people who will use that new product. That’s why launching it properly is the cherry on top of the process.
A new product launch is a process of introducing a new product to the market. This process includes preparing the product, positioning it, and communicating it to potential customers using marketing communications.
The first step to prepare for a new product launch is to know your audience and their needs. To get this valuable knowledge, you could use social media monitoring tools, for example, or conduct market research on a specific topic.
You should also know what you aim for and how you want your customers to experience your brand with this new product.
Moreover, testing the market to see how people react and whether there is any interest in this new product is also something you should consider. You can do this by creating surveys, questionnaires, or focus groups. Such insights could make or break your next launch, so do think about this step along the way! Let’s dig deeper into steps to take for a successful product launch.
What makes a product launch successful?
There are many moves and tricks that you could go for before, during, and right after you launch a new product.
These include building excitement and curiosity about new products or services, being active on social media, and engaging with various activities such as influencer marketing, all the way up to keeping track of what people say about your brand and the new offering.
All these elements combined will give your product launch a more profound meaning – it’ll become more visible, attract many potential customers and set you up for a big success. Here’s what to keep in mind for your new product launch.
How to Prepare for a New Product Launch
As we mentioned, a new product launch will require you to focus on comprehensive marketing. In particular, your task will be to promote the new product or service in such a way that creates instant buzz around it.
From expressing initial interest, through visiting your website or store, all the way up to receiving that “thank you for your order” email – it may take your potential customers quite some time to go through this whole process successfully. That’s one of the reasons it’s crucial to boost your PR and marketing activities.
Here’s what you can do.
Launch a teaser campaign
A teaser campaign is one way to build anticipation for the new product. The idea behind it is to give people just a glimpse of what they can expect from your new product, but not too much. You don’t want them to know all about your product before it’s even released.
Teaser campaigns are very successful and popular among companies of all sizes and niches. It’s a psychological game; you tease people to get their attention. Because they don’t know everything about your upcoming product, they will want to wait for the release date to fill in the puzzle you created in their head.
We can take Apple, Nike, and Red Bull as an example. Whenever they launch a new product, they make teaser campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.
Below is an example of a teaser released by Apple for their Mac Pro product, which did pretty well in creating some interest in their new product. Just remember all the long lines people wait in to be among the first to buy a new Apple product.
Build suspense
When releasing teasers, you should also aim to build suspense. When you are launching a new product, the suspense will keep people interested.
It will make them want to know more about your product. It might even make them want to buy it.
There are many ways to build suspense when launching a new product. For example, you can:
- create a countdown for the launch date,
- post teasers on social media,
- send out an email newsletter with snippets of information about the launch date and your new product
The possibilities are endless, and your imagination is the only limit.
Create various types of content
Companies launch new products every day. But not all of the launches are successful. It is not enough to just put a product out there in the digital era. Content marketing is an integral part of any new product launch – and this is our next piece of advice.
Creating content helps you understand your target audience and their needs better. It also enables you to communicate your product’s features and benefits to customers more effectively. Your content should be engaging and aim to get your audience’s attention.
If you want your product to succeed, create various types of product-led content. Videos, all sorts of visuals, and text should have your focus.
You should pay specific attention to video marketing. Research shows that In 2020, 96% of consumers started consuming more online video content. Moreover, 9 out of 10 viewers said they wanted to see more videos from brands and businesses!
Also, keep in mind that, in 2022, an average person spends at least 1 hour and 40 minutes watching online videos every day.
Although you should focus on video marketing the most, don’t ignore other forms of content.
Make use of influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a type of marketing in which you partner with influencers who have a large following on social media. You can use influencer marketing to either promote your product or your brand.
There are many benefits of using influencer marketing for your business. One of the main ones is that it could be much cheaper than other advertising methods and it could be more effective as well.
It’s also worth mentioning that there are many different types of influencers, so you should be able to find someone who suits your needs and fits within your budget.
The first step when using influencer marketing is to identify the right type of influencer for you and what they would need in return for their involvement. For example, some people may only want money in return, while others may want free products or discounts.
Take a look at this example: Kylie Jenner, a social media influencer with over 300 million followers, promoting Lyfe tea products. Because of her enormous influence on her followers, the tea she claims to drink becomes something her audience wants to drink, too. Pay attention to the “I need it” comments in the comment section. You would want this for your products too.
Organize a giveawayÂ
A giveaway is an excellent way of promoting your brand. With giveaways, companies give out certain prizes for free to generate interest in your product and convince potential buyers that it’s worth their attention.
You should organize a giveaway right when you’re about to launch the product to make your product stand out. That way, people engage with your brand and spread the word about what you have to offer just before you start selling a product or service.
Such a giveaway could take place online as well as offline. You should see great success as long as you make it exciting and intriguing in light of the promotion initiative.
Don’t forget that such giveaways could increase the interest in your product and also help you:
- Gain new followers,
- Strengthen the loyalty of current customers,
- Increase brand awareness
And a lot more!
Create a challenge
When talking about online trends, it’s important to mention challenges. Who doesn’t remember the viral ALS ice bucket challenge that was all over the Internet back in 2014?
The Ice Bucket Challenge challenged people to pour buckets of ice water over their heads and publish videos of it on social media. The goal was to promote awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and encourage donations to research around it.
You could also create a similar challenge to promote your products or services.
Many industries use challenges. The music industry is a good example. When artists are to release a new song, a highly effective way to promote it is to create a TikTok challenge. Once a TikTok trend goes viral, numbers will keep increasing and increasing.
For instance, this is how Justin Bieber and Kid Laroi took their “STAY” music hit and its performance to an entirely new dimension of popularity. More than 8.5 million videos were created on the popular dancing app using this song, making Justin and Kid Laroi’s piece even more popular than it already was.
Of course, when creating a challenge, it’s essential to do research and see which platforms your target audience uses the most. It’s not the same to promote your services on, say, TikTok and LinkedIn, as they have different formats of posts and the different average ages of the audience.
Engaging people on social media will help you spread the word about your product. Of course, you need to make sure they spread positive words in social media posts, comments, online forums, etc., by ensuring your product meets the needs of your target group.
But, how will you know everything that the online world is saying about you? Here’s the answer.
Monitor public opinion around your new product
All of the ideas above for promoting your new product are not enough. As we’ve mentioned, you also need to know how the public feels about your new product and the online activities you used to promote its launch.
This can help you improve your current PR and marketing efforts and show how to do the best product launch in the future.
Nowadays, many businesses monitor mentions of their brand, product, key people, or competitors on social media. Knowing what people are saying online about you will help you see space for improvement and what means of communicating are most applicable to your online audience.
It might seem easier said than done, but it truly is extremely easy to monitor your online mentions – if you have the help of media monitoring and social listening tools. Let’s find out how.
Use media monitoring tools for a perfect product launch
Staying up to date with every single mention and tag on social media doesn’t mean that you need to be on your phone 24/7/365. It’s quite the opposite.
With media monitoring and social listening tools like Determ, you get all online mentions, detailed reports, and alerts at the palm of your hand. With Determ, you can track all the mentions, tags, and comments regarding your brand before, during, and after product launch.
For example, you can:
- track online mentions vital to your brand from any source in the world and in any language
- identify engaging posts
- get virality alerts
- analyze sentiment (positive, negative, neutral) surrounding your brand and product
- find influencers
- compare with competitors
Before you launch a new product, with Determ you can find out who talks about your brand and other products the most. This can help you identify influencers to contact when the time comes to promote your new product.
You can also see on what platforms your brand is mentioned the most. This can help you create marketing campaigns tailored strictly for those platforms. Specially tailored content will raise the chances of people engaging with it once your product is ready for launch.
During and after your new product launch, Determ shows you the sentiment surrounding your brand and new product. Since you always have your mentions at the palm of your hand, you can always answer all mentions directly, including negative ones. That way, you can see what people think of your new product and whether there’s something you should change about the product or the ways you’ve been promoting it. This can be of great help in planning your next product launch, too.
Get Started with Determ to Nail Your New Product Launch
As we’ve explained in this blog, promoting the launch of your new product is one of the critical elements to the product’s success. While there are various amazing ways to promote it, it is not enough to solely promote it. You need to know what the online world thinks of your brand, new product, and PR and marketing efforts.
To nail your new product launch, use the help of Determ to see the many benefits of media monitoring and social listening.
