Launching a new product in the market is often a difficult task. No wonder a lot of product launches fail due to a poorly defined target audience, a lack of proper value propositions to prove that a particular product is better than the others, and the absence of relevant, realistic, and measurable key performance indicators such as revenue projections, price points, the number of total sales needed to meet revenue goals, the number of prospects needed, the number of leads and conversions required, and the number of sales expected from both new and repeat customers.
For these reasons, it’s therefore pertinent to note that a lot of groundwork goes into the launching of a successful product; hence, the need for a company to do its due diligence before launching a product in the market.
Strategies to Adopt Before Launching a New Product
You have a lot of plans and goals to achieve with your product launch, but you may be unable to realize all of them without having a powerful prelaunch strategy in place. A good prelaunch strategy will therefore ensure that you identify and utilize the best channels to reach your target market.
So, here are a few strategies you need to adopt before launching a new product in the market:
- Leverage content marketing to generate traffic to your website.
- Build your email list with lead magnets to help you create awareness about your product.
- Identify and work with influencers so they can spread the word about your product.
- Host live events and seminars and give out discount coupons to attendees so they can help you tell others about your product.
Steps to Launching a New Product in the Market
Here are the 14 steps you need to follow to launch a new product marketing plan that works:
Step 1: Know Your Customers
Know your customers and where they live. Define your customer segments to determine your ideal customers. Find out their age, gender, location, favorite social media, hobbies, and disposable income.
Understanding your customers and their demographics will help you know if they’ll buy your products and how to set your target so you can tailor your marketing and pricing toward your ideal customers and speak directly to them.
Otherwise, how do you know if you should set your price at $2,000 when you could actually charge $3,000 without affecting sales and thus increase your profitability?
Step 2: Identify the User’s Needs
A problem well-defined, they say, is a problem half-solved. You may assume that you understand the needs of your customers and what they value, but you might be wrong.
There have been instances where what businesses believe customers are paying for is completely different from what the customers are actually paying for. Such a scenario can negatively affect consumers’ willingness to pay. Hence, the willingness to pay isn’t always what you’d think.
However, identifying the pain points of your potential customers is one of the best ways to develop and implement a successful marketing strategy. It’ll help you get an idea of your recent competition, know the needs of your target audience, and determine a suitable pricing strategy for your product. You can identify their problems by conducting surveys to determine what features will attract them to your products, asking them what kind of products they’re currently using and why they’re using them, and asking them how much they’re willing to pay for a product that can solve their problems. You can also use social media analytics to get insights about your audience.
Step 3: Study Your Competition
The next step before launching a product is to study the competition. You’re going to have to compete with tons of products that are already on the market. Hence, the need to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your potential competitors and stay ahead of them.
To study your competition, you need to read trade journals and brochures, have a list of target keywords, and use keyword research tools to help you find the right keywords. You’ll also need to compare the content on your competitors’ websites in order to understand the style; look at their social media channels to see the number of followers they have, their level of engagement, and their posting frequency; and identify gaps in content, keywords, search engine optimization, backlinks, traffic, and conversion. With all this information at your disposal, you should now be able to identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and how to capitalize on them.
Step 4: Do a SWOT Analysis
SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So, perform a SWOT analysis to help you take a closer look at your product and compare it with those of your competitors.
Benefits of a SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis will benefit you in the following ways:
- It’ll help you figure out how to market your product before launch.
- It’ll help you identify problems you need to address.
- It’ll help you address such problems before your product launch.
- It’ll help you find ways to make your launch successful.
Step 5: Design an Attractive Product Package
Design good product packaging to attract and retain customers. Let the packaging be bold and, with the right color scheme, pleasing to the eye and even memorable. Make it simple and avoid designs that can confuse and overwhelm your customers.
Step 6: Choose the Perfect Product Slogan
Just like attractive product packaging, choosing the perfect slogan for your product will also do wonders and help you achieve success much more quickly. The phrase or motto should be catchy in order to capture the essence of your product and speak directly to your customers. Let the slogan consist of simple language and a bit of rhyme so it’s pleasing to the ear. Choose words that are clear, creative, and familiar. If you can, hire a professional to come up with the slogan and save yourself some time.
Step 7: Create Your USP
Create your unique selling proposition, unique selling point, or USP, which is a marketing strategy of telling your customers how your product or brand is better than others in addition to its other values.
A good USP should be able to target the right audience, be unique, and keep its promises in order to prove trustworthy. It should use strong, direct, and concise messaging in order to give consumers a clear picture of what they stand to get from choosing your product or brand. That’s why it’s necessary that you undertake extensive research on your business category and your consumers to be able to locate a space in the market and ensure that your product has some unique features that your potential customers will value.
Benefits of USP
A good USP has the following benefits:
- It depicts your brand value.
- It helps consumers understand the differences between your product or brand and others.
- It also helps consumers form a positive attitude toward your product or brand.
- It may improve brand recall.
- It enhances business success.
- It gives you the opportunity to handle current competition and newcomers.
- Without a clear USP, consumers may see your product as fungible, thus lowering its price potential.
A good USP should therefore be based on the following four factors: the needs of your customers, your competitors’ offerings, the distinctive benefits of your product or brand, and brand promise.
Step 8: Test Your Product
Get people to test your product so you know what they like about it and can get their feedback. Testing your product before launch will equally help you compare metrics such as customers’ purchase intent and your product’s quality and value.
You can use the insights you gain to create products that will resonate, sell, and engender loyal customers. However, it’s important that you know how to best get people to test your product. Depending on the nature of your product, you can set up a kiosk in a mall and invite shoppers and passersby to try it out.
Goals of Product Testing
Product testing will help you achieve the following goals:
Determine Whether Your Product Resonates
One of your main goals in testing your product is to know whether your target audience will love it. So, you need to test your product during the development stage to demonstrate proof of concept and know whether it resonates with your potential customers, rather than waiting until the end before testing it.
Decide Suitability for End Use
Product testing allows you to validate the suitability of your product for the end user. This will help you know how your product works and how the different segments of the end user actually use it.
Introduce your product
Product testing also affords you the opportunity to introduce your product to your customers. Without it, you won’t be able to adequately communicate the purpose of your product to consumers, thus leading to a potential product failure.
Avoid Recall
A product recall can set a bad precedent for a company and its products because it can incur additional costs for the company, affect customers’ loyalty, and lead to reputational issues. Nonetheless, testing will guard against recall because it will help prevent any costly errors or oversights in the future when the product has finally been launched.
Increase Consumer Protection
Product testing increases consumer protection because it gives a clear picture of the benefits of using your product and helps you advertise it to your customers. For example, product testing makes it easy for you to know whether your product is the best or the cheapest on the market and then be able to advertise the same to customers.
Identify Potential Cost Savings
Another goal of testing is to identify ways of saving money. Sometimes, you develop a new product and include some features that add little or no value to the product or to your customers. Testing your product before it reaches the market will therefore ensure that you don’t spend too much time adding unnecessary features to your product.
Benefits of Testing Your Product Concepts Before Launch
Testing is highly recommended before launching a new product due to its numerous benefits, which include the following:
- Testing proves whether your product resonates with your target audience or not.
- It helps you know people who love your product and then persuade others to do the same.
- It helps you leverage the best features of existing products to create your own.
- It helps you understand the demographics of the people who love your product.
- It also helps you make informed decisions by relying on the data collected.
Step 9: Set the Price
The next step in creating a good product launch marketing plan is not just setting the price but understanding the right price for your product. But how do you set the right price when you don’t have the right tools to measure your customers’ willingness to pay for your goods and services? It’s equipping yourself with the right tools so you know what your customers are willing to pay for your product. This will help you set the right price for your product so as to optimize profit and spur your business growth. That’s how to capture the market and stay in business.
Step 10: Prepare Your Team
Teamwork is essential for a successful product launch marketing strategy. So, make sure you get everyone ready for the launch. Communicate your plan clearly with your company and key stakeholders. Use internal presentations, email, and other communication tools to keep them up-to-date with your plan.
Step 11: Launch Your Product
It’s now time to launch your product. Use different strategies to make your product launch a success.
Start a rolling launch about six weeks before the final unveiling of your product. Leak photos and post mysterious tweets about your product to intrigue people and build interest around it. Sponsor news stories about consumers’ enthusiasm for your free trials or samples and use them to create momentum.
Hold an official launch by inviting reporters, bloggers, consumers, celebrities, and people in your industry. Give them free samples. Make the launch worthwhile and memorable by providing quality entertainment to your guests.
Try using an unconventional or intriguing launch venue. Go beyond hosting your product launch at trade shows and convention centers. Think about doing it at a bar, restaurant, art gallery, festival, or fair. Also, consider options like a cyberlaunch or a flash mob.
The options are endless. You’re only limited by your own imagination.
Step 12: Adopt a Multichannel Marketing Strategy
Adopt an omnichannel marketing strategy to reach your ideal customers and provide them with a seamless buying experience at every customer touch point.
Promote your product on every channel where your audience hangs out if you want the launch to be successful. Leverage both online and offline channels to reach your target market. Use some popular channels like newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio, television, social media, search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, content marketing, email marketing, influencer marketing, and video marketing in your brand promotion.
Hire a public relations or advertising firm to coordinate these marketing efforts for you.
Step 13: Gather Feedback
Gather feedback from your customers about their thoughts on your product. Leverage the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to collect, scan, and derive meaningful data from the feedback. You can incorporate the feedback into your product in order to improve it.
Step 14: Configure Numbers
Do the math after launching your new product on the market. Know the number of units sold or the percentage of profit margin. Make sure you leverage research to get numbers and projections about profit, revenue, and costs. Investors usually use these numbers to make decisions.
Benefits of Launching a New Product
Here are some of the advantages of launching a new product in the market:
- Launching a product in a new market increases your market share and profitability.
- It boosts your reputation and brand persona.
- It strengthens your business network.
- It helps you develop an alternate market if the older segment becomes saturated or redundant.
- It helps you diversify your portfolio and reduce risk.
Launching a New Product Checklist
Here’s a checklist for launching a new product in the market:
- Know your customers.
- Identify the user’s needs.
- Study your competition.
- Do a SWOT analysis.
- Design attractive product packaging.
- Choose the perfect product slogan.
- Create your USP.
- Test your product.
- Set the price.
- Prepare your team.
- Launch your product.
- Adopt a multichannel marketing strategy.
- Gather feedback.
- Configure numbers.
What Is Important When Launching a New Product?
Here’s what’s important when launching a new product:
- Know your target audience.
- Understand your competition.
- Time your product launch by rolling out your new product at specific times and days.
- Price your product based on research and customers’ willingness to pay.
- Use an attractive package that is pleasing to the eye.
- Make your product name unique as well as simple and easy to pronounce.
- Research the different marketing channels available and promote your product on the best ones among them.
- Test your product many times before launching it to save you time and money.
- Ask people for reviews so you’ll be able to identify any issues and know how to improve your product before launch.
- Have a strategic and flexible marketing strategy to allow you to tweak things easily along the way.
Importance of a Good Product Launch Marketing Plan
Having a powerful product launch marketing strategy is good for the following reasons:
- A good product launch marketing plan enhances your brand’s reputation.
- It leads to more sustainable profits in the future.
- It ensures that your target audience sees, uses, and discusses your product.
- It reduces your risk of going out of business soon, as it helps you acquire new customers even before launch.
- It generates new business leads and loyal followers.
- It generates attention for your company and opens doors for new partnerships and investment opportunities.
Tips for Building a Successful Product Launch Strategy
Every product launch has its own challenges, but you’ll surmount some of these challenges if you follow the tips below:
- Identify and meet the needs of your customers.
- Utilize the data from your product testing to improve your product.
- Create a product launch checklist.
- Launch your product early and tweak it as you go.
How to Measure Your Product Launch Success
It’s good to assess your strategy following a product launch. Otherwise, you won’t be able to figure out what could be done to tweak your product and improve the user experience. That’s why you should measure the success of your product launch by following the steps below:
- Understand your launch campaign metrics, such as the leads generated, including trials started, demos requested, or downloads; promotional channels like emails and advertising; website traffic and page views; and news coverage.
- Know your product adoption metrics, such as product trials, customer usage, and user retention.
- Understand your market impact metrics, such as revenue, market share, and competitive win rate.
- Track qualitative feedback from your sales reps, marketers, executives, product managers, and customers.
Conclusion
All in all, identify and meet the needs of your customers; utilize data from your product testing to improve your product; create a product launch checklist so you don’t miss out on anything; launch your product early and tweak it as you go if you’re keen on making your product launch a huge success.