7 Best Strategies to Launch New Product Today
You are about to launch a new product to the market right? A successful product launch takes skillful planning, research, and a knowledgeable marketing team. Your product launch can easily go the wrong way if not successfully planned.
In the old days, you can hire a good PR agency to create awareness of your new product launch using press reports and everything will go smoothly. With the present changes in the marketplace, it is no longer so.
Before launching any new product in any market be it online or offline, in the United States, Australia, or Nigeria, there are some vital things you must know so as to get a successful product launch. In this blog post, I want to share with you some top strategies used by top brands like Apple, Samsung, and BMW to launch new products into the marketplace.
If you can successfully take note of these strategies, study them, and put them to work in your business, you will for sure see success in any new product launch in your business organization.
Strategies to Launch New Product
1. Focus on the People, Not the Product
Today, consumers want products that satisfy them on different levels. If you must experience a successful product launch, you must focus on your target customer’s needs and not the features of the product.
Customers don’t care about what is contained in your product, they care about what the product can do for them. Customers don’t buy products, they buy the experience.
You will have to first conduct market research on your customers to gain valuable insight if they will welcome your intending new product. Your findings gotten from your research should tell you how you will position your product for easy acceptance; price the product, distribution channel, and marketing strategies to use.
If you focus on what your product can do for your customers, it will help you launch a product that they will welcome with open hands. Have it in mind that the goal of a product launch is not necessarily to sell, but to educate your customers and build excitement for the launch.
2. Use Influencer Marketing
Cristiano Ronaldo endorsing Nike new product (Photo: Nike)
This is another strategy you can use to launch new products in your company. You must have watched one or two advertising that involves a celebrity like Michael Jordan, 2 Baba, C Ronaldo and others using a product and encouraging others to use it too. It works like magic and that is why top brands use it when they are launching a new product into the market.
If you have the budget, you should consider using this strategy as it can boost your sales and give a better return on investment.
Influencers are great resources you can leverage on for a product launch. Look for influencers with huge social following and influence and let them use your product, snap photos with it and talk about it on their various social media platforms.
3. Publish a Press Release
Press release is one way to announce the launch of a new product into the market. It can either be done before the launch or after. Press release is one way to build excitement about your product. If you can’t write a good press release, you can hire a freelance writer or a PR agency to help you out.
Get the media talking about your new product launch. Learn from Apple. Apple is one company that knows how to build hype for a new product launch using a press release.
4. Collect Feedback Before the Product Go Viral
This is very important at the early stage of the launch. You may be happy that you have released a new product into the market and customers are loving it, but how would you know if they are happy with your new product or not?
You think because people are placing orders, and everyone is talking about it, it is good for the market? Your product may be trending maybe because of the marketing strategies you employed towards it, and people are just buying to try it out.
To make sure you have had a successful product launch, you must collect feedback from your customers. One best way to collect feedback is through social media. You can just run a Facebook ad on what customers think about your new product.
Do it in a way that encourages them to drop comments about the product. This way you can ascertain whether your product is good for your market or not.
Also read: Major causes of Business Failures
5. Sponsor an Event
This is one strategy used by most big companies. However, you must not have a big budget to apply this strategy to your new product launch. It might be a game show, local league or carnival, or any event that you know will involve lots of crowds.
This way people will get to see your product and the date of launch to get themselves ready for it.
It should be possible that you share flyers about the product features and what they can do for customers at the event. You can create a stand at the entrance of the stadium or event and display a prototype of the product if necessary so customers can have a feel about it and even drop feedback.
6. Leveraging the Internet
This is another fast move on launching a new product. You can run an online campaign letting people know about your new product launch. One way I see it mostly down on social media is that the company runs a contest for consumers who can share their post and have the most post impression to win a free trial or the product when it is released.
Running banner and CPC ads is still another way to create awareness for your new product launch. Guest posting on a blog with your target customers is still effective.
7. Run Street Awareness
You must have seen companies, especially in the telecommunication industry doing street awareness about a new product launch. From experience, it is also an effective strategy. With street awareness, it is impossible to get the attention of the public if done correctly.
If you want to experience success when launching a new product, you should apply any of these strategies mentioned above. They are proven strategies that have worked for top brands and are still working. Alternatively, if you are releasing a physical product, it makes sense to approach product review websites asking them to test and review your product to create some extra buzz.