Strategies for Successful Product Launches
Think about all of the marketing efforts leading up to a major movie release – film production companies work for years to generate anticipation for their latest offering.
Teasers, film clips, behind the scenes footage and appearances at late night talk show circuits all serve to generate hype for their release and generate fear of missing out (FOMO). All this helps ensure it remains at the forefront of audiences’ minds.
1. Identify Your Target Market
Successful product launch requires extensive market analysis and an in-depth marketing plan, which may include identifying your target audience and devising a value proposition that resonates with prospective customers.
As part of your product promotion strategy, it is also crucial that you understand all of the different channels available to you for promotion. Select those which will most effectively reach your target market.
At the conclusion of your go-to-market strategy implementation process, it is vital that you assess its results. Doing this can help determine which strategies were successful and which require revision, as well as prepare you for future launches.
2. Create a Marketing Plan
As part of your new product launch, it’s crucial that your message reaches its target market and creates awareness. A marketing communication plan can assist with this.
Consider how movie productions build anticipation for an upcoming release by distributing teaser trailers and film clips via entertainment news outlets, then sending cast members out on talk shows to discuss it ahead of its debut date.
Establishing a launch strategy requires careful thought. A tool like Productboard can provide cross-functional visibility and transparency while making collaboration simpler and encouraging ideas sharing between teams.
3. Create a Budget
Launches require multi-touch campaigns involving many teams and assets – from content marketing to sales enablement – designed to convey an engaging product narrative and move prospective customers from awareness through consideration to purchase decision.
Productboard, an industry-leading product management solution, is the ideal tool to assist businesses in successfully planning and launching a product launch. Offering cross-functional visibility and transparency while simultaneously helping teams deliver better results with reduced effort – give it a free trial today to see if Productboard could help your team.
4. Build a Team
Engaging your team in the planning process can get them more excited for your product’s launch and help ensure they feel like they have an important part to play. Doing this may also prevent mistakes from being made that could compromise its launch success.
Gathering user feedback is an integral component of product launch strategies. Utilizing agile project management software like Productboard allows PMs to craft flexible yet comprehensive product launches by incorporating user persona details and ongoing feedback into the planning process.
5. Create a Launch Schedule
Successful product launches build awareness and move customers through the sales funnel, so creating a marketing communications plan outlining your product’s value proposition and how it will help solve problems for target audiences is key to its success.
Product managers play an integral part in producing content related to their product’s story and complement each other, such as websites, white papers, sales slides and advertisements. Although other teams may create this material, a good product manager must still review all messaging in order to ensure accurate product messaging is presented.
Create a post-launch strategy in order to assess success and meet goals such as creating product name awareness, increasing brand recognition and opening sales opportunities.
6. Create a Post-Launch Strategy
After your product launches, continue evaluating and responding to customer feedback. This may require incorporating user persona details into product design or creating forums or other methods for direct customer dialogue.
Don’t allow that interest to wane after your launch; continue nurturing leads through emails, free trials and demos.
Product launches can be challenging for any company, but with the appropriate strategy you can overcome obstacles and launch a successful product. Conducting thorough market research, creating an appealing value proposition and clearly communicating to your target audience are just three key components to consider when planning and executing product launches. A comprehensive plan also involves planning promotional activities, training sales teams for success and reviewing performance metrics to ensure you reach success with every launch attempt.
