7 Ways to Create Buzz for Your Next Product Launch - That Will Sell Your Stuff

Prabhakar Bethi

Product launch, whether offline or online, can be scary yet times. Actually, it may make you uncertain about the success of the product. There may be always self-doubt, what if people don’t like it? What if nobody buys?

If you follow a simple strategy to make sure none of those fears come true.

As an offline and online business owner with about 30 years of successful product launches, I’ve identified Seven Successful keys to launching any product – an online course, a book, a business, or even a blog.

How do you attract lakhs of customers when you first launch?

If you are planning to launch your own product, then you must adopt the following launch strategies.

1.   Pre-launch, Prime your audience for what your product

I would suggest emailing your subscribers once per week, and posting on social media 3x per week, if you have a targeted audience list.

A few weeks before the new product goes live, begin publishing blog posts to prepare your audience for the coming release without revealing the product or service itself.

Why do people stand in line for hours to get the new iPhone when they could just waltz into an Apple store the next week or order one without any hassle? They just can’t wait.

Anticipation creates demand. It’s what makes people want what you have and gets them talking about it. And you can create anticipation by doing two things:

1) announcing the launch date and

2) telling people exactly what they need to do when that date arrives.

When you tell people to wait, it creates an energy that can be leveraged into action.

2.   Put the Focus on the Customer Pain Points and How Product Provides Solution and Not the Product Features

Focus on how the product affects the customer. Customers care about their problems and how your product is going to solve their problems and it will fit into their life

So, that’s how you have to design your marketing. Don’t just talk about what your product does or why it’s superior; show them a compelling picture of how it’s going to make their life better. That’s what gets people excited.

Steve Jobs, for example, rarely talks about the various superior features of Apple products. He doesn’t try to sell the speed of the iPhone’s processor or the screen resolution etc.

He always goes out of his way to emphasize how apple products affects you and your life. He stresses on how inconvenient it is to carry both, a phone and an MP3 player and how, with an iPhone, you’re combining them to one easy-to-carry device. It’s about simplicity, productivity, style — all things he knows people are interested in.

So, don’t just talk about what your product does or why it’s superior; show the customers a compelling picture of how it’s going to make their life better. That’s what gets people excited. You should design your marketing around it.

3. Make Your Product Launch into an Event

With so many new products being launched every day, it is essential that you make your product launch into an event. Use multiple ways to increase awareness of your product by pitching it to online publications, posting it to Facebook groups, getting influencers to share your post, doing outreach, etc.

You must chalk out an entire game plan leading up to launch day.

If you are keen observer of Apple product launches, then you will notice that they stage an entire event around it, even closing their online store, so that everyone knows something important is happening and they need to pay attention.

So, make your product launch an online event in some way or other. If you make a big deal about your product launch, your potential customers are likely to take it more seriously, and it’ll be reflected in your product sales.

4. Leverage influencer-marketing tactics to save time and improve its efficiency

Identify the right influencers related to your target market, organize them by community, and map their relationships and listen to and engage with the influencers’ conversations

By leveraging influencers, you can achieve a successful product launch and activate social influence to gain expert recommendations

Partner with influencers to produce relevant content, gain more share of voice than the competition on social channels.

Getting glowing testimonials – especially video testimonials – can go a long way to generating excitement about your product, and reducing the risk people will feel in buying it!

4. Have message to market match

Who’s in your audience? Through market research, you can discover your various audience segments.

Learn about their pain points and ask yourself why do they need your product? What your product will do for them? It may be saving them time or simplifying processes.

Then, write copy that speaks to each audience segment. Yes, this means tweaking your message from segment to segment.

It also means avoiding generalized message that could apply to anyone. You want to address specific and unique pain points that each audience segment has.

Most people are procrastinators, so to help make your offering impossible to ignore, you have to tell them why now is the very best time to buy your product or service.

We humans have a tendency to ignore the things that are right in front of us, even when they offer incredible value. But things like Gold and Diamonds, always grab our attention.

Anyone can put something together and tell people to buy it, but it takes an intentional communication to do a launch right. It takes a little bit more work, but the reward is worth it. Your customers, investors, and bank account will thank you.

5. Have a multi-channel approach to market your new product

Use multiple channels to launch your product like through webinars, your mail lists, social media, Facebook ads and promoted pins, joint venture partnerships etc.

Webinars

Make sure that your webinar topic naturally feeds into your product topic and then add your pitch to the end of your high-value workshop.

Promote it to your email list, to your website visitors and to your social media fans and followers.

At the end of your webinar, let participants know that you have a product they may find helpful, and tell them exactly how they can get their hands on it.

I also recommend giving them a special, time-limited coupon code to get an exclusive discount on your product. This is a great way to boost sales AND to track where sales are coming from!

Webinars are kind of awesome, not just for making sales, but for connecting with your audience in a very human way. 

Your email lists

Having an email list is crucial to successfully launching a product. Not just that, but it’s important to have a “warm” list. A warm list means that you have built a relationship with your subscribers and they are warmed up to you and your brand. A cold list, on the other hand, is one where people subscribe and then don’t hear from you for weeks at a time. It’s hard to feel connected to your brand when you are absent from their inbox.

Therefore, prior to launching your product, I recommend sending weekly, highly valuable emails to your email list for 3-4 weeks. It is essential to provide relevant value to your list before launching your product so that your subscribers can see how much knowledge you have to give.

Email sequences

During your launch, if you send irregular mails or disconnected emails, then there will not be any impact. Instead, create an email sequence, which you can create in advance and keep ready. Email sequences are a sequence of emails that are sent to your list automatically through your autoresponders. The benefit of email sequences is that you are constantly providing value to your subscribers, especially on topics that are relevant to your product to be launched.

You must not craft spur of moment emails that essentially convey that “here’s my new product…buy it!” which will be ineffective. Instead, ensure that your emails are aligned and sound more to the tune of, “here are three tips about XYZ…with a value-driven pitch about how my product can help you take action.” Then, 2-3 days later, you can send another email that provides sincere value and naturally weaves your product into it again. Of course, you should include some emails that are strictly about the launch in order to heighten the excitement and sales.

Social media

Social media is a fantastic opportunity, is you spend time to cultivate a community on social media before ever releasing your product. If you only pop in to Twitter to promote your new release, then you won’t get the same response as if you had been a community-builder prior to any sort of launch. Once you start cultivating a community on social media, you can do few things during the launch of your product: Host a Twitter chat, share testimonials or behind-the-scenes shots on Instagram

Short videos showing the behind the scenes get many comments and even a couple of sales sometimes!

Facebook ads and promoted pins

Social media advertising may yield a huge return on your investment, if done rightly. For example, imagine if you spent Rs.3000 a week on Facebook ads. Sounds expensive, right? But then imagine that your Rs.300 in ads resulted in Rs.20,000 of product sales. Then imagine if you spent Rs.600 and made Rs.40,000. Can you see how advertising can really scale your business?

If you learn how to use advertising or hire someone to help you, it can be very beneficial.

Joint venture partnerships

Joint venture (JV) partnerships are an incredibly effective way to grow your audience and get your product in front of new people. JV partnerships are a mutual collaboration between two people. For example, you may have joint venture with another blogger or youtuber, to do a webinar with you. If that’s the case, then you will each invite each other’s audiences to the workshop. This means that your webinar will have a much larger turnout than if you just invited your own audience. You’ll also be able to grow your email list because of it, too! During the webinar, you can pitch a “offer” that includes products from both of you.

6. Take Pre-Orders

This is probably one of the most overlooked launch strategies.

You will have a set of customers who will buy anything you launch, if you are in the market for some time. As soon as you announce the product, they’ll be lining up eagerly to get their hands on the first units to be released.

Apple almost always offers pre-ordering of their new products, and because of that, it’s not uncommon for them to sell hundreds of thousands of units within a week or two of launch.

Here’s how you can set it up: Have a sales page for your digital product, complete with a “Pre-order now” button. Let visitors know that they’ll receive a special deal if they pre-purchase your course/eBook/software, etc.

Promote the check out of your pre-order page!

This is a great way not only to set the stage for your official launch but also to see if people are ACTUALLY willing to pay for your product!

Final Thoughts - Strategize entire process of your product launch

All of these strategies are fairly easy to implement, and are great for setting the stage for your launch!

You need to think through your product launches from all angles. Intentionally plan what information you’re going to release and when, which marketing channels to adopt, and strategize how you can turn your product launch into something worth talking about. Success will surely ensue.

And that’s it! A simple, 7-step process for launching your product whether digital or physical. This process will take you through the month before your launch to the week after, ensuring you know exactly what to do, each step of the way!