You’ve put time, sweat, money, and maybe a few tears into developing a new product. Now, you need to plan a product launch that will reach your target audience and drive sales.
This comprehensive guide will cover the 14 most important steps of a successful product launch plan. I’ll walk you through each stage, including steps like market research, product marketing, and post-launch analysis.
Whether you’re starting a brand new business or adding to your existing product line, this product launch checklist provides a clear path to success.
- What Is a Product Launch?
- Importance of Having a Product Launch Strategy
- Product Launch Checklist: 14 Steps to Successfully Launch a New Product
What Is a Product Launch?
A product launch is the introduction of a new product into the market. It involves strategic planning to fine-tune your messaging, gain maximum visibility, and build excitement among the target audience. A successful product launch drives initial sales, creates brand momentum, and sets the foundation for long-term success.
Overview of Product Launch Stages
To create a comprehensive product launch plan, you need to understand the 3 basic stages involved:
- Pre-Launch: This stage involves market research, product development, and creating a launch strategy. Activities include identifying the target audience, setting goals, building buzz through marketing campaigns, and ensuring that all technical and operational aspects are in place.
- Launch: The launch phase is when the product is officially introduced to the market. It includes executing marketing campaigns, engaging with potential customers, and monitoring the initial response. This stage builds brand awareness and generates sales momentum.
- Post-Launch: After the product is launched, the focus shifts to customer feedback, analyzing performance metrics, and making necessary adjustments.
Importance of Having a Product Launch Strategy
When starting an online business, you don’t just make it up as you go along. Instead, you create an eCommerce business plan, as well as a digital marketing plan. You need a similar plan every time you launch a new product.
It’s not enough to simply create a great product. You have to introduce it to the market in a way that captures attention, generates interest, and drives sales. Without a clear strategy, even the most innovative products can fail to gain traction.
Successful Product Launch Example: Golden Monkey Gummies
For an example of a successful product launch, let’s look at NielsenIQ’s case study on Golden Monkey, a candy manufacturer. Using extensive market research, Golden Monkey decided to launch a new gummy candy product. Their team spent months identifying a target audience, developing the product, and planning a marketing strategy.
All this work paid off at launch time:
Over the course of six months, the 30-year-old manufacturer was able to identify a growth opportunity, develop a new product, and enter a new market. And the success of the new Gummy product was clear from the get-go, eventually achieving $1.4 million in sales in the first month after launch.
In short, if you want your new product to be profitable, you have to invest in research and planning well before your launch.
Benefits of a Strategic Product Launch
A strategic product launch offers numerous benefits, including:
- Increased visibility: A well-executed launch can create buzz around your product, ensuring it reaches a wide audience.
- Customer engagement: By engaging with your target audience through marketing campaigns, you create excitement for your product release, leading to higher conversion rates.
- Competitive advantage: A clear strategy lets you position your product effectively in the market. You can differentiate it from competitors and highlight its unique value proposition.
- Measurable goals: Your product launch strategy should be based on research and include measurable goals. That way, you can track your progress and make adjustments along the way.
Product Launch Checklist: 14 Steps to Successfully Launch a New Product
Now, I’m going to share the 14 steps involved in launching a product. Of course, every business and product is different, but this checklist will provide a basic template for your product launch strategy. I’ve separated the steps for the 3 stages of launching a product.
Pre-Launch Stage
- Conduct Market Research & Product Testing
- Identify Target Audience: Conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups to define and understand your target market. This process will help you create buyer personas.
- Analyze Competitors: Review competitor products and strategies to identify gaps and opportunities.
- Validate Product-Market Fit: Test your product concept with potential customers to ensure it meets their needs.
- Develop Marketing Messaging & Branding
- Unique Value Proposition (UVP): Clearly articulate the unique benefits and value your product offers. Need some help? Check out our guide to writing value propositions.
- Key Messaging: Develop consistent messaging that resonates with your target audience across all channels.
- Branding Elements: Finalize product name, logo, and branding guidelines.
- Define Goals & Success Metrics
- Outcomes: Set goals for benchmarks such as marketing reach, pre-orders, and sales.
- KPIs & Metrics: Define the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll track to measure the success of each launch stage. These could include web traffic, social media engagement, email list growth, revenue, and more.
- Develop a Launch Timeline
- Set Key Milestones: Outline major activities and deadlines leading up to the launch, including content creation, marketing campaigns, and internal training.
- Assign Responsibilities: Designate team members for each task to ensure accountability and smooth execution.
- Create Marketing Content
- Website Popups: Use OptinMonster to create popups, floating bars, and other onsite campaigns to announce your new product to website visitors.
- Landing Pages: Develop optimized landing pages with clear calls-to-action (CTAs). If you’re new to landing pages, check out our landing page how-to guide.
- Email Campaigns: Draft and schedule pre-launch email campaigns to build anticipation. Email marketing is one of your most powerful tools for product promotion.
- Blog Posts: Write announcement posts as part of your larger content marketing strategy.
- Social Media Posts: Prepare posts for all of your social channels.
- Videos: Create video announcements, tutorials, how-tos, and testimonials. Learn tips on creating videos in our complete video marketing guide.
- Public Relations Assets: Create press releases and media kits to send to journalists and influencers.
- Prepare Sales & Customer Support Teams
- Training Sessions: Educate your sales and support teams on the product’s features, benefits, and key messaging.
- Internal Documentation: Provide teams with detailed product guides and FAQs.
- Generate Pre-Launch Leads
- Grow Your Email List: Use website popups and special offers to grow your email list ahead of your product announcement.
- Offer Early Access to Subscribers: Build excitement and FOMO (fear of missing out) by letting customers sign up for exclusive early access to your new product.
Need some help generating new leads for your product launch?
OptinMonster is the #1 tool for turning your website visitors into email subscribers and customers. You can use OptinMonster’s popups, floating bars, slide-in scroll boxes, and other campaigns to build excitement for your new product. You can even add features like countdown timers and coupon wheels to increase engagement.
OptinMonster has 700+ premade templates, which you can customize in our easy drag-and-drop builder. Here’s our basic product launch template, which you can edit to fit your product announcement:
Visitors who click the “Yes! I want early access” button will be prompted to enter their email address. Then, you can continue marketing to that new lead with your promotional email campaigns.
Launch Stage
- Execute Marketing Campaigns
- Email Blast: Send out launch announcement emails to your entire list.
- Social Media Blitz: Launch coordinated social media campaigns across all platforms.
- Paid Advertising: Place targeted ads on Google, social media, and relevant websites.
- Influencer & Partner Promotions: Collaborate with influencers and partners to promote the product.
- Engage With Media
- Press Release Distribution: Send out your press release to media outlets and industry publications.
- Media Interviews: Schedule interviews or guest appearances on relevant podcasts, webinars, or blogs.
- Monitor & Respond to Customer Feedback
- Social Listening: Monitor social media channels for customer reactions and feedback. The best social media management tools will make it easy to see what people are saying about your product.
- Customer Support: Keep track of any questions and problems that come through to your customer support team.
- Collect Customer Feedback: Ask customers to rate and review your new product. You can also use your website to collect customer feedback.
OptinMonster can help you with feedback collection. We offer multiple templates for customer feedback surveys, such as this one:
- Track Early Performance
- Real-Time Analytics: Monitor KPIs like website traffic, conversion rates, and sales figures.
- Adjust Strategies: Be prepared to tweak marketing tactics based on initial performance data.
Post-Launch Stage
- Evaluate Performance
- KPI Assessment: Compare actual performance against your initial goals and KPIs.
- Customer Feedback: Compile and analyze your customer surveys.
- Sales & Support Processes: Identify any areas for improvement.
- Continue Marketing & Engaging
- Content Marketing: Continue publishing blog posts, videos, and case studies to maintain momentum.
- Email Nurturing: Keep marketing to your email list to move subscribers through the customer journey.
- Social Media Engagement: Keep the conversation going on social media with updates, user-generated content, and customer testimonials.
- Special Offers on Your Website: Many website visitors won’t make a purchase the first time they visit. Use OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent® Technology to show a special offer to visitors who abandon their online cart. You can also use OnSite Retargeting® to show new offers to returning visitors.
Here’s an example of an Exit-Intent® popup we’ve used on our own site:
OptinMonster’s Page-Level Targeting lets you show a cart abandonment popup just to visitors who exit your site from a cart or checkout page. Alternatively, you could also target a popup to visitors exiting from the product page for your newly-launched product. These visitors have shown a high level of interest in your product. A special discount might be enough to win that sale.
- Plan for Future Launches
- Post-Mortem Analysis: Conduct a detailed review meeting with your team to discuss what went well and what could be improved.
- Document Findings: Compile insights and lessons learned into a report to guide future launches.
- Plan Next Product Updates or Launches: Use your launch data to optimize the next phase of product development and marketing efforts.
Create a Product Launch Plan & Grow Your Business!
If you follow this 14-step product launch guide, you’ll be on the right track to meeting your business’s goals for your new product.
Want to learn even more about promoting new and existing products? Here are a few resources:
- Product Promotion: How to Market a Product to Get More Sales
- How to Market a Digital Product: 11 Proven Strategies
- WordPress Coming Soon Pages: Examples & How to Make One
- 17 Ingredients for High-Converting Product Pages
No matter what kind of product you’re launching, OptinMonster can help you convert more of your website visitors into customers. There’s no better way to build your email list, offer exclusive discounts, and build excitement for your new product.
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