Last Updated on Mar 27, 2020 by James W
Launching a new product is difficult, of course. But it’s even more difficult if you don’t plan and organise it. Here’s how to make it all go as smoothly as possible.
Finalise the Product
Before you can do anything else, you will need to finalise the product itself. Many companies (even very large ones) make the mistake of launching the product too early. When they do this, they often have to make changes and tweaks when the product is on the market. But many consumers see this as poor practice. If the product is not yet fully finalised, why launch it? Customers will be much happier to wait a little longer and get the perfected version of the product. Rushing a launch rarely achieves anything in the long-term.
Plan the Launch in Detail
Planning is the most essential part of the whole process. There are so many things that need to be taken care of before the product can actually be launched. It’s not something that you can do in few days without devoting much time or effort to it. You will need to manage the public relations side of things. You’ll have to make sure the product is ready to launch. And you’ll have to think about how the actual product will finally be unveiled. All of these things take a huge amount of time to plan out in detail. You don’t want the launch to fall apart, so make sure you plan it in detail.
Be Clear About the Product
As you’re building up to the actual release of the product, you will need to leak some information and get people interested. This will build up the anticipation. And before the actual launch, you will need to announce what you’re going to be releasing. This should be done very clearly. You can be secretive beforehand, but when it comes to the actual announcement, you need to be very clear. You are trying to get people interested in what you’re doing, so it doesn’t make sense to be mystical and vague about it all. Being clear will help people to decide if they are interested in what you’re doing or not.
Find Its Audience
Before the actual release of the product goes ahead, you should think about who exactly you want to sell it to. It’s not as easy as you might think to answer a question like that. You need to carry out some market research to begin with. This will help you to get an idea of what the market is like, and who might be most interested in what you’re offering. You can then set up some focus groups and see how people respond to the product that you want to release. If they react negatively, listen to their concerns and consider making some key changes. These are the people that you want to sell to, so what they think matters.
Create a Splash on the Launch Day
On the day of the launch, you need to do something that will catch people’s attention. You should put on a small event that people who are existing customers could attend. And you should also invite members of the press to the launch as well. If you can get mentioned in newspapers or influential blogs, it can only be a good thing. It will help to spread the word and make sure that as many people as possible are aware of the new product that the company is releasing. The event will have to be organised carefully to make sure it all goes smoothly. You don’t want it to fall flat. Arrive in style by using corporate car hire services, and then show everyone what you have to offer.
Stay Relevant After the Launch
Many businesses put all their efforts into the actual day of the launch. And it is important to build up to that all important launch day properly. But you don’t want to focus on it so much that you forget to think about what you will do the day after. If you have no plan for keeping the product relevant after the day of the launch, it could easily fall into obscurity very quickly. That’s not what you want, so make sure you think about how you can carry on pushing forward when the excitement of the launch is over. You could throw a new advertising campaign forward to keep the momentum rolling, for example.
Make it Easy for People to Try Out
If you want people to be convinced by your new product, you should make it as easy for them as possible to try it out. Obviously, how you actually go about doing this will depend on what kind of product it is that you’re launching. If it’s something that you can let people try a sample of for free, you should try this out. In the cosmetics industry, this is a very common practice. But it can also be done with food and drinks products too. If you are selling something like a children’s toy or something electronic like a phone or camera, you can allow people to try them in the shop. When people get to grips with what you’re offering, they’ll feel more confident making the purchase.
Track the Product’s Progress
Once the initial launch period is over, that doesn’t mean the whole thing is over. If you want the product to really succeed, you will need to adopt a long-term approach to what you’re doing. This means thinking about how the product is selling and how it could sell better. It’s important to act fast because you don’t want the product to drop from relevance without making a big splash in terms of sales. You can track the sales and think about how people are interacting with the product online. You can use analytics tools to do that easily. This will also help you to make changes to your approach so that you can sell as many products as possible.
