Do you have a new product that you wish to showcase to the world?
Are you unsure how your product will be perceived by the audience?
Launching a product is a walk in the park, mainly because it is all about perceptions that the target audience might have about the product. In many cases, the audience has little appreciation for the efforts behind the screen.
Coming up with an idea of the new product and then working on it requires a lot of time and effort. However, that is just the first half of the story. The other half starts when the product is ready. That’s where the launching and promotion happen.
When the marketing phase starts, businesses generally face a forked path. There are two possible scenarios:
You can either do the initial launch and then wait for the word to get around. OR, you can take advantage of the initial buzz and carry out supporting internet marketing activities to keep the ball rolling.
This is where many businesses drop the ball – they opt for an initial awareness campaign with little to no plans for follow-up campaigns that could potentially push the awareness window and make sure more and more people become aware of the product launch. As you can imagine, this could have a serious impact on the way product launch could potentially bring in the first set of early adopters.
Another important consideration is the choice of the internet marketing mix. When it comes to product launch and internet marketing, you have a lot of options in terms of tactics and tools. This could confuse many product owners and thus result in mistakes that could trip the launch internet marketing process.
In this regard, tactics take precedence over the choice of tools because tactics determine the tools. This is another common mistake that could mar the product marketing process because marketing teams could get divided on the use of a particular tool and overlook the WHY of the requirement.
To help you launch your product effortlessly to your target audience, we have compiled the following list of ideas. These are arranged in no particular order, and you can mix and match them for your product launch and marketing.
Effective Ways to Market Your Product
The most important consideration should be the starting point. This might look easy but in reality, this is the first hurdle that businesses face. If you can define the initial requirements and the final goals you wish to achieve from the campaign, you are off to a good start. During its process, make sure you have a list of ideas for the campaigns. A good source for inspiration is similar product launch campaigns in your industry.
Now that you have figured it out, let’s discuss some of the essential factors and tactics for promoting your product.
Understand Your Audience
Understanding your audience is one of the crucial factors in successful product internet marketing campaigns.
If you do not know the audience, chances are you will miss out on the ways to reach them and get them to notice your blog. As such, you need to make sure you have a clear idea of who will be interested in your product. Start with the following questions:
- What does your audience want?
- Who is your loyal customer
- Does your product solve its core problem?
Dig a little deeper and know your audience. You can check the insights or analytics of your social media posts using a social media management tool. From there, you get a clear idea of the engagements and impressions. By tracking your audience first and then interacting with them, you will have a clear idea of what social media automation strategy would help you convert the audience into customers.
For many brands, a great tactic of building a connection with the audience is the Behind-the-Scene look that offers insights into the effort that went into building the product. This often helps the audience appreciate the work put in by your team. Another important outcome of this tactic is that the audience could see the features and options in detail with an understanding of how these features relate to their challenges.
Tell Your Product Story
When it comes to marketing your product, you need to tell your product story. It has been a proven truth that people are more motivated by stories and that stories sell products. So the second order of the business should be a product story that will motivate customers to buy your product.
There are several ways of telling this story, and the process varies from product to product. However, there is a common theme to the process. Start with how you come up with the idea. Next, go into the details of what attracted you to design this product. Finally, list all the reasons why the audience should use it?
Also, you can bring in your team and the main people behind the product. Introduce the team to your customers and let them know how many people are working to make the product successful.
Make sure there is a map of how far your team has come, complete with the progress at all stages. Remember to tell them about the challenges and how you didn’t give up.
These stories are best told through Twitter and Facebook. For this, make sure you schedule Facebook posts and tweets at regular intervals to retain the interest of the audience.
Use a Special Introductory Offer
Who doesn’t love to buy products with an offer? When you are all set to showcase your product, add a special introductory offer to the announcement. Running an introductory offer can help start the flow of the much-needed revenue and it could contribute toward the sense of urgency to kickstart the sales.
Show them the features, and then give an early bird discount to the first few customers who place an order for your product.
Promote A Giveaway
Giveaways have remained popular because of a reason – They continue to rake in sales and help spread the buzz around the product launch.
Here’s how you can organize a giveaway on social media networks.
- Upload an announcement post for the giveaway.
- Ask the participants to like and comment on the posts.
- Ask them to share the announcement posts with their friends.
The giveaway can potentially bring in a huge audience to your product pages. You can also target your customers with an exclusive giveaway that ensures that the participants opt for a higher tier.
Collaboration is the Key
Collaboration with influencers is another great internet marketing idea that you can run in parallel to the giveaway. In many cases, you can collaborate with brands that have a similar audience that could use your product. This cross-collaboration could become the basis of long-term internet marketing campaigns that could continue to bring in users.
Similarly, you can opt to work with influencers who have their own audience that you can tap into for your marketing initiatives. Note that this could increase the volume of the posts going out to your social media handles.
If you are busy working on the other stuff, you can schedule your content using a social media management tool. A simple search for Hootsuite alternatives will get you started.
Build Your Presence
People buy from people – this is one reason why brands opt to bring their people into the marketing process.
Product launches should always be done by a person who has an established persona. This tactic was used successfully by Apple when the keynote events were conducted by Steve Jobs. A large section of the audience came to see Jobs speak.
This tactic benefits from the long-term personal brand-building activities that should be a part of the overall brand-building activities. You can host live events to promote your product. According to recent studies, over 90% of marketers believe that hosting live events can help build a solid relationship with your audience. As you can imagine, social media makes sure that the event has a global attendance and that you have a chance to showcase your product to a much wider audience.
Customer Reviews
Before buying a product or at the decision stage, people always look for customer reviews.
That’s one of the significant reasons you need to have good reviews.
This could get tricky for brands who are new to the market because they do not have an established user base to endorse their products. However, there is a workaround that could work in the favor of such brands – the people!
It is all about the people behind the brand. If the team members have an established presence and a great reputation, they can ask their followers to spread the word. Since the followers are aware of the reputation of the people behind the product, they can spread the word in their personal circles.
Conclusion
Knowing how to market your product or brand is super important!
For this, you need to make sure you have a good handle on how your brand is perceived by the target audience and how much you know about them. It is all about the communication strategy that you develop in order to promote your product and start the sales cycle.
While you can mix and match tactics, there are some fundamentals that always seem to work: A good story about the product development journey and bringing people to represent the brand are two ways that should be at the core of all product marketing campaigns.
Make sure these tactics are supported by an enticing offer and you have a good product internet marketing strategy to work with!
