Many marketers understand that product launches don't always demonstrate their worth in the first year. For product launches, marketers need to create the proper buzz, educate about the product and build relationships. These activities need to be measured for performance, as iteration is a clear need for new product launches.
Digital marketing tips for a product launch
- Launch a mini-site early. For new products or brands entering a market, launch a mini website or teaser page as early as possible to help build awareness and a presence in search. Here are a few tips: Best practices for coming soon websites
- Mobile responsive website. More than half of all emails are opened on a mobile device, and your corresponding landing pages and websites need to also be comfortable for mobile users. Mobile responsive web design is key to successful online marketing campaigns, as more users research and explore brands from their mobile devices than ever. This trend towards mobile is growing.
- Email lists are an asset for brands. Make email collection a priority for teaser pages or coming soon websites. Also use email marketing for generating leads, nurturing relationships and even pointing to the final sale.
- Set Up Web Analytics. You need to attach web analytics to all brand touchpoints. Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools are immediate recommendations. Also consider marketing automation as well to help with lead scoring and nurturing.
- Establish your brand. It’s vital for marketers to understand what the brand narrative early in the process. This includes the brand promise, brand positioning, personality, brand artifacts and story-telling. Define the key elements of an online holistic brand strategy.
- Write for scannability and immediate absorption. People have different reading habits online than they do offline. Readers scan and look for snippets of content that have meaning to them. Use media, photos, videos to also help educate and inspire your visitors.
- Real-time marketing for dynamic product launches. For large product launches in multiple regional or national markets, it may be a good idea to establish a real-time marketing practice. Consider this real-time marketing 101 guide to help provide some of the framework for your practice.
- Advertising: online and off. Integrate both offline and online marketing into a campaign and measure acquisition. Here is a quick tour of some common practices for combining online and offline advertising
- Consider social networks beyond Facebook. There are plenty of communities to tap into to make your product launch a success. Consider Twitter, Instagram, StumbleUpon, Vine, Reddit, etc. Here are 4 ways to utilize Instagram marketing
- Also don't forget Facebook if it makes sense for your potential audience. Social product marketing is a methodology whereby a brand uses social collaboration to build communities or packets of interest focused on their product, as well as build marketing campaigns to transition community members through the purchase lifecycle.
- Be like a media company and product lots of meaning, relevant and useful content that informs and inspires prospects and leads. businesses need to adopt some of the traits of a media company to build relationships with potential customers online. Consider producing videos or establishing a podcast that can be downloaded from the feature tour of your product page.
- Blogging for business can help strengthen your presence on search engines and give you a way to keep your brand fresh--bringing visitors back.
- Optimize your website for PR. Make information easy for journalists, writers and bloggers. Keep media, photos, bios, product and company info handy. Have an accessible and clear press section on your website. Your web design needs to be easy to navigate for press, which may mean building out a media center with everything influencers need in one place.
- Don't succumb to the pressure and try to take short cuts or expect everything to be perfect. You need to find a balance between speed and quality. Spending months perfecting landing pages and messaging can kill your impact, but quality needs to be high still. Start-up pressure for success can hurt you
Some of the benefits of blogging for product launches
- Increase of traffic from search engines
- Increased brand advocacy
- Improved traffic from social media
- Higher brand authority
- Lead generation
