Are you excited about the prospect of your brand launching a new product? Have you thought about the best ways in which to promote and market it? Chances are, you’ve thought briefly about the marketing aspect but have yet to set forth an actual plan.
Unfortunately, without a concrete plan in place, your product, as amazing as it is, can completely fail. We’re going to tell you the 4 best ways you can promote your new product to help ensure it succeeds. Keep reading for more information!
Get Customers Excited With Email Marketing
One of the easiest and most direct ways to let your current customers know about a new product is to email them about it. You actually want to send several emails about your new product:
- An announcement email letting customers know to be on the lookout for something new and exciting as well as a loose idea of when to begin looking for the product. Don’t tell them exactly what the product is or specify a particular launch date – yet. This is email is a teaser
- An update to let your customers know more about the features, possibly including a video or photos. If you have set a launch date, now is the time to tell people. You may also include a pre-order button that allows customers to pay for the product and have first grabs at it
- An email notifying customers of the near-future launch date. This can be sent within a few days or hours of your launch, creating a sense of urgency, reminding customers that your product is hot and will sell out quickly
You need to make sure that your customers are actually receiving your emails and that they aren’t just going to the spam folder. To do this, you’ll need to make sure you’re using one of the best email marketing services.
Yes, you could take a chance and send your marketing emails from your Google or Yahoo account but then you’ll also run the risk of your ISP marking the messages as spam. Emails being marked as spam will thwart your marketing efforts and make your product launch less likely to succeed because most people never check their junk/spam folders.
Create Videos to Get People Talking
Videos about your new product can be used to get people talking about your launch and excited to get their hands on your newest item. You can definitely post your videos to your website, but you should also consider posting them to social media platforms in order to reach the largest number of people possible.
The videos that you create and share should tell a story. On social media, especially a platform like Instagram, the story you tell needs to brief, to the point, and aesthetically appealing. When you edit videos for Instagram, you’ll need to make sure that they’re stylized to fit your already-present theme and make viewers want to know more.
You might consider using several videos, similar to the different types of marketing emails mentioned above – one or two that will be teasers, another that will offer more details and specified launch dates, a video prompting pre-orders, and finally, a video for the official launch.
Multiple videos will help keep your product trending and at the forefront of people’s minds. It will also give your audience something to look forward to, creating curiosity about what’s next and what is coming.
While you might think that audio is essential, keep in mind that at least 85% of videos are watched without sound. This means that your videos need to be understood without the use of audio; closed captioning or the use of bulleted text will be the key to helping your video succeed.
Post Images of Your Products Ongoing Development
In addition to the use of videos, you will also want to share the ongoing development of your product through the use of photos shared through social media and on your webpage.
When sharing product development images to your website, you’ll want to create an image gallery depicting the story of your product, behind-the-scenes shots, and possibly features that are otherwise unknown to the general population.
A well-organized image gallery can help create interest in the debut and allow your customers to feel like they’ve been part of the process since the beginning. This gives them almost a sense of ownership and increases their urge to purchase when the product becomes available.
Aside from sharing photos of your ongoing product development, you might consider sharing images that include your team working, the testing of features, as well as possible prototypes. All of these types of photos will help your brand be relatable while generating more interest in the upcoming launch.
Use Brand Ambassadors to Your Advantage
If you already have customers who love to talk about your existing products on social media, it would make sense to reach out to them in regards to your newest offering. You might consider asking them if they’d be interested in a discounted price, early access, or even exchanging an older model product with the newer one.
More than likely, the answer would be a resounding yes – and it won’t cost your company much at all. When your new brand ambassador receives their new product, they’ll be excited and happy to gush about how amazing the features are.
Using a brand ambassador is almost always more cost-effective than an influencer and is a more long-term relationship. A brand ambassador will create posts that give an honest opinion without necessarily pushing your product and seeming overly salesy; they already use (and love) your brand. Their posts may not have the same reach as someone with a massive following, but you can trust that what they say and share will be authentic and well-received.
It’s not to say that influencers can’t help bolster sales but they may only post a couple of times about your product and might not have ever used anything from your brand, making their posts feel empty, half-hearted, or unauthentic.
The Result: A Successful Product Launch
When you choose to use a combination of the above four tips as you prepare for your brand’s new product launch, you will create interest and desire among existing customers. You’ll also likely be able to grab the attention of new buyers and make them wonder why they’ve never made a purchase from your brand before.
You’ll find that a successful new product launch will take a little time, effort, and planning – but the results will be long-lasting and well worth the work.
This article has been published in accordance with Socialnomics’s disclosure policy.
