Launching a Product: Roll It Out in 9 Simple Steps

When launching a new product, your primary objective is to create a buzz around what you have to offer. 

It’s no longer acceptable to just list a new product on your online store and hope that customers flock in. You need to develop and roll out a targeted strategy to make sure your product gets the best possible exposure. 

In order to create the perfect product launch, you need to:

• Inform potential customers, so they know what your product is and that you sell it
• Educate and support potential customers in their understanding of the product’s benefits
• Build anticipation, so people get excited about your product release
• Convert potential customers into paying ones

Sounds simple? There’s a bit more to it, so in this post, we’ll run you through our tried-and-tested 9-step plan for creating an effective product launch. 

How to create the perfect product launch

Since launching a new product can be a big undertaking, we advise that you break the process down into more manageable chunks.

Try thinking about the project split into:

• Prelaunch. This is the time you spend before the product goes live in which you create buzz around your product. It’s all about building your brand, authority, and credibility. 
• Launch. An exciting period where you announce your launch from the rooftops. Customers can finally buy your product, and the anticipation around it should be peaking. 
• Post-launch. Following up on the launch. Ensure paying customers are supported, continue to push messaging, and retarget interested perspectives who didn’t make a purchase. 

Prelaunch

1. Choose a product 

You might already have a product in mind, have multiple options, or are at square one – having no product and just the will to sell. 

Well, before you do anything else, you need to know exactly which product you’re planning to sell. Everything else in your plans will step from this. 

Try and find a product that appeals to your core audience without being too niche, which solves a clear problem, and which you’re confident you can get people excited about. 

2. Set goals and write a plan 

Who do you intend to reach? How many people should see your ads and messaging? What volume of traffic do you want to see on launch day? What are your revenue goals?

Having clear goals is the first step to developing an effective plan for your launch. Once you’ve answered the questions above and any others relevant to your product, brand, and launch, you’re ready to write your plan. 

Depending on the size of your campaign, you should start planning 2-4 months in advance of the launch.

Your plan should include details on:

• Prelaunch messaging and marketing channels. What will you say to get people excited about your product, and how will you reach them?
• Launch plans. What will happen on the day of the launch? Will people on your email list receive communications? 
• Post-launch customer care and retargeting. Something we’ll discuss later – how will you stay in touch with customers and retarget to interested visitors? 
• Tools you’ll use. As well as the marketing channels you’ll use, you should know which tools and systems you’ll use to track traffic, analyze sales data, and extend your reach.  
• Sustainable sales strategy. A launch is a great time to make sales, but how will you ensure your product keeps selling once the hype has died down?

3. Cultivate your audience

You should, by this point, know who you’re planning to target your messaging to and how you’re going to reach them.

In this last step before launch, you need to get your audience ready to buy. Focus on:

• Build a website. If you don’t already have one – or redesigning to put your new product in the spotlight. 
• Build up and email list. Start sending out emails related to your product. 
• Grow your social media presence. Start posting more about the upcoming launch. 
• Create video content. Post it on various channels to showcase your product. 
• Produce ads. Make them targeted and roll them out to your target audience. 

If you use a website builder and eCommerce platform, such as Zyro, you can get support doing most of these.

Creating a website is quick and easy, and integrations for SEO, Google Ads, and social media marketing make hype-building simple. 

Launch

The launch isn’t just the moment you make your product available for sale.

It’s a whole period of time where the main focus is on your new product, and where excitement around the launch is at its highest. 

4. Announce the launch

Despite having teased the launch for some time before the product goes live, you should still have an official launch announcement over every marketing channel you own. 

This will remind people who are already aware of the product that they can now buy it. It will also help make other people aware of it for the first time. 

5. Continue communications

Through this period, it’s crucial that you keep pushing messaging around your product out to potential customers. 

Remember to change any ads or posts which talk about an upcoming launch to mention that the product is now available. 

6. Collect data 

In all the excitement, you should never forget to collect data that may be helpful later. This might include:

• Sales data on who is buying your products
• Traffic data on where your visitors come from 
• Contact information to make marketing more direct
• Marketing data on what messages and channels are most effective

Post-launch

7. Support customers 

Your relationship with your customers doesn’t end once you ship your product.

If you invest in aftercare, customer support, and follow-up messaging, you can count on having return customers. 

Repeat customers cost far less to sell to from a marketing perspective, so keeping them happy and engaged reaps benefits for you in the long run. 

8. Retarget 

It is both a blessing and a curse in eCommerce that most people who visit a product listing page won’t take the plunge.

Don’t worry, though. You can still convert these people to customers. 

Provided that you use the right tools, you can retarget ads at these visitors, and encourage them to come back. Since you know what they’re interested in, the ads can be tailored. 

If you use an eCommerce platform like Zyro, you get access to integrations like Facebook pixel, Pinterest tags, and Google Ads tags to help you identify and target interested visitors.  

9. Reflect on your performance

As a final part of your product launch, you should spend some time reviewing the successes and failures of your launch.

Since this is, hopefully, the first of many such launches, it’s important to understand what you did right, and where you can make improvements for next time. 

Keep as much data about the launch and sales as possible, get feedback from colleagues and customers, and try to be as self-critical as you can. 

Now you have all the knowledge for how to launch a product, it’s time to try for yourself.

Use a helpful eCommerce website builder like Zyro to automate many processes and make the process a whole lot easier.