The 5 steps to a successful product launch
There are many moving parts to a product launch, but there is a series of clear steps that starts with your product idea and ends with success. Here are the 5 key steps to launching your product.
1. Do Your Homework
Launching a product involves bringing together a product and a market. In order to do this, the first step is to understand both.
It all starts with your product. Choose a product that's high quality, unique, and within your area of expertise for best results. Shop around and see whatís available on the market. Use it yourself so you have a keen understanding of how it works.
As for the market, you should understand your audience and their needs. Create a target customer profile and try to identify their main concerns and problems so you can solve them. This profile should describe the ideal person who benefits most from the product youíve chosen.
You should also have a good idea of the competitive landscape. See what similar products are out there and what makes them unique so you understand your own productís strengths.
2. Create a Product Launch Schedule
Decide when you will hold the launch. As a general guideline, itís good to start about three months out. However, you can't really have too much time, so it's okay to make it longer.
Once the big day is set, make a huge list of everything that needs to be done. Create a calendar and schedule every single task down to the smallest daily things-to-do. You can change it if needed, but this will help you stay on track so nothing falls through the cracks.
3. Pre-Launch
Go about each day performing the tasks on your schedule. One of the main things this will include is content creation and publishing. Youíll also be interacting on social media and elsewhere online to build buzz.
As the launch gets closer, ramp up your efforts. Post increasingly more content, and talk about your launch more and more online as the day approaches. Your efforts at the late pre-launch stage should be aimed at building excitement so your audience is anticipating the productís release.
4. Product Launch
Youíll need all hands on deck the day the product goes live, providing support and watching your numbers. On the big day, your customers will probably have a great deal of questions and you might have tech issues that need to be resolved immediately.
Many businesses have a big launch event for their customers to make it even more exciting and build buzz.
5. Gather Feedback
Have a plan in place to connect with each customer to gather feedback. Find out what they thought about the product and use this data to make improvements for the next time. This is also a good time to gather testimonials and ask customers to write reviews.
Finally, see whether you achieved your goal or not. If not, figure out what you need to do for your next launch to make it a success.
Do you want to learn more about successfully launching your product? Check out my course, Thought Leader Academy, which teaches you the A to Z of successful product launches and helps you achieve your business goals.