How to launch a product successfully: Marketing, logistics, & after-sales service

GOOGLE TRENDS

In addition, don’t forget to analyze the evolution of demand. Has it been rising or falling over the last few months?

That way, you’ll know in advance if your product is a winner or if it’s on the decline. Properly assessing the potential of each project provides a more realistic perspective of its goals and allows you to know what to expect when you launch your product.

Identify your buyer persona

When launching a new product, it’s essential to know who your audience is. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential buyers and anticipate their expectations.

Knowing who’s already purchased the product or who might be interested is fundamental to creating content that’s targeted and optimized for them.

Before launching your product, make sure that you understand the desires and potential objections of your buyers.

Define their typical profile. These profiles are called “personas.” These semi-fictional characters are detailed portraits of your potential buyers, your target.

It’s by knowing their characteristics that you’ll make your marketing decisions and that you’ll know precisely how to attract them.

Identify your keywords

To reach the largest audience possible and optimize your brand’s ecommerce content marketing efforts, it’s imperative to appear in a good position in the search engine results.

For this, you must work on your site’s SEO strategy.

In order to integrate the most keywords related to your product as possible, identify the entire lexical field and slip it in your pages in an optimized way.

This step will help you to create content that will attract more visitors, i.e., potential audiences that you can convert into customers.

Define your prices

When they discover a product, the consumer attributes a value to it in terms of its ability to meet their needs. This data must be in accordance with the price you display.

In other words, your prices shouldn’t be too high compared to your main competitors. However, they shouldn’t be too low either, because they must allow you to generate a sufficient margin to reach your objectives.

To define your price, three main elements must be taken into account:

• the cost of the item + your margin,
• the amount the customer seems willing to pay, and
• the prices posted by the competition.

Create a story around the product

In order for your audience to be really intrigued by your new product, consider creating a story around it.

Storytelling is a widely used marketing method, which helps some companies create an event.

Through this process, potential customers can more easily associate the item with its usefulness, while correlating it with your company’s values.

Creating a story around a product also allows your target to better remember your message. So remember to take care of your staging!

Prepare your visuals and product videos

Whether in traditional stores or on the internet, the shelves are full of all kinds of products.

To get noticed, you have to be ingenious! Moreover, this is even more true on the web. Through the internet, customers don’t have the opportunity to touch the product.

To get customers in ecommerce, everything depends on your product visuals and product videos. These sales tools must be qualitative, to differentiate you as much as possible from your competitors and make your buyers want to acquire the item in question.

Work on the form, the colors, and the photographs of your product. As much as possible, offer different views of the item concerned, from different angles.

If it’s a customizable item, give your customers a preview of its possible variations.

Create an optimized product page

On the internet, no salesperson is present to advise the customer in their purchase. The salesperson is partly replaced by the product page.

In other words, so that no question remains and that the acquisition of your article on the web isn’t slowed down, your product page must be as precise as possible.

On your product page, remember to detail all the characteristics of your new item. In addition to the photos, add a very precise description of what you sell.

Also, do not hesitate to include an FAQ section, to anticipate and answer potential questions from your buyers.

Prepare the communication plan

Before launching your product, prepare your media plan.

Work carefully on your communication actions and define the channels to use that will help you to reach your audience. 

To do so, issue press releases or publish numerous articles on social networks. This way, you’ll gather a large community around your new product.

Blog posts, on the other hand, are a great way to appear as an expert in your field and to be a benchmark. This is a key element to reassure potential buyers.

The benefits of content marketing are many, and you’ll want to give yourself the best chance possible to connect with the highest number of consumers as possible with a carefully considered strategy!

Prepare the promotion plan

To improve your reputation at the moment your new product’s launch, you can also rely on paid advertising. This is used to increase the reach of your product.

Most social networks today allow you to broadcast ads according to an efficient segmentation. When it comes to product launches, Facebook Ads and Google Ads can be excellent levers of action.

While we’re on the subject of social networks, you should also take advantage of the fame of certain influencers. Product placement on certain pages can literally boost your sales... Think about it!

Think about the launch day

Finally, for a successful product launch, the public must be present and ready to welcome it. Choosing the right day and time is therefore crucial!

Remember that your product launch will only take place once... It’s better to postpone the event by a few days if you think that it can have a real impact on how well it does.

Bad timing can really lead to failure. Your project must therefore be planned and its deadline must be carefully anticipated.

For example, in the perfume industry, new perfume releases are often scheduled just before Christmas or Valentine's Day... Logical, isn’t it?

Logistics

Another crucial element in the triumph of your project: the logistics. It would be a shame if the sales of your product were to soar but you didn’t plan everything to meet the demand...

Prepare the stock

What could be more frustrating than facing an explosion of demand for a new product but not being able to meet it because of insufficient stock?

To avoid this situation, think about preparing your stock beforehand. Try to evaluate your market as well as possible so that you don’t end up with an overabundance of stock that you can’t sell but still have enough items to avoid running out.

In this sense, pre-orders can help you and are a great way to evaluate the success of your product before it’s actually released.

Prepare the delivery

In addition, anticipate the delivery of your new item. In order to provide all the necessary information to your buyers, you should know the shipping price of your product as well as its delivery time beforehand.

Surround yourself with a professional delivery company and remember that this is one of the first elements perceived by the customer in the appreciation of your product...

The delivery is very important and contributes greatly to the satisfaction of your customers.

Take care of the packaging

At the moment of the reception of the item, the first element seen by the customer is the packaging.

Your packaging must therefore be carefully designed to give a positive image of your company.

Also consider personalizing your shipments and providing your buyers with a little something special. For example, it could be an exclusive discount for their next purchase or a sample of one of your other products as a gift. A little extra attention is always welcome!

After-sales service 

The launch is an important phase of the commercial strategy. However, for your project to be sustainable, your after-sales service must also be impeccable. This is a key factor in customer loyalty.

Train your teams on new products

In order for your teams to be able to respond perfectly to your customers’ expectations, they should be trained on the different features of your new product.

Make sure you have enough staff to handle a sudden influx of new requests, and don’t hesitate to check the responsiveness of your customer support.

Prepare various questions/answers in advance

Finally, prepare the potential questions from your customers beforehand, and take care of the answers you plan to give them.

Moreover, consider enriching your FAQ section, as well as the training of your collaborators, little by little, according to the questions formulated by your customers.

In addition, note that a product launch never goes exactly as planned. To ensure a favorable outcome for your project, be flexible and adaptable.

Knowing how to constantly question yourself is an essential quality for any entrepreneur. Take note of this and use it to launch your new product.

When creating a new product, the development process is only a small part of the job. The other part is the promotion and launch of the product.

Generating enthusiasm is an essential lever to ensure a win for your project! Therefore, give great importance to the launch of your product and really take the time to develop an action plan before its release.

Its victory depends on it! By the way, remember that a product launch is also a unique occasion to test new opportunities and to better understand your market.

Make the most of this experience. You may hold the key to your differentiation and future success in your hands...