New Product Launch Checklist to Guarantee Success

When you’re launching a new offering you need to create a buzz around it. You want to get as many people as possible talking about it and make it easy for them to share the news with others to widen your audience. Here’s my checklist of all the places you need to be marketing your launch.

Create a landing page

Your new offer needs its own home. Create a landing page, or even a website, where you can spell out the benefits to your customer of buying your product or service. Landing pages are effective because there is no clutter on there. No links off to other places to distract your visitors. Just a clear message about what you are selling, how it helps your customer and a call to action to join your waitlist and once you’ve launched, to buy.

This also gives you a place you can link all your other marketing efforts to. One easy to remember URL keeps things nice and simple.

Your email list

The first people you should be telling are those on your email list. Let your subscribers know your new offer is coming up and why they don’t want to miss out. Invite them to join the VIP waitlist by going to your landing page to get first access.

People who click through from your email and then say yes again by joining your waitlist show a real interest in what you have to offer. This immediately validates your idea. Use your waitlist to keep building the anticipation and encourage them to share their excitement about your launch with their network. Give them sneak peeks at what you’re working on and reward them for being the first to sign up.

Don’t forget about your main subscriber list. While you know that people on your waitlist are definitely in your audience for your offer that doesn’t mean that you can’t go back to your main list periodically and update them at key points in your launch. They might have missed it the first time or just needed to hear a bit more before deciding if they want to get involved.

Use your waitlist to keep building the anticipation and encourage them to share their excitement about your launch with their network. Give them sneak peeks at what you’re working on and reward them for being the first to sign up. #Youpreneur Click To Tweet

Blitz your social media

Once you’ve given your list the inside scoop that you have an exciting new offer coming, you can start teasing your launch on social media. Change your cover photo, update your bio, and keep talking about it in your posts. Remember to focus on the benefit for your audience of what you’re doing.

Make use of video and ideally go live. Whether it’s Facebook Live, Periscope, Instagram, wherever your ideal customer hangs out, you want to be going on camera and talking to them directly about what you’re doing and how they can get involved. Keep directing people to your waitlist.

Once you’re ready to launch you’re hitting the ground running. Update your cover photo again. Give your followers a look behind the scenes, run giveaways and promotions. Your launch is time-limited so you can go all out now across your channels. Make your posts engaging. You want people to comment and share so you can reach a wide audience.

Go on a media tour

Time to get yourself in front of other people’s audiences. As part of your launch strategy, you need to identify opportunities for guest appearances and then do the rounds. You’re effectively going on a media tour for your launch.

Look at the niche you’re in and the relationships you have and see where you can spread the word by:

• Contributing guest articles to blogs and industry publications
• Getting coverage in traditional media
• Going on relevant podcasts

These are all great ways to reach new people and tell them about what you’re doing. When you’re pitching to be a guest think about what you can say that will benefit the host’s audience. They’re not going to invite you on because you have something to sell. You need to have a story the people reading or listening will be interested in.

Create a media kit

Make it easy for people to help spread the word about what you’re doing. Have a media kit you can send out. This should include a short and a long biography. Some places will only want a line or two about you to put on a website but other media will want a longer piece about who you are and your background. You also want hi-res professional photos in there. Give people portrait and landscape versions and a couple of different images. What works for one publication might not appeal to another so give them a choice of photos.

Publications and podcasters don’t want to have to spend time chasing you up for these things so having a media kit ready to send over makes it easier for them to feature you.

Don’t forget your blog

You’ve given your new offer its own online home but that doesn’t mean you can’t talk about it on your website homepage. Advertise it on your site and put updates about the launch on your blog. Let people know which podcasts you’re going on and where they can see media coverage of you. If you’re speaking at events then tell people where they can meet you. It’s all part of being a personal brand entrepreneur and helping to build a buzz around what you do.

When you’re planning your launch strategy, keep this checklist handy so you make sure you are taking advantage of all the places you can spread the word about your new product or service.