The objective of any launch is to successfully introduce the product, company, website or whatever you’re selling – then make the sale!

The Launch 3.0 sales process includes development of a “purpose-built” launch community and list of interested launch participants. This launch process significantly increases early sales success, revenue and effectiveness of the launch.

The following diagram depicts a typical Launch 3.0 sales process.  It all begins with the launch canvassing programs, which bring traffic to the launch landing page, as shown below.

Canvassing Programs attract traffic to the launch Landing Page, where visitors can register to receive more information about the launch.  Money magnet offers, such as free giveaway items provide users with strong incentives to register.

These offers  include e-books, videos, reports and other items of great interest to the target audience. These are used to attract more launch prospects to join the Launch List.  The Launch List keeps track of the prospects, providing a convenient way to communicate with these folks; e.g., an email auto-responder or CRM system.

During the pre-launch stage, a series of emails and related content are provided to everyone on the Launch List.  This series of content is called the Pre-launch Sequence.  This sequence is designed to develop a relationship with those on the Launch List and begin to form the Launch Community.

One of the keys to creating this community is to initiate discussions on the Launch Blog (not shown).  The Launch Blog provides a convenient way for launch participants to share comments, insights, opinions and perspectives with each other.

This creates social proof that the launch is a happening thing that is worthwhile, provides increased transparency and builds trust.

A range of content is posted to the Launch Blog during the pre-launch, including:

• Spy videos that provide an inside look at the upcoming product (or whatever is being launched)
• Useful “money magnet” giveaways that provide value, build trust and move prospects closer to buying
• Video and audio interviews with key employees, experts and 3^rd parties discussing the big idea and product
• Free webinars including experts discussing relevant, useful topics (and not selling the product)
• Stories that enable the audience to learn by example
• Conditioning emails and videos designed to answer questions and overcome potential sales objections
• Proof points and evidence, such as that gathered from preview customers who have tested the product
• Testimonials from preview customers who have early access to the product.

The pre-launch sequence also involves driving partners, resellers and affiliates to make their own major canvassing push, both early on and immediately prior to commencement of the the launch stage.  Pre-launch prepares, educates and energizes the launch community, building buzz, anticipation and excitement.

This creates pent-up demand for the product, increasing the market’s curiosity, interest and appetite for it.

Once launch day arrives, the doors open and a major push to convert sales begins.  As initial sales pour in, information about how well the product is selling is shared, creating social proof.  Other techniques (including scarcity) create even more pressure to buy in early to take advantage of limited-time bonuses and other offers tied to the launch.

Discussions in the blogosphere, news and social networks appear, where people’s experiences with the product surfaces more frequently.  Assuming these discussions are favorable, this provides further buzz and interest in the product that just launched, fueling further sales growth.

Most of the effort at this point is aimed at getting prospects on the Launch List to visit the Online Sales page, where selling takes place.  The launch sequence is designed to drive traffic into the selling processes.  It also builds interest in the product using social proof, proof and scarcity.  It’s also time to make a big push to energize partners to invest in marketing and selling the product.

If a traditional sales force is used, then the Launch List is a big pile of unqualified leads.  The online nurturing and conditioning processes act as a pre-sales automation tool, preparing those in the Launch Community to become qualified leads and ultimately to buy the product.

These leads are further qualified, in terms of timing and budget (for more complex sales), before being passed on to Sales to sell and close. This is commonly accomplished by a tele-sales team.

One way to do this is simply email the Launch List, providing a link to an appropriate web page enabling qualified prospects to provide more information about their needs and then request someone to contact them directly, or refer the prospect to a reseller or outlet near them.  Companies with established sales processes qualify leads flowing into their sales funnel and channel as usual.

Everyone’s e-commerce and back-end sales processes will vary somewhat, based upon what’s being launched, the level of awareness and understanding the market already has about the big idea and product and the desired selling motion the launch needs to generate.  For example, there may also be several up-sell steps in the customer checkout process.

The great news is, a properly executed Launch 3.0 campaign typically generates hundreds to many thousands of sales within the first few hours and days, perhaps doubling or tripling that over the first week.  For small businesses, it’s common to see hundreds to a few thousand sales generated in the first week.  For larger companies, the quantities can be much larger due to the huge list assets, partner leverage and market reach these companies enjoy.

In the past, launches were focused on getting the word out, preparing the sales force for the product and making the marketplace generally aware that a new product is available.  The reality is, today most everyone is too busy to care.

Instead of concentrating on a broad, diffuse “get the word out” marketing program, the Launch 3.0 process limits those outreach activities to Canvassing and focuses the majority of effort instead on building and nurturing a community of those who are genuinely interested.

The launch community provides a powerful springboard for driving early success, significant sales and revenue, and building a solid foundation for ongoing growth.  So the goal of Launch 3.0 is not only to get the word out, but to start the sales engines and drive a profit from day one.

Design Your Launch to Drive a Profit from Day One

Get all the details on Launch 3.0 in The New Rules of Launch (a free e-book).

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Interested in how Internet Marketers do their product launches? If you’re launching a new product, company or service, you should be…

These launches have generated over $100 million in online sales, mostly by independent entrepreneurs and small businesses. In fact, some individual product launches using these online launch techniques have generated millions of dollars… in their first 24 hours!

Jeff Walker is the recognized Internet launch guru, having introduced his Product Launch Formula back in 2005. Now you can learn the fundamental strategies and tactics taught in Product Launch Formula in a free video (this video has actually been available for several years, but the video link changes occasionally). Be sure to check out Jeff’s latest Product Launch Formula Blueprint video to learn more about how online product launches can be used to transform your business:

Click here to register for more Product Launch Formula details

I highly-recommend Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula product to anyone who wants to learn online product launch fundamentals and discover how to incorporate these strategies and techniques into a launch.

The product is not available for sale most of the time (in fact, it’s usually “sold out”), so you must register to be notified the next time it’s available for sale, which usually takes place a couple of times a year.

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PRODUCT LAUNCH 3.0  - Adding Social Media and a Launch Community

At a time when marketing budgets have been slashed and advertising budgets are under extreme scrutiny and pressure, leveraging social media as a means of achieving broad global awareness, and building a community of qualified buyers around a hot topic or product line, is essential for companies to carefully consider.

I’m in the early stages of pulling together my thoughts on what I’m currently calling “Product Launch 3.0″ (a working term for now), to describe the latest, most-effective strategies and tactics being used to launch products using Web 2.0 technology and social media.

Let’s begin with a quick review of how product launches have evolved.

Product Launch 1.0 – these are “traditional”, primarily offline product launches which focus mostly on getting the word out internally, with employees, and externally with traditional media (press, industry analysts and partners) ahead of a launch event.  For larger enterprises, these remain important steps to take – but they’re no longer enough in today’s fast-paced social-network collective world.  A key emphasis in Product Launch 1.0 is ensuring “field-readiness” – educating the sales force and resellers to ensure they are sufficiently knowledgeable to engage in customer conversations and sell the new product, once it becomes available.  In these launches, it’s common for the coming out party to be tied to a trade show event, where the new product is introduced on stage by company executives, and private press/analyst interviews are conducted before and during the event.

Product Launch 2.0 – these are “Internet Marketing” online launches, originally invented (from what I have observed) by John Reese with his original million dollars in a day launch of Traffic Secrets.  Then Jeff Walker spread the word about this online launch paradigm that he and John Reese cooked up together (along with some help from Frank Kern, again, piecing this all together).

Jeff Walker took this and packaged it up into an information product known as Product Launch Formula, which became the gold standard of Internet-based launches for many years in the IM market (arguably still is even today).  To learn more about Product Launch 2.0, check out this video, where Jeff provides an excellent overview of the strategies and tactics of Product Launch 2.0.  (UPDATE 12/12/2009 – the above video link no longer displays the product launch formula process publicly as it did for several years prior to this post – you can now find the blueprint video here instead).

Frank Kern then added several new dimensions to create what I’ll call the 2.5 version launch with, among other things, the use of effective storytelling, some NLP and compelling personal videos with his Mass Control system.

Product Launch 3.0 – these launches incorporate “purpose-built communities” into the launch process. The process leverages interactive online media, including:

• Opt-in Email
• Blogging
• Social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.)
• Social bookmarking (Digg, Del.icio.us, Mixx, FriendFeed, etc.)
• Forums
• Video Sharing
• Viral e-books and videos
• Teleconferences
• Podcasts
• Webcasts

Various combinations of online media are used to build and educate a focused community around a hot topic of interest or a new product concept that’s of interest to a community – before a product launches that’s relevant to that community.

An example of Product Launch 3.0 in action was the recent Harry Potter launch, which David Meerman Scott talks about in detail in his keynote video.  In this case, Cindy Gordon, the VP Marketing of Harry Potter, did something new and different that moved the state of the art forward.  Instead of spending millions of dollars on a traditional 1.0 style launch, she invited the Web’s top 7 bloggers to an exclusive interview with the set director of the Harry Potter theme park.  These bloggers, of course, did what they always do.  They soaked up everything they could from the interview, then blogged about the upcoming Harry Potter film and the exclusive interview.

Within just a few hours, other bloggers starting blogging about it, mainstream media reporters picked up on it, and before long 350 million people worldwide knew about the upcoming Harry Potter movie – without the usual spending of millions of dollars on advertising, trailers and the usual pre-launch tactics.

Now clearly not everyone has a product this newsworthy.  But what companies do have are customer and prospect mailing lists, blogs and ecosystems who follow them – and partners with more of the same that provide additional market coverage and reach.

I’ll soon be covering this in more detail. Product Launch 3.0 builds upon and complements its predecessors, bringing social media and online interaction to the forefront of market conditioning and education during pre-launch, along with follow through in the launch and post-launch stages, as shown below:

Building a focused community around a hot topic or a product line is one of the keys to creating rapid, worldwide awareness, understanding and adoption of a new product.

Many of these concepts are covered in more detail in the Launch Leverage Report (which is a free PDF download).

Stay tuned… a lot more is coming on Product Launch 3.0.

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