Product Launch and Business Growth Blog » product launch process

Startup Launch Marketing Process

Rick Braddy — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 01:31:07 +0000

I read a great post on the Rocket Watcher blog today on launch marketing for startups by product marketing expert and blogger April Dunford.

In her post on startup launch marketing, she put forth this great sketch that really puts the product release process in perspective:

In particular, this perspective on the launch marketing and product release process shows how the pre-release (aka. pre-launch) phase continues and flows into the release/launch phase; i.e., the activities begun in earlier phase of the release cycle should continue and expand into each subsequent phase (they aren’t discrete steps that just stop after each phase). Of course, in practice, startups may not have sufficient resources to continue this all in parallel, so we must carefully choose the activities that do receive continuity across each launch phase.

I think you’ll like April’s blog, which contains a wealth of pragmatic product marketing insights and advice.

New Product Launch Template

Rick Braddy — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 21:34:29 +0000

New Product Launch Template

Launching a new product or a new release of an existing one? Following a proven process will make all the difference in the results you get from your launch.

The following step-by-step launch template is an example product launch process we generate for you inside WinningWare QuickLaunch™, our flagship software tool that automates launches of products, websites, membership sites, books, seminars or most anything else you want to launch.

A Launch Guide for Your Product

You can use this step-by-step Launch Guide™ below to execute each stage of your launch.

Note: The links in the following Launch Guide normally link to detailed step-by-step instructions of exactly what to do in each step – the links in this example take you to our product page, where you can learn more.

Planning and Preparation

Start Here – Overview of the Launch Process
Launch Strategy – Review the Launch Strategy
Launch Plan – Review the Launch Plan
Big Idea and Unique Selling Proposition
Launch Settings – Finalize goals and project settings
Launch Content Plan
Launch Canvassing Plan
Launch Team Plan
Review and approval of launch plan, budget and schedule

Pre-Launch

Website Infrastructure Rollout

Canvassing Rollout

Pre-Launch Rollout

Launch

Launch

Post Launch

I hope you find the above product launch template useful for your launch. Of course, the links in the above plan take you to our WinningWare QuickLaunch product page – in the actual product, each link takes you to a set of step-by-step instructions for actually completing that step, along with automated content making it super-easy to get done fast.

If you want more details on exactly what to do in each step, you can register for the free trial to get a customized launch plan with custom-generated templates, landing pages, sales page, press releases, email sequences, etc. – basically, everything you see below is provided.

As you can see, doing a launch right involves a series of steps that are taken over a multi-week period leading up to, including and after the actual grand opening event. By printing out and following a proven set of instructions, it’s a whole lot easier to know exactly what to do, when to do it and leverage the content that’s created for you (if you try to do this manually it’s certainly possible, but it’s a LOT more work – which is why we created software that makes it faster and easier to launch it right).

Also, be sure to check out our complete product launch solutions.

If you use the above process properly for your launch, it will be very successful.

Network Influence IS the Launch

Rick Braddy — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:08:15 +0000

To reach any kind of scale in a brief period of time, a launch needs a way to spread. It spreads through replication. To replicate broadly, a launch requires:

Access to a broad, influential network
A receptive audience, and
A simple message that’s easy to repeat with high fidelity.

There are many kinds of networks available to us. In fact, Wikipedia tells us this about an emerging discipline known as network science:

Network science is a relatively new and emerging scientific discipline that examines the interconnections among diverse physical or engineered networks, information networks, biological networks, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks.

The Internet is an information network, capable of creating millions of connections between people located anywhere in the world. But just because we have the potential to connect worldwide to an enormous audience, doesn’t mean that those connections will actually take place.

To scale up a launch, we must tap into both online and offline social networks – the networks of people who have both influence over and connections to other people (and other networks) who also have influence, so our “launch virus” spreads.

There are many kinds of social networks available to leverage in our launches, including:

Bloggers
Customers
Partners, Alliances, Affiliates and Resellers
Press
Analysts
Subscribers
Employees
Associations
Friends
Facebook friends
Twitter followers

Effective launch campaigns deliberately and effectively target which networks are used. The messages are carefully crafted so they are easy to convey and repeat and resonate with the buyer personas in the target market. For best results, specific buyers are targeted using buyer language instead of product language.

The level of success achieved with a launch campaign is proportional to:

1. The size of the buyer network you can reach

2. How receptive your audience is to the message

3. How easy your message is to convey and repeat, and

4. How much influence you can continue to exert throughout the launch.

This last point is critically important – the ability to sustain your influence, especially with your “Launch List” (the community of potential buyers who are most likely to buy during the launch).

Buyer language usually resonates better and is more likely to be passed on than product language, so it is important to stay on target with your messaging to the audience and steer clear of “product language” and instead focus on buyer interests and needs.

A case in point, during a Harry Potter theme park launch, seven (7) carefully chosen bloggers reached and influenced more than 350 million people – quickly and inexpensively. The important take away from this example isn’t just the enormous leverage involved – it’s the fact that choosing the right influencers who have the right network connections and influence is the key to getting your message out. It also helps to have Harry Potter, or some other celebrity or authority figure, on your team!

You probably don’t need to reach 350 million people to have a successful launch. You may only need to reach 10,000. The key is figuring out who has the influence that you need to reach those 10,000, and what message will resonate with everyone throughout that network. Having the proper network strategy will make the difference between your launch being a huge success… or just another morsel for Googlebot to file and forget.

The most important networks of all are the social networks that connect people together; not just anyone, but the people who want to buy your products or whatever you’re launching. These networks make it possible for an idea or news to spread quickly from one person to another in a variety of ways.

Email and word of mouth used to be primary ways word of something new would spread. They are still extremely important, but today there are many more available networking avenues.

Of course, word of mouth spreads anywhere people meet and talk; e.g., on the golf course, at lunch and dinner, in meetings, on the phone, via instant messages and text messaging, at church, at a bar, on an airplane, etc.

Today, there are numerous well-organized, Internet-based social networking avenues used on a daily basis by people, including the familiar ones like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, forums, along with other less well-known, niche social networking places.

There are millions of bloggers covering every imaginable niche, market and topic, who can reach large, targeted audiences quickly. And unlike many of the other venues, bloggers often serve as authorities with their readerships – and are looked upon as “trusted advisors”, who are expected to provide the latest news, best practices and tips for their audience.

Choosing the best messages and then seeding the appropriate social networks can provide your launch with the scale and reach to catapult you into rapid success – assuming you actually have something worthy of a given social network audience’s attention in the first place.

The level of network influence you are able to exert and sustain for your launch is key to how successful it will be and how many sales you will make as a result. If you do everything else right but fail to push the right network influence buttons, your launch will suffer. So pay close attention to your network influence strategy and have a great launch!

The importance of the campaign revenue goal

Rick Braddy — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:44:01 +0000

I recently posted the Product Launch Readiness checklist, a quick quiz that gives you an idea of how prepared you really are for your launch or campaign. There are some interesting patterns emerging in everyone’s responses. One of the common problem areas has to do with setting a revenue goal for the campaign- and this one’s a BIGGIE.

My dad once told me “if you want to get from A to B, you first have to know you want to go to point B, then you can figure out how to get there”. It seems simple enough. Set a goal, then chart the course. As it turns out, figuring out where you want to go in very specific terms is more challenging than one might think…

When it comes to their revenue goals, it’s very common, especially for entrepreneurs and online marketers, to say “I want to make as much as I can!” Of course you do – we all do. But as John Reese once said, “you can’t build a plan to do that.”

So how do we figure out what our revenue goal should be for a given campaign? Well, for me, it’s an iterative process. Let’s walk through it together with an example.

Let’s say you want your launch campaign (or other marketing campaign) to generate $1,000,000 – one million dollars (to keep the math easy in this example). First, let’s assume your average selling price (ASP) is $1,000 per sale (again, to keep the example simple).

We need to take this revenue goal and turn it into a “Unit Volume” number – how many sales we need to make to achieve our revenue goal. It’s simple math:

Unit Volume = Revenue Goal / Average Selling Price

For our example, Unit Volume is $1,000,000 divided by $1,000: 1,000 unit sales (use your own numbers in your case).

Next, we examine that Unit Volume number very carefully to determine just how realistic it is to actually achieve that level of sales. Let’s say we have in-house customer and prospect list assets totalling 50,000. And we have existing partners with lists and social network audiences amounting to another 50,000.

So we expect our market “canvassing” efforts can directly reach at least 100,000 people during the campaign period (see the Product Launch 3.0 Sales Process if you want to know more about canvassing).

So far this is what we know:

We want to generate $1,000,000 from this launch campaign
We need to sell 1,000 units to reach our revenue goal
We can identify 100,000 potential prospects that we can directly reach through existing means

Next, we need to identify any “gaps” we may have in our ability to execute to reach our goal. So, now we have to make some additional estimates about traffic and conversion rates.

Since we are following a proper launch process, we are building a Launch List – sometimes known as a “sub-list”. This is a an auto-responder list which is specific to our campaign (whether it’s a mini-launch over 4 days or a full-blown launch, this list is a must). Everyone who registers and gets on our Launch List has expressed a specific interest in what’s coming and have asked to be kept informed and learn more, and will be exposed to our entire campaign conditioning and pre-sales process.

Next, let’s assume that from our 100,000 available prospect universe, ten percent of them will choose to join our Launch List, due to the great money magnets and other content we’re providing them as an incentive to pay attention and learn more.

So, we have 10,000 interested prospects on our Launch List, who will be with us on the journey toward launch day.

Next, we must determine what percentage of these folks we believe we can convert into buying customers. Keep in mind that for a real launch, we’ll be using a variety of techniques that dramatically increase our conversion rates – way beyond what you would normally see. It is not uncommon to see 1/3 or even more of your Launch List convert to sales, when everything goes exactly as planned (and you execute your pre-launch flawlessly, get your launch offer and U.S.P. right, etc.)

Let’s say that we believe we will convert just 10% of the Launch List. As it turns out, that’s 1,000 sales!!

OK. That was too easy. Let’s back up. Instead of 10% of our 100,000 audience joining our Launch List, let’s say only 5% joined, so we now have a Launch List of 5,000. If 10% of those folks buy, then that’s 500 sales.

This means we’re about halfway to our goal with our existing list, partner and social networking assets. Now what?

Well, we have a model to work with here, so it’s time to “reverse engineer” the numbers to see what we need to close this gap. We need 500 additional sales, which means we need 5,000 more prospects to join our Launch List.

So, we must build a plan that will bring us at least 5,000 additional prospects who subscribe to our Launch List at least one week before launch day. How might we do that?

Well, if our earlier conversion rate numbers hold true and 5% of those who are exposed to our canvassing efforts end up subscribing to our Launch List, then we need to reach 20 times 5,000 which equals an additional audience of 100,000 more.

Great. How can we reach 100,000 additional unqualified prospects?

1. Engage one additional JV partner with a list of 100,000 or bigger

2. Engage ten additional JV partners with lists of 10,000 or more each

3. Engage five bloggers with relevant audiences of 20,000 or more each

And so on. Continue with all potential routes to reaching your qualified buyer audiences, including Twitter, Facebook, PR, advertising, radio, TV, etc. (more traditional routes).

Now I realize the above example is probably oversimplified in some ways, but if I can write it down in this blog post, I have to believe it’s possible for more people to set and achieve realistic revenue goals for their campaigns.

The keys to doing this successfully are:

1. Choosing a realistic revenue goal

2. Making realistic assumptions about your conversion rates

3. Having a well-known process in place (or creating one by using someone with the right experience to help you)

4. Building a PLAN that you KNOW you can EXECUTE on to make your numbers

5. Tracking your progress against those numbers each step along the way (conversion rates, audience reach/open rates, click-through rates, Launch List size vs. your target, etc.)

6. Adjusting course as needed to fill any “gaps” that appear in the numbers (e.g., adding more JV partners, optimizing your Launch Landing page, creating additional, more compelling money magnet offers that pull better, etc.

7. Recalculating your model as the numbers come in to ensure you will make your goal.

Sales is a “numbers game”. Always has been, always will be. Every successful sales team and sales person takes their overall revenue goal and then builds a sales plan by reverse-engineering the numbers into a plan that they know for certain they are capable of executing.

This tells sales management how many sales people are needed in each territory, for example. Each sales person is given a “quota”, then they must build their own plan for achieving their part of the overall plan.

It’s always the same, whether you’re selling potato chips or semiconductor chips…whether you’re selling online or offline. You set a revenue target, then build a realistic sales plan for achieving the numbers.

The numbers don’t lie. It takes some work, thought and realism in your planning. It also takes careful tracking of your progress along the way. The good news is, when you approach your selling, in launches or any campaign, this way, you will become better at reproducing revenue results each time you do it.

I hope you found this useful – and more of you get that first question on the readiness exam right next time

Incidentally, if the above process seems a bit too daunting to do manually, I agree! That’s one of the reasons I developed a software tool that does this for you.

Happy selling!

P.S. I realize that a million dollar example is almost certainly not the right example for everyone. For some, it’s too high. For others, it’s too low. And a $1,000 average sale is also not ideal. Use your own numbers. If your product sells for $50 and you want to make $100,000, you probably aren’t being realistic (unless you have a huge route to market available) -or- it means you have a price/value problem and need to increase the value you’re delivering!

If you only have a small list, then you must either: a) sell something at a higher price point that delivers more value, or b) find partners willing to help you reach a much larger audience for a piece of the action; e.g., affiliates, resellers, OEMs, etc.

Again, the numbers don’t lie, so pay attention to what they’re telling you and adjust things until you can build a viable plan that’s capable of generating the numbers you need.

The all-important Launch Blog – Some tips for your success

Rick Braddy — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:03:05 +0000

Your “Launch Blog” serves as a publishing portal and the information hub for the launch – this is the place your prospects will go to find out the latest information. It’s also the place for discussions and information exchange.

Note that the launch blog may be dedicated to news about your product and may not necessarily be the same as your personal blog, which addresses a much wider audience and topics well beyond the launch, so let’s be careful not to get the two confused.

So what should be in your Launch Blog, and for what purpose?

Your launch blog should deliver useful information

The Launch Blog is a great place to deliver all forms of information to your launch audience.

Today, blogs make it very easy to publish all types of information, including:

Videos
Text articles
Images and Illustrations

Your launch blog should be a place for “2-way” conversation

Dispensing information is only one purpose of the Launch Blog – it’s the “starting point” for creating a conversation within your marketplace.

A more important purpose is to have 2-way conversations with people in your marketplace, as well as providing a venue for those involved in your launch to connect with each other and have meaningful conversations among themselves.

Do you agree so far? (please post comments below)

Your blog should provide transparency

Blogs also provide something else – a place for transparency.

Transparency creates trust. And trust is the foundation for building a relationship with buyers who may not know you or your company well or at all. The social proof and transparency provided via the Launch Blog can be extremely powerful. Of course, this transparency works both ways…

If your product or service isn’t quality, has flaws or doesn’t meet your market’s needs for some reason, it will become apparent. Quality issues aren’t something you can possibly hide or avoid being publicized anyway, so why not just be up front with people in the first place?

And how you respond publicly to shortcomings that are pointed out is quite telling – about you, your values and what working with you is going to be like.

So when issues do arise (they will), it’s important to remain positive and demonstrate how effective you are going to be at providing excellent support, fix the issues you can, and provide reasonable reasons for your actions (or plans to address the issues). This is all any reasonable person can expect.

Your blog is the place where people often first find out about your launch
The Launch Blog is also a great place for people to learn about your launch for the first time and then join your Launch List. The Launch List is a focused set of prospects who have expressed a specific interest in what you are launching and what you have to say about it. They are your “core” launch audience (in addition to existing customers and partners).

As you post interesting content, the search engines will index your posts. Search engines love blogs, so keep good SEO fundamentals (like keyword selection) in mind as you choose titles for your posts.

Recommendations for your launch blog

Opt-in Form – include a simple opt-in form on upper-right or left side of blog during a launch so newcomers can join your Launch List (or at least a place for them to click through to your Launch Landing Page).
Authenticity – use straight talk with people about yourself, your company, what you’re up to and why – and what’s in it for your audience
Transparency – the more you can reveal about yourself, your values and what you and your company stands for in your blog entries, the more you will be trusted and respected
Conversational – engaging in a “conversation” with your Launch Community provides many benefits, so it is important to stimulate comments (e.g., by asking for comments with an email to your Launch List or via Twitter^(TM), Facebook^(TM), etc.) and encourage conversations
Video, video, video – people will take the time to watch a video when they won’t take time to read copy. Post your videos on YouTube^(TM), then add them to your blog so you get double the exposure. Be sure to include your domain name and a copyright notice at the end of each video.
Tweet Counter – one way people can easily see social proof is by how many Tweets your blog posts get via Twitter. Be sure to use a Tweet counter and make it easy for people to Retweet your posts
Social Bookmarking – another way your blog gets noticed, brings you additional traffic and establishes more social proof is through social bookmarking sites like Digg.com, Mixx.com, Del-icio.us, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed, etc.
LinkedIn – be sure to post an update to your status on LinkedIn each time you make a blog post so your followers can track your activity
Facebook – similarly, post a link in Facebook to your blog posts to keep people abreast of your activities; e.g., on your Facebook fan page / account
Twitter – be sure to post links to your blog entries occasionally in Twitter (no more often than once per 8 to 10 tweets)

Implement these tips and make you Launch Blog “the place to be” for your launch community.

Coming soon, we’ll discuss your Launch Blog’s content sequencing – what to blog about, and when, during your launch process.

To your success,

Rick Braddy/CEO
WinningWare.com

To learn more about how to get the maximum leverage from Web-based marketing methods when launching a product, website or business, visit us and see how you can plan, organize and execute your launch faster and more profitably. Also, be sure to check out our free launch report.

P.S. If you found this post helpful, please ReTweet it.

How to Effectively “Tune In” Before Your Launch

Rick Braddy — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:28:04 +0000

The effectiveness of a product launch is determined by the steps you take before launch day arrives.

It’s a fact: The more time you invest in planning and preparation, the smoother your launch will go and the more impressive the results will be.

And one of the most important things you can do to ensure success is to be tuned in to what your customers and prospects want and then give it to them.

So how do you zero in on what your buyers want and how best to communicate with them before you launch?

a) You think really hard about it and make a decision.
b) You hold a meeting with key staff and make a decision.
c) You ask your target audience, then decide.

If you answered “c” – you are correct.
(If you answered “a” or “b” – shame on you – but keep reading anyway.)

One of the most important steps you can take in advance of launch day is to survey your audience (your list).

Survey your audience and ensure you know what they want.
Survey the audience you are able to connect with directly (your in?house list subscribers and customers) and be certain you are familiar with their current priorities and what’s most important to them.

Do so within 90 days of your launch to test and validate your beliefs and assumptions -the ones that must be true for your launch to be a big success.

Even if you’ve spoken with and/or surveyed customers before developing your product, Marketing needs to separately survey the marketplace as part of the launch process in order to be properly prepared with the facts about market and customer realities ahead of launch day.

Purpose of the Launch Survey
The Launch Survey is used to gain direct insights into the how those on your Launch List are thinking right now, prior to the product becoming available for sale. It is important to uncover more details about:

Questions – questions about (your product) that must be answered
Objections – concerns, issues or worries that could be objections to making the sale
What They Want – understanding what your prospects “want” most from your product
Urgency – how urgent and important is your product
Lurking Issues – unforeseen issues that may be a factor to take into consideration

As you can probably see, having the answers to the above questions is extremely powerful, because it enables you to ensure your pre-launch communications and sales page copy are “tuned in” with what the prospects on your Launch List are most interested in and concerned about.

Making sure these questions and needs are fully-addressed in your pre-launch conditioning sequence will make a huge difference in sales from the launch.

And if your selling motion includes offline sales and/or tele-sales, then you will be positioned to ensure your sales force is properly prepared, armed and ready to close sales from day 1.

Here’s a set of recommended steps to take:

1. Choose a Launch Survey Tool
You need a Web-based survey tool to conduct your survey. Here are two recommended, affordable survey tools you can use:

Each tool supports 10 or more survey questions (more than you need for the Launch Survey) and should be more than adequate for your purposes.
2. Conduct the Launch Survey

At a minimum, you should ask the following two questions:

Question 1 – “What are your top two questions about (your product)?”

Question 2 – “What are your two biggest concerns, issues or worries that we need to properly address for you to be totally comfortable using (your product)?”

You may also want to ask a few additional questions (no more than 5 maximum to keep your response rates high), to understand the prospect’s level of interest and likelihood of buying. These are completely optional. Here are some additional examples:

Question 3 – “What are the three (3) most important things you want to get from using (your product)?”

Question 4 – “How important is it to solve [the problem your product addresses]?”
a) as soon as possible, b) in the next 30 days, c) in the next 60 to 90 days,
d) within 6 months to a year, e) no real urgency at this time.

Question 5 – “What else is on your mind about (your product) that you want to see addressed?”

It is time now to set up your survey. Log in to your survey tool site and create a new survey. Then create your Launch Survey.
For the fill-in-the-blank answers, make the comment fields 55 characters wide and 8 lines long for best results.

Be sure to test your survey by taking the survey yourself to make sure everything is working fine and looks the way you want it to.

3. Be Patient
Send an email with a link to your Launch Survey to everyone on your Launch List. Let your survey run for two to three days so that you can receive maximum response. It’s typical to see an average 3% response rate to surveys of this type within one week.

4. Analyze the Completed Survey Results
Next, analyze the survey results and extract the findings you are looking for:

Common questions
Common objections
Common issues/concerns/worries
Common wants, needs and expectations
Surprises or unforeseen issues
Level of urgency

Look for, and make a list of, common patterns that are likely to be shared by the majority of your prospects.

5. Address the Major Questions, Objections and Issues
You now have a list of the most important things that you must address to make the most sales.

You will have to decide how you will address each one or each group of related items. Places where you should address them include your Sales Page, your Launch Blog and in pre-launch content you provide right before launch day – where you address every concern and objection in detail.

Also, be sure to use the “buyer language” (a Devid Meerman Scott term) you uncovered in the written comments from your prospects, because when you use their language (instead of your own or “product language”), it will resonate with them better and show you are “in tune” with your customers and market.

6. Finally, explain how you are giving them what they “want,” as they have described it to you, and how (your product) enables them to achieve their objectives.

Always remember that, as people, we are always most interested in our own selfish needs and desires, and not what some product or service does or how it does it (unless it satisfies our own selfish needs in some unique and interesting way).

So how do you zero in on what your target buyers want?

Survey them, and find out!

To your success,
Rick Braddy

Need Help Planning or Executing Your Launch?

Feeling overwhelmed? Not sure where to begin? Or perhaps you just need some “extra help” getting things done during the launch “crunch”… Our WinningWare Professional Services can help.

Choose from a variety of task-specific launch solutions, each of which can be custom-tailored to suit your specific launch objectives:

Contact us or call 713-896-9808 to discuss your launch needs today.

Prefer to Manage the Launch Yourself?

Great! You can stop launching the hard way and launch faster and more profitably with WinningWare QuickLaunch^(TM) online software.

To learn more, visit us and see how you can plan, organize and execute your launch faster and more profitably.

Step-by-step Launch Plan for Web Sites

Rick Braddy — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:58:08 +0000

There are many ways to launch a website. However, if you plan on selling something on your site, here’s ten recommended steps to take that will make your launch more successful and profitable. This step-by-step process will help you launch:

E-commerce websites
Membership and subscription sites
Software as a service sites
Single product sales page sites

Step-by-Step Launch Plan Process

1. Set your launch goals and a launch date

Setting your sales goals is the critical first step to actually achieving them, yet it’s surprising how often this step gets glossed over. Begin by choosing a realistic, achievable revenue target for the launch. For example, let’s say we want to generate $100,000 with our launch. Our average sale is estimated to be around $200 per customer order. This means we’ll have to sell 500 units to reach our goal ($100,000 / $200).

This unit sales volume can be used to calculate how much traffic is needed for the launch.

It is also important to choose a realistic launch date that’s at least 30 to 60 days in the future (to provide an adequate ramp through the preparation, planning and pre-launch phases).

2. Pick your launch team members

Getting the right people on your launch team is one of the most critical things you will do. The people on this team must work together toward achieving a common goal – getting your site and product ready and launched properly. Key people you need on your team include:

Executive / Leader – the person responsible for the outcome of the launch (and funding decisions)
Launch Manager – the person who is the final decision-maker for launch-related decisions and staying on schedule
Webmaster – the person responsible for the website infrastructure and web security
Web Designer – the person responsible for website design
Graphics / Video Designer – responsible for graphics design and videos
Copywriter – responsible for the website copy
Outbound Marketing Manager – responsible for advertising, PR and outbound marketing
Inbound Marketing Manager – responsible for social media and inbound marketing (e.g., bloggers, SEO)
Buisness Development Manager – responsible for recruiting affiliates, JV partners and other partners

Now, if you are a small company or entrepreneur, you’re probably wearing a lot of hats. The reality is, you cannot do all of these jobs well, so do yourself a favor and make your launch much more successful by outsourcing each of the above areas that you aren’t 100% qualified and capable (time-wise) of doing a great job on. Getting right team in place with the skills required for success is half the battle of a having a top-notch launch.

3. Choose a target audience – finalize messaging and positioning

It’s important to choose a target audience – as in “one, single” target audience for your launch. This is one of the single biggest pitfalls of launching anything new – not choosing (or knowing, as the case may be) who you must target and reach, and how you can motivate them to take action. For example, if your target audience is small business owners, do not try to also accommodate the Fortune 1000, or you will make the wrong decisions about design, copywriting, offers and your sales process will fall flat and appeal to virtually nobody.

Once you are clear about who your “ideal customer” is, then craft your messaging for that buyer. Consider carefully why this buyer will choose your product over the competition and position yourself favorably as the obvious best choice for your buyer.

4. Identify traffic sources and promotions that will fuel the launch

In step 1, you set launch financial goals that resulted in a unit volume target; e.g., 500 units. To reach this goal, your launch must bring enough qualified traffic to website (i.e., enough of your target buyers). As a rough rule of thumb, you can expect your sales conversion rates to be no more than 2% of your traffic. This means you’ll need approximately 50 times your unit sales volume in traffic.

In the example, we said we wanted to sell 500 units, so we’ll need 25,000 visitors to the website during the launch to reach that sales goal. Keep in mind that these are just approximations designed to get you in the “ballpark”. Depending on many factors, you could require many more visitors (or fewer if you have an established relationship with your visitors on a blog, email list, JV partners with lists, etc.).

It is important to be realistic and conservative when establishing your traffic goals, and ensure you have adequately planned and budgeted for bring this traffic, which is the responsibility of the outbound and inbound marketing managers and business development manager to achieve through their launch programs.

5. Develop your lead-capture and sales processes and related offers

You will developing landing pages and sales pages designed to capture leads and close sales, respectively. These processes must be developed using best-practices and solid design principles so they convert visitors first into leads and then into buyers.

Your offers must entice qualified visitors to opt-in and become a lead in your system during the pre-launch phase. You will most likely need to offer something useful and of value for free in order to attract visitors to register for your launch and site.

6. Design the site specifically for your target audience

Your site must be designed to appeal to your target buyers. If your buyers are consumers, then design for them. If they are enterprises, then a different (more conservative) design is required. Again, you can’t appeal to everyone, so optimize the design of your site for your ideal buyer, at the expense of everyone else so your site is optimized for appealing to your buyers.

7. Implement and test site instrumentation (e.g., Google Analytics)

Ensure you have good instrumentation in place so you can track and optimize everything as your pre-launch and launch progresses. You will not have a lot of time to do split-testing and optimization, so it’s important that you have all of these tests and instrumentation in place and ready to go ahead of time.

8. Verify your product is ready for market

I highly recommend some form of early adopter program be used to prove that your site and product are actually ready to be launched, ahead of your main launch. This seems to take extra time and effort, but in reality it doesn’t. You need customer feedback to ensure your product is ready for market and if it’s a new product, you need testimonials and social proof to use during your launch. Limit early access to around 100 or so people – just enough to ensure you are on the right track and actually ready to launch more broadly.

9. Test and validate all e-commerce and user-facing site features are working

After investing so much time, money and effort to prepare for your launch, ensuring that what your website visitors actually experience is of the highest possible quality is paramount. This means you must fully test each and every possible path a visitor can go through to ensure everything is in top working order, is free of typos and ready to go. Be sure to test:

Lead-capture and auto-responder follow-up messages
Checkout and shopping cart for each product that’s available for sale
Affiliate-tracking to ensure affiliates get credited properly
Merchant accounts (and ensure your merchant processor knows when you’re launching)
Website visitor tracking
Website optimization (if any)
Support systems

10. Execute a professional-grade pre-launch and launch sequence

Now that you’ve completed the first nine steps, you’re ready to begin your formal pre-launch and launch sequence, about 10 days to 2 weeks ahead of your grand opening date.

Launching websites and products isn’t rocket science, but it does require proper planning and following a proven, step-by-step process to achieve best results. Like anything, using the best tools makes all the difference in the results you get, as well as how fast (or hard) it’s going to be to launch your site and product right.

Want to take the guesswork out of launching?
Try WinningWare QuickLaunch free for 30-days and launch it faster and more profitably.

Product Launch Manager Interview with Jeffrey Pezzella

Rick Braddy — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:05:24 +0000

Product Launch Manager Group blog owner and product launch manager Jeffrey Pezzella interviewed me yesterday. Jeffrey asked a lot of good questions and it ended up being a content-packed interview that lasted almost a hour.

Download the MP3

(this is a 36MB file, so it takes a little time to download and buffer up, so please be patient)

We ended up talking about all kinds of things related to product launches, including corporate style launches vs. online launches, the importance of relationships, the “numbers game” that goes into planning for revenue success and a lot more.

I also discussed WinningWare QuickLaunch briefly, why we developed it and what’s coming next.

Learn more about WinningWare QuickLaunch

How to Launch a Product using Social Networks

Rick Braddy — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:42:06 +0000

Launching products has evolved in recent years, with the advent of social networking, Web 2.0 and modern Internet Marketing techniques. Those who have learned to tap into these powerful online launch methodologies are enjoying higher profits and greater success.

To learn the latest product launch technology, you will find numerous articles about how to launch a product here.

And there’s now a 60 page e-book full of state-of-the-art information that will help you:

Close more sales during a product launch
Develop a community of early adopters for your product
Reach more buyers much less expensively by leveraging social media in your launches.

Download and read the free e-book The New Rules of Launch.

10 Steps to Take Before Your Product Launch

Rick Braddy — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:30:23 +0000

The effectiveness of a product launch is determined by the steps taken before launch day arrives. The more time invested in planning and preparation, the smoother the launch will go and the more impressive the results will be.

Here are 10 important product launch checklist items to consider in preparation for your launch.

1. Survey your audience and ensure you know what they want

One of the most important things you can do to ensure success is to be tuned in to what your customers and prospects want and then give it to them. The odds of getting this step right without listening carefully to those in your market aren’t good. Things are always changing, more rapidly than ever today, so what worked last year may not work well or at all this year.

Survey your the audience you are able to connect with directly (e.g., your in-house list subscribers and customers) and be certain you are familiar with their current priorities and what’s most important to them within 90 days of your launch to test and validate your beliefs and assumptions – the ones that must be true for your launch to be a big success.

2. Implement your Launch Blog and develop your social media base early

Another great way to stay close to your market is through social media, like a blog and social media (e.g., LinkedIn and Twitter). A blog is a great way to let those who are closest to you (e.g., your existing customers) know what’s coming down the pike in the next 90 days or so. Blog also provide a place to have multi-way conversations about the key issues that face your customers and get direct feedback on and gather new ideas you can use during the launch.

Social media is a great way to network with key influencers you can make use of during your launch. It’s very important to establish these relationships well ahead of your launch. If you are entering a new market, you will need extra lead time to locate the influential bloggers, partners and affiliates. It takes time to develop a relationship with these folks, so be sure to start early.

3. Preview and validate your product

One of the most critical aspects of a successful launch is having social proof and testimonials endorsing your product. Providing a limited number of existing and potential customers with early access to a “preview” or “beta” version of your upcoming product is a great way to get the feedback you need to ensure the product hits the mark, as well as gather testimonials before the product launches. And when those involved in the preview program discuss their findings (both good and bad) on your blog, it creates social proof for everyone to see.

And the fact that some weaknesses are discovered isn’t a bad thing; after all, it’s a pre-release product, so some issues are expected. By having both the positive and negative comments openly discussed, it adds credibility to the entire discussion, and shows how transparent you are being about making sure you get the product right before it launches.

Of course, it’s important to address the issues that are found before the actual launch and validate your product is truly ready for market.

4. Develop, refine and test your U.S.P.

Identifying your Unique Selling Proposition is one of the most important things you can do to ensure success. A strong U.S.P. will clearly differentiate your product vs. the customer’s other alternatives, making your product the clear winning and best choice. Here’s a nice article on How to Create Your Unique Selling Proposition.

Today, you can refine, test and validate your U.S.P. using Google Adwords and Twitter. Use AdWords to place a text ad with your U.S.P. and measure the click-through rates of variations of your U.S.P. Timothy Ferris used this approach to finalize his best-selling “4-Hour Workweek” book title. You can also use Twitter to test click-throughs and retweets to see which ones resonate and attract the most action.

5. Identify the Big Idea for your launch event

Once you have chosen your U.S.P., it’s helpful to develop a “Big Idea” that provides you with a launch platform. The launch platform is bigger than your product. Unless you are Apple, Microsoft or one of the big brands, chances are nobody cares about the fact you are launching a new product.

Instead of concentrating your early launch efforts on your product, it’s often more effective to begin with a discussion around a big idea – a concept or well-recognized set of issues or hot topics that matter to your target audience and buyers. By keeping the initial pre-launch focus away from your product, it avoids creating sales resistance and turning people off.

By focusing on issues that are important to potential buyers, it opens the door for you to provide useful information, educating your audience before introducing your product. There will be plenty of time to discuss the specifics of your product during the launch, so save that as “dry powder” to use later. By discussing the issues instead of your product early on, your Big Idea pre-positions your product favorably, since your chosen product and company U.S.P. is the foundation of the Big Idea in the first place.

For example, if you were Federal Express (some years back) your Big Idea would be “overnight package delivery”, a completely new concept at the time it was introduced. When discussing this Big Idea, we would concentrate on the situations and circumstances that arise where the ability to ship something overnight would make all the difference. As launch day grows closer, more details about how this revolutionary new service can be accomplished is disclosed, taking what began as a concept discussion into an emerging new reality that’s about to become available.

6. Develop your pre-launch content plan

In the weeks leading up to launch day, it is important to provide your launch audience with the right information and in the proper order. This content is used to educate the audience and build trust in you as an authority and subject matter expert.

It’s most effective to provide pre-launch content in various formats, including text, video and audio. People learn in different ways. Some people prefer to read and absorb written material well. Others aren’t great readers, so they learn better from watching a video or listening to an audio presentation.

Developing quality content takes time, so it is important to develop a plan ahead of time and ensure you have enough time and the proper resources and budget available to do a quality job developing this content.

7. Implement and verify your e-commerce and other order-processing systems

Closing sales, performing up-sells and ensuring your partners get properly credited for affiliate sales is critically important to your success. Ensuring your e-commerce, visitor tracking and affiliate infrastructure is in place and fully tested well ahead of launch day is very important.

Make certain you have someone (aside from you) doing final testing of all these systems before launch day.

8. Identify and recruit launch partners and affiliates

Partners and affiliates provide your launch with much-needed credibility and scale. Since these folks are independent parties, they bring credibility with their audiences to your launch. They are able to reach and influence people you cannot, so they deserve an appropriate amount of attention and investment.

Because launches are so time-consuming and resource-intensive, there’s a tendency to get bogged down dealing with all the things we must do to properly execute our launch. Make sure you have someone who can focus on recruiting and motivating your launch partners and your launch.

9. Optimize your Launch Landing Page

Your Launch Landing Page is like the “front door” to your launch. If this page converts qualified traffic properly, then you have a huge Launch List full of potential buyers who are interested in your launch. If this page’s conversion rate is marginal, then your launch results will also be margin.

Get your Launch Landing Page in place early and ensure you use proper A/B split-testing and/or multi-variate testing to maximize this page’s conversions. There’s lots of information available on landing page optimization, so there’s really no excuse for not investing the time to optimize what is arguably the 2nd most important Web page associated with your launch (your sales page is the most important).

10. Create your Launch Plan and Project Schedule

Launches are typically complex projects. There are many dozens of things to do and often multiple people required to get everything done properly. Like any project, having a proper plan and turning that plan into a detailed project schedule is very important.

I typically use Microsoft Project to create a launch project plan and schedule. The schedule includes all of the tasks that must be accomplished, along with who is assigned primary responsibility or ownership of each task. It’s also very helpful to identify task “dependencies” (which tasks must be completed in order for other tasks to be started), which leads to identifying the “critical path” items.

Next, the project plan and schedule is reviewed with all launch team members, to ensure everyone sees the same big picture, and each person responsible for a task as a part of the launch team commits to delivering their part on time.

For more information on modern product launch strategies, be sure to grab your copy of The New Rules of Launch(no registration required)

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