Launching a Product? All You Need to Know to Nail it.
Step-By-Step Guide on How To Plan a Product Launch on Social Media.
Twice now, I’ve had to engage with business owners that were trying to launch a product. I must say, what each of them had in mind was produce-and-tell.
Well, this approach is not exactly incorrect. What you must realise is that though your product is a big deal, still you want to reach your target audience and social media is a huge opportunity.
If you are launching a new product (whatever the product is), social media is an opportunity to attract new customers, satisfy your existing customers’ needs, make sales and convert your current audience into customers. If you want to do this, it is more than making the product and a single post that announces that product. A successful product launch requires a lot of planning and preparation.
There is a lot of work before the launch, during the launch, and after the launch. Your product launch doesn’t also have to be all about making sales at that moment. You want to plan to attract customers before the launch and build deeper connections with your customers.
I will share 10 steps that will help you successfully launch your next product on social media — from setting the right goals, creating a creative concept and a content plan that drives conversions and conversations.
10 Steps on How to Launch Your Product on Social Media
1. Don’t start without defining your goals
Before you begin any product campaign, you must first think goals. How will you know when to call your launch “successful?” It could be more brand awareness, signups, sales, traffic, reach, or more. However, it is not enough to say these without properly defining them like this:
At the end of this campaign, we want to achieve at least:
a. 50 followers through the campaign on our Instagram page
b. Reach 1000 accounts with our campaign
c. Make 50 sales from 50 unique customers
d. 30 mentions on Instagram
e. 70 comments on our campaign posts
These figures will help you evaluate your efforts and identify when your campaign is in the right direction.
2. Create a timeline
One thing you must begin to understand about launching an idea or product is timing. Timing is everything. But how do you create a timeline for yourself?
Firstly, your launch data is your deadline; carve every other thing around that. If your launch time looks close, consider cutting back on some of your ambitious ideas. Be realistic with your plan.
For instance, let’s assume you plan to launch an idea/product in two months. If it is a physical product, you must consider video and picture production, influencer giftings, events, and the likes. If it is digital, you must consider testing, building an audience, or waitlist for the product, ads, etc. day
You should also consider how long you will run your campaign on social media. Your timeline can look like this:
Day 0–7: Pre-launch hype
Day 8: Launch day
Day 9–13: Post-launch follow up
Day 14–30: Integrate your new product into your regular content schedule or other activations to keep the momentum.
If you break your plan into days or a pre and post-launch plan, you will be able to consider creative ways that make your product top-of-mind without becoming dull or repetitive.
As you create your timeline, be realistic as well as objective. Consider your message. Ask questions like “is this too much or less?”, “will this get the word out?”, “Is there a different approach?”
3. Choose your social media channels carefully
So you have goals set and your timeline to work with. Now, you must consider your platforms carefully. Even though you want to be everywhere at the same time, sometimes it’s best to identify the sweet spot for your audience.
Ask simple questions like:
· Who is my audience?
· What does their buying behavior look like?
· When they need information about this product, where will they go to?
· Where do they chill/relax?
· What are your goals? What platform will likely bring that?
For instance, if you want to reach a younger audience, you can consider TikTok. If you want more sales and a community, Instagram might be your go-to place. Sometimes Pinterest is the place or Youtube, and other times, it can be a combination of any of these.
4. Decide on a creative direction
You have all the basics covered. It’s time to consider what your campaign will look like. You can create your campaign direction from the mood you want to introduce. If it’s a fun kind of mood, maybe consider content in that line without straying away from your identity.
Consider these two elements — the visuals and the message.
What do you want it to look like? How do you want your audience to feel just from the visuals? Then decide on the message (words and phrases that captures the emotions you want to create).
For instance, your emotion may be fun and adventure. You can consider red as one of your visuals and imageries that shows this (use Pinterest to get pictures or create your theme). Your messaging can be something like …Style. Class. Anyone’s love language.
5. Offline activation is a thing
While you are thinking about photos, videos, copy, and graphics. You should probably think about what you will be doing offline.
Think about people you can bring onboard, events where you can talk about your products. Maybe even have a brochure handy, customized t-shirts, and more that can help you make conversations offline to sell your products.
6. You should think influencer marketing strategy
I tell people that you don’t need to spend a lot introducing influencer marketing to your plan. Sometimes what you need is not someone with 350K or 2M followers. What you need is someone with actual influence (there’s a reason they are called influencers). If you have the money and think influencers with a large number are what you need, ride on.
Consumers appreciate word of mouth; it shows your product has a good reputation. So look for someone in your circle that probably has a good audience and excellent reputation. Ask them to use your product and share their reviews with their audience (they don’t have to do it for free, learn to appreciate people for what they do).
However, you must know that there is no one way to get an influencer. Still, you must learn to ask the right questions like asking about their values, audience, influence, etc.
7. Create your campaign assets
By now, your plan is coming together. You must now begin to create assets like photos, videos, graphics, and GIFs. You can have all of these without spending so much. Create your pictures and videos with maybe your mobile phone with great pixels. Learn how to create simple graphics. There are some fantastic apps you can use in creating gifs or download from Giphy.com or Zikoko.com.
If it is a digital product, most of your assets will be graphics, images, and videos. You can also decide on a branded hashtag (all works for physical products).
8. Social media content calendar? Very important
Once you have seven items ready. It’s time to create a content calendar. Plan bearing in mind your launch date. Include content that allows you to build some hype and demand. Use digital tools like Plann, Later, Airtable, Trello, or Google sheets to create, plan and schedule this content. If you use tools like Plann, Preview, and Later, you will be able to preview your Instagram feeds and decide if the aesthetic matches your idea.
See what an Instagram feed look like:
Simple pre-launch ideas:
a. You can create content asking your audience to suggest a name for the new product
b. Give them a sneak peek
c. Ask them about their greatest skin need, for instance.
d. Create poll questions.
e. Share a countdown
9. Launch now
When the big day finally comes, create content that meets the excitement and hype you have built. Monitor the engagement. Don’t be afraid to try some random things in-between. You can try other things like:
a. Update your social media bio with a link or CTA to your product. Update your profile picture and cover image too.
b. Create a story highlight specific to this product
c. Respond to comments and DMs. This one is a way to boost your engagement.
d. Share user-generated content.
e. Host a live Q&A or create a video
10. Track and measure
Remember the goals we set in our first step? Beyond the hype and excitement, you must track real things like the purchases, reach, signups, etc. you can track all these with the insights or analytics feature of each platform.
Check for what content generated the most buzz, what channel received the most engagements, etc. this way, you will identify what worked and what didn’t. It will also help you plan for your post-launch campaign.
If you put all these in your next product launch, it will not only be worthwhile but successful.
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