What makes a product launch successful

In the year leading up to the launch of its service, Robinhood invited people to gain invitation-only access to its private beta — giving them the chance to be among the first to benefit from what was on offer. The message was simple:. And the more people a person got to join, the sooner access would be granted.

By doing this, Robinhood created a game. A waiting list driven by incentives like sharing to earn special privileges can help create exponential growth. It allows you to build a database of actively interested users, builds hype for your product, and lets you engage with customers to gather feedback on beta launches. Create a landing page for your new product launch that makes it easy for people to opt-in, making sure to include the following elements. Once people have opted-in, keep them interested in your brand and product by sending them useful information.

For example, if you were launching software that helps customers with their online shopping by finding the cheapest products, you could send weekly newsletters with curated suggestions on how to save money on shopping or meal recipes or low-cost gift ideas. Every email gives your waiting list value and maintains an interest in your launch.

Image: Unsplash. As a way to thank photographers that had contributed photos to help its site to 50 million downloads, Unsplash launched a Kickstarter campaign for a book featuring inspiring photos and essays from creators.

By getting influencers involved. The work in the book was curated to include key people in the creative industry and their influence helped catapult the book to new levels. Find popular people in your niche and reach out. SproutSocial suggests the following tips for breaking the ice on LinkedIn, but they can be applied across all social channels:. There are a number of ways you can do this:. In trying to gather momentum for a campaign aimed at encouraging moms to trust their paternal instincts, Tommee Tippee took a uniting problem and turned it into a PR stunt.

That being the often useless, unneeded advice from others about how to parent. In doing so, it created a useful product that supported its main aim: to get eyes on the brand.

High churn rate and a huge investment to gain back the lost market share will be some of the negative outcomes when not considering the importance of this stage. He then provides the steps that you should implement post-launch to continue a similar level of engagement and customer attraction:.

Give them time to adopt your marketing content. Log in Membership. Why pick PMA? Best of the rest Highlights from the site New to product marketing?

What's new? She explained: "I'll break it down into categories because there's so much of the work that happens before a product launch. For example: The product isn't ready to launch Limited budget A lack of team collaboration and communication Decrease in workflow management Resistance to change Yet, many of these issues are avoidable once you implement a checklist of certain strategies and techniques for your launch process.

However, while problematic, these challenges can be overcome. Tips to ensure a successful product launch Launching a new brand or product can be an exciting time.

Conversely, some of the most successful products often started out solving very specific problems for a narrow market segment. Consider the case of Park. This product solves a very specific problem — helping people backorder expired. Instead of diversifying focus to multiple domain extensions, Park. This tailored approach is proven to work across industries. For your product launch to go right, it is crucial that it solves one problem really well at first.

Later, you can expand your focus to other problems based on user feedback. This is a very broad term that encompasses everything from your design and copywriting to your features and pricing. Whether customers see your product as serious, business-like, fun, affordable, etc.

Positioning is critical for launch success. The impressions and expectations that you set at launch will linger for years, possibly even forever.

Before Mint launched its personal finance app, it already had a pre-beta waiting list of 20, people. Mint managed to do this through aggressive email collection tactics and content marketing, even before actual product launch. This serves as a lesson in launches: your marketing should be as much a focus as the actual product development. You should have some market buzz, press relationships, emails and content to kickstart distribution when your product goes live.

This solves one of the biggest problems for most businesses: distribution. You need to make sure that your product is aligned with consumer demand, which can only follow expert market research analysis. As you develop your product and launch strategy, review your existing consumer data. Understanding what consumers need and want is fundamental to launch a new product, pandemic or not.

Even minor shifts in consumer perception can signal the need to make wholesale changes to your strategy. The pandemic continues to produce problems up and down the global supply chain, which could affect your product supply. Make sure that your supply chain is reliable, and develop a contingency plan for each element. Vigorously monitor the performance and health of each of your suppliers to forecast potential supply chain issues accurately.

Check-in with suppliers as soon as news develops and establish a regular time to discuss order fulfillment with each supplier. Doing so can help give you the insight you need to decide if and when you need to switch suppliers before significant problems occur. Pre-pandemic, many brands achieved remarkable product launch success by building anticipation. Consumers wanted immediacy in , and even more so now. Entice them with exclusive samples. Develop limited first editions for pre-orders.