We all launch things throughout the year. Whether that’s a new product, a special event, or a campaign for a sale or just to share content. Launches are happening all the time and they’re the type of marketing that needs to be thought out and planned. After all, when it’s something you’re dedicating so much time and resources to, you should make it a big deal. Which is why I broken my method to show you just how I create a launch strategy.
Any launch I’m working on I create a marketing plan for 4-6 weeks out depending on the size of the launch and the value add to my business. Large ticket items that you’re selling (Over $500) should be given 6 weeks to market and build value around while launches for a new product that’s under $500 or even free, can stick to a 4 week plan.
How To Create A Launch Strategy
When it’s all said and done, you can break you launch strategy into 4 phases (or 4 weeks). These parts are building trust, acknowledging the pain point, painting a picture, and the special offer. Each one is designed to build momentum to get to the next phase and take your audience on a journey to understanding that they need you in their life. Because half of sales, its telling your customer what their real problem is.
Phase 1: Build Trust
Building trust is part of the long game for your business. Through social media, blog posts, interviews and more you should be building trust with your audience always, but when you’re ready to make a launch this goes into over drive. This phase is about creating a mass amount of content that will answer commonly asked questions, find solutions to small pain points and build engagement so that when you’re ready to start selling, your audience is listening.
For one week, post to social every single day with:
- Live Q+A’s for your business – Create a list of FAQs and answer those during the live, if fresh questions come up feel free to engage with those or invite customers to go live with you so that you can help solve real problems.
- Tips and Insights in your captions
- Personal stories about your personal pain points in this area
- Stories that share your before and after story
- Stories will polls to get more information about your audience
From here you should also be filling your personal blog with posts that will apply to questions your ideal customer is typing into Google. (This is called SEO). You can share these posts on social, reuse some of the text as captions and of course link them to Pinterest so that people can discover you.
Phase 1: build trust is dedicated to a mass amount of content that shows your customers that you know what you’re talking about and have the answers they’re looking for. You’ve done the research, you’ve been in the industry, and now, you’ll make it easy for them to digest the information it’s taken you years to pull together.
Phase 2: Their Pain Points + You As Their Guide
In getting clear with your brand and your ideal client you should have also discovered the 3 main pain points that your customer is facing. These can be external (I need a yoga mat), Internal (My practice would be better if I had a mat), or philosophical (I deserve a yoga mat). When you start getting into the deeper layers of pain paints–internal and philosophical–you reach a new level with your audience. So focus on these types of pain points in your marketing.
Aside from focusing on the problem, it’s also time that you explain to them who you are as their guide and how you’ll help them through these points. To do this, share content that’s focused on:
- Captions that talk about their pain points
- Share stories both personal and from customers around the pain points you’re focusing on
- Talk about why you got into this business and why you show up every day to serve
- Tell your personal story of how you got here, doing this.
You aren’t announcing your product yet. Hint that there is something in the works but they still don’t know what. You might have freebies that they can sign up for that will help ease the pain but not solve it all the way. You want to encourage engagement around commenting, sending messages or interacting with stories on social. On your website, continue to share post that highlight customer stories and dive into your own story too.
Phase 3: The Call To Action
Now is the time to announce your product. Paint a very clear picture of the pain point and how your product/service/event will be the solution. Give them an idea of what success looks like and what is in store for them. Then call them to action. Confidently ask for the sale. Don’t tip toe around it. This is something you believe in. You know that it will add value to their lives, so tell them that. Don’t hold back. And if you don’t know that this will solve their problems and add value, you probably shouldn’t be launching!
In phase 3 of your launch you’ll want to share success, highlight the pain points again and ask for the sale. Here’s what you should be posting:
- Solutions – Review the pain points, create a clear picture of that and then show them the path to success. a couple of steps to get them from here to there.
- Talk about the success – Share testimonials of people who have used your service or tried this new product
- Ask for the sale – Get clear in your ask–Call today, Order now, Pre-order today, Grab your ____ before it’s gone!
Highlight testimonials in your stories, get recorded testimonials to run as ads or to push all over your feed. Focus on talking about your customers, their problems and the solution you have. Don’t focus on talking about the product itself. You don’t sell a product, you sell a solution and that’s what people are buying!
Phase 4: The Offer
You’ve built trust, you’ve highlighted the pain point and announced the launch. Now it’s time to bring them all in with a special offer that holds a deadline. This week you will be focusing on avoiding failure. What will happen if your customers don’t purchase from you? make this 40% of your posts and what you talk about. We don’t want to get too down in the dumps because that can turn people off too but we purchase more to avoid pain than we do to experience pleasure so share how you can help them avoid failure (pain).
This week you’ll continue to highlight the success of your product and what people are saying, but you’ll also offer a promo of getting a discount or something free to go along with it by a certain deadline. This could be a pre-order campaign if you can’t release the product for a while or it might just be “be one of the first 100 and get X% off” or throw in some swag to go with the purchase if they order by a certain date. It doesn’t matter what the offer is. Provide something of extra value that means something to your audience and give it a deadline to push them over the edge to buy.
Your content this week can focus on:
- Testimonials – new and old talking about you and your products
- More Q+A’s that people are asking – feel free to go live again and create clarity for your audience
- Copy that focuses on avoiding failure
- Benefits – what comes with this purchase, what this purchase will do for you, what your future is about to look like
Be clear in what you are offering. Get clear in the deadline to get the bonuses. Be clear in what their lives will look like if they don’t have you in their life. That’s how you create a launch strategy.
Tying it All Together
These 4 phases create a launch strategy that I use for all the brands I work with. If you’re selling a more expensive product or service I make Phase 1 and Phase 4 longer. To purchase higher ticket items I need to know that you are the very best, you know what you’re talking about and I need some time to think it over. Last minute sales are more common here but they’ll have to hit that deadline in order to get the bonuses.
The last thing to remember is that while there are 4 Phases to the launch there is a secret phase 0 when you create a launch strategy that you should never forget. That’s the planning phase. None of these phases happen on their own. It takes weeks of planning, creating content, and making sure you’re answering the right questions and providing real value to your audience. So don’t rush it. Give your time at least 6 weeks to launch so that you have 2-weeks of planning time and content creation time. To help get you started, I created this free launch strategy worksheet to brainstorm new ideas and layout all the content you want to share during your launch.
Need helping creating a launch strategy for your big launch? I’m here for you! Sign up for my FREE 30-minute strategy call and let’s talk through who your customer is and what they want from you launch so you can get clear on the steps you need to take to make this launch a success. No strings attached. Just 30-minutes of clarity for your business so you can launch with success! Let’s do this, schedule your call today!
