5 Tips for Your Next Product Launch
Summary/Overview
How to ensure the success and smooth-running of your next product launch
It’s a new year and you’re setting the course to grow your business — this means standing out from the crowd and launching new products and services. With Adobe Express, you can create beautiful, unique content quickly and easily to reach your audience and build your brand with a consistent look and feel, but the real excitement comes when you’ve got something fresh to talk about. We got to talk with longtime Adobe Express users and brand experts Shyne Webster and Nicte Cuevas about what you can do to take your next product launch to new heights.
Remember, your launch is not a day — it’s 3-6 months.
When you’re creating a new product or service, your development is tracking toward a particular go-live day, but while all eyes are on that date, the launch is actually one of the later stages. Shyne Webster points out that, “It takes time for your customers to warm up to the idea of something new and for them to actually start caring about it, so the earlier you start talking about your launch, the better.” When you’re planning a launch, plan not only the go-live date for your product or service, but the whole content cycle from start to finish, which includes the build-up. This means planning and creating not only your launch content, but also your build-up content: sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes teasers, connections to your audience’s needs and pain points. By the time you go live, your audience will not only understand your launch but want to be part of it.
Create your market well before your launch
The crucial part of a new launch is knowing what your audience needs and why they need it. Nicte Cuevas said if she could only do one thing for a launch, it’s “making sure to focus on the value it has for future customers — this means being intentional about understanding their pain points and experiences beyond simple demographics — then, linking solutions to those pain points.” Creating this link is key to a successful launch; your product or service will cut through the noise when you can show your audience not only when you can offer an excellent product, but also how it meets needs they may or may not have known they have. Advance content with a focus on pain points will prime your audience for the solution in your launch. Creating that visual link is easy with consistent branding in Adobe Express. Applying your brand logos, colors, and fonts to everything with just a tap ties pain point, solution, and your brand together in a visual way.
Streamline your workflows
Launches are intense communication events, and you want your focus to be on the success, not creating content. Using tools like Content Scheduler in Adobe Express saves you time by enabling you to create, plan, and publish all in one place. High quality templates and design elements in Adobe Express make creating social media posts and stories, logos, flyers, banners and more, fast and easy. Building a library of branded templates will help you drive a digital buzz about your launch in a polished way, and you can quickly chime into the conversation. Cuevas calls these tools, “…the cherry on top. It will save you hours in the long run, prevent content creation overwhelm, and allow you to focus more on engaging with your audience.”
Try a soft launch
Some of the very best marketing content elements share customer testimonials. Cuevas says: “The most important factor is what customers share about their experience.” If you do a soft launch, you can offer your product or service to VIP customers early in exchange for a public testimonial and feedback about the product. Another option is to offer your new product or service to a select group at a discount to get the conversation going. It’s one thing for you to spotlight all the benefits, but when customers praise your offering, your launch really shines. If you record videos or social stories of your customers, Adobe Express makes it easy to merge, crop, or resize videos, images, and gifs to fit your best channel. Lastly, a soft launch will help you define and recognize your ideal client for the product. This will help you choose your channel focus for launch content.
Define success beyond sales goals
Success is not only hitting your numbers but learning and getting data to set up your next launch. Like a good billiards player who shoots to set up the next shot, a successful launch teaches you how to have more success next time. Cuevas and her team measure success by tracking any peaks in content engagement as they launch and any other peaks they see in the range of LinkedIn online courses she sells. Then, she says, “After every launch, we assess any gaps and find ways to improve.” Shyne Webster agrees, “ A successful product launch is when I learn something repeatable. If I make a million dollars but don't know what created that, it's not much of a success because it could have just been random. Hitting my sales goal is great, but launches are successful when I know the strategy is reusable.” Long-term success depends on learning from launches.
Like these expert insights? Take a look inside the Adobe Express app for tips to get you started, collaboration workflows, and design templates curated from Adobe’s community of professional designers. There’s always a chance to learn from the built-in community of creators like you who share even more best practices. Working with Adobe Express, you have all the support you need.