The sweaty palms. The terrible headaches. The pit of anxiety growing in your stomach.
Are you about to hop on a rollercoaster? Walk down the aisle? Perform at Coachella?
No. You’re launching a product.
Launches can cause all sorts of unnecessary stress because there are so many moving parts to manage. I’ve seen many entrepreneurs lose their minds over a product launch because they failed to plan and devise a clear, easy-to-follow path for success.
Lucky for you, that’s exactly what we’re doing today. Here are the 5 key steps to launching your product.
Step #1: Do Your Homework
Launches are only successful if you bring together the perfect union of a new product and a market who needs it. The first step is to understand both.
It all starts with your product. Create a product that’s high quality, unique, and within your area of expertise for the best results. Shop around and see what’s available on the market. Use it yourself so you have a keen understanding of how it works.
As for the market, you should understand your audience and their needs. Create a target customer profile and try to identify their main concerns and problems so you can solve them. This profile should describe the ideal person who benefits most from the product you’ve created.
You should also have a good idea of the competitive landscape. See what similar products are out there and what makes them unique so you understand your own product’s strengths.
Step #2: Create A Product Launch Schedule
Decide when you will hold the launch. As a general guideline, it’s good to start about three months out. But there’s no such thing as too much time, so it’s okay to make it longer if need be.
Once the big day is set, make a huge list of everything that needs to be done. Create a calendar and schedule every single task down to the smallest daily things-to-do. You can change it if needed, but this will help you stay on track so nothing falls through the cracks.
Step #3: Pre-Launch
Go about each day performing the tasks on your schedule. One of the main tasks at hand is content creation and publishing. You’ll also be interacting on social media and elsewhere online to build buzz and increase anticipation.
As the launch gets closer, ramp up your efforts. Post increasingly more content, and talk about your launch more and more online as the day approaches. Your efforts at the late pre-launch stage should be aimed at building excitement so your audience is anticipating the product’s release.
Step #4: Product Launch
You’ll need all hands on deck the day the product goes live, providing support and watching your numbers. On the big day, your customers will probably have a great deal of questions and you might have tech issues that need to be resolved immediately.
Many businesses have a big launch event for their customers to make it even more exciting.
Step #5: Gather Feedback
Have a plan in place to connect with each customer to gather feedback. Find out what they thought about the product and use this data to make improvements for the next time. This is also a good time to gather testimonials and ask customers to write reviews.
Finally, see whether you achieved your goal or not. If not, figure out what you need to do for your next launch to make it a success.
A launch in five simple steps sounds too good to be true, but it really is that easy.
Do you want to learn more about successfully launching your product and find the PERFECT audience for it? Check out my course, Market Research Mastery, which teaches you the basics of successful product launches and helps you achieve your business goals.
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