What must-have tool should small businesses include in their marketing campaign when launching a new product?
The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.
1. Mailchimp Is a Must
For every new product launch, we collect emails via MailChimp. We use their email campaign and auto-responder functionality to draft countdown emails so that our customers receive regular updates and pre-specified intervals prior to launch. These email campaigns get customers excited about our launch and result in increased conversion.
– Bhavin Parikh, Magoosh Test Prep
2. Landing Pages with Unbounce
Landing pages are a must when launching a new product. They let you easily focus the potential consumers attention on the actions that you deem desirable. With new products, money is scarce, so having the highest conversion rate is of necessity. My product of choice is Unbounce — it’s dead simple to use, and they also have new and improved features for the advanced user.
– Lawrence Watkins, Great Black Speakers
3. Create a Dedicated Email
As you’re building buzz for your product, there must be a customer and sponsor support team ready to handle incoming questions. Put your email out there everywhere and encourage questions, ideas and communication. Don’t just have the email account, but be ready with resources, FAQs and engagement specialists to nurture your early adopters and raving fans and help them promote you further.
– Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems
4. Set Up Google Analytics Properly
5. Incorporate Retargeting Pixels.
Use a service like ReTargeter or AdWords Remarketing in order to drop cookies for first-time visitors to your website, so that you have the opportunity to remarket to them later and stay top of mind. Start building your remarketing list from day one.
6. Utilize Hacker News
Hacker News is a great place to launch a product. If you submit your site correctly, it could drive thousands of visits within a few hours and collect excellent feedback. Make sure to read how to use Hacker News first though!
7. Put In a Squeeze Page
If I had to recommend one tool for any product launch, it would be a “squeeze page,” also known as an opt-in page. Get an account with an email service provider (ESP), create a squeeze page, and point potential customers to it during your pre-launch. Send emails to your subscriber list building anticipation for the launch, and then offer your subscribers a limited-time offer upon the launch.
– Pete Kennedy, Main Street ROI
8. Let People Use Your Product!
If the goal is to get people to use your product and talk about your product, then it seems logical that you should get that product into as many hands as possible. If it’s online, this means a trial. If it’s food, it means having tons of samples. If it’s jeans, give away your jeans. You can talk and hype something all you want, but the product speaks for itself. A worthwhile investment.
9. Bloggers Create the Buzz
A lot of small businesses focus on long-lead, print media without realizing the power of blogs. Even relatively small blogs have the power to convert sales with links in a much more powerful way than print ever can — and even have the potential to take on their life of their own through social sharing.
– Alexis Wolfer, The Beauty Bean
10. Coordinate a Social Media Push
Including fans in the conversation or decision-making process prior to launch is by far the most valuable pre-promotion you can do. We generally narrow new watch designs or colors down to three or four options before running a vote on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. It’s our “Threadless meets Kickstarter” model: whether we receive 100 votes or 1,000, we learn from our biggest advocates!
– Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
11. Collect Real Testimonials and Reviews
No matter what else you do to market a new product, you need to have proof that it does what you say it does. Getting people outside your company to try the product and talk about it is the only initial source of that proof that you can set up before the product goes on the market. So make the effort to get testimonials and reviews from beta testers and pre-launch customers.