Don’t launch blind! 

The framework for a successful launch is laid during the pre-launch period. Pre-launch marketing ignites excitement and sets your product up for success. Studies show that companies with pre-launch plans achieve 76% higher success rates than those that launch cold.

Let’s go through the top 10 pre-launch marketing strategies that will help you generate buzz, secure early adopters, and prime your target audience for what’s to come. 

TL;DR

• Pre-launch marketing is the process of creating excitement and exposure for your product before launch.
• This entails employing a variety of methods, including enhancing organic visibility, developing a pre-launch landing page, establishing an audience, connecting with influencers, and preparing FAQs. Other strategies include teasers, webinars, email marketing campaigns, and competitive analysis.
• Tips for a successful pre-launch include offering samples, defining clear goals, incentivizing early adopters, providing exclusive access, gathering feedback, monitoring sales performance, and conducting tests for improvement.

What Is Pre-Launch Marketing?

Pre-launch marketing is the process of increasing brand awareness and excitement before the formal introduction of a product or service. 

It’s also an excellent opportunity to try various advertising channels and methods to see what works.

10 Pre-Launch Marketing Strategies To Try

Ten methods to consider as you prepare to launch your new product to the market are given below.

1. Build Your Online Presence: Attract Customers Before They Search

Before launching your product, make sure a significant portion of the market is interested in it.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Imagine someone searching for “best fitness trackers for beginners.” With effective SEO, your website containing relevant keywords like “fitness tracker with heart rate monitor” could appear at the top of search results. 

Research keywords your target audience might use and sprinkle them naturally throughout your website content, like blog posts and product descriptions. 

Targeted Ads

Don’t waste resources on showing ads to people who wouldn’t care. Statistics show that targeted ads can convert website visitors into leads at a rate 10x higher than non-targeted ads. 

Platforms like Facebook Ads or Google Ads let you target your ideal audience based on demographics and interests.

Craft eye-catching visuals showcasing your product’s benefits and include a clear call to action (CTA) like “Learn More” or “Pre-Order Now.” 

2. Capture Leads with Strategic Landing Pages

A landing page is a web page designed to capture leads before your product launches.  Landing pages can convert visitors into leads at a rate 5 times higher than traditional website pages.

Exit-Intent Offers

As visitors try to leave your website, use enticing offers like discounts or early access to keep them engaged and capture their email addresses.

Clear CTAs

Make it easy for visitors to take action with a prominent CTA button that stands out, like “Sign Up for Early Access” or “Try it for Free“.

Learn how others are doing it: https://faqprime.com/en/userflows/

3. Learn from the Competition, But Make it Better

Competitor Analysis Tools

Use tools like SEMrush or Similarweb to identify keywords your competitors rank for and popular features in your product category.

Gather Feedback

Analyze customer reviews of competitor products to understand what works well and identify areas for improvement.

Ask yourself:

• Which features are popular and why?
• For which keywords are competitors ranking?
• What kind of feedback are their clients giving them? 
• How can your product address these pain points and offer a unique selling proposition (USP)?
• Have they overlooked important details that irritate customers that you could improve?

Finding the answers to these questions will help you know what areas to improve and restrategize your launch plan.

4. Build Connections With Influencers

Influencer marketing can significantly boost your brand awareness. Find influencers in your niche with a strong following who resonate with your target audience and genuinely love what you’re creating.  Partnering with micro-influencers (with 10,000-50,000 followers) can generate engagement rates 6 times higher than influencer giants.

Businesses such as Canva collaborate with design influencers to demonstrate how simple it is to create high-quality graphics using their software. Another company that makes use of influencer marketing is Shopify. Shopify collaborates with e-commerce and business influencers to market their online storefront.

5. Spark Conversation on Social Media: Get Your Audience Talking

Content is King, but engagement is Queen. 

Share engaging content that educates and entertains your audience. You can:

• Updates on product development that provide a brief description of the product.
• Implementing a countdown or timer to create a sense of anticipation.
• Real-time “Ask Me Anything” sessions with coworkers or the CEO.
• Giveaways, competitions, and prizes in social media posts.
• Pay close attention to any questions or mentions from customers on your social media accounts.
• Creating a distinctive hashtag that is usable by everybody

The more original, engaging, dynamic, and intimate your social media presence is, the better. 

6. Prepare for Media Attention

A press kit gives media outlets a readily available source of information on the business or product. 

Start by answering these questions: 

• For whom is this product/campaign meant?
• Which problems are you aiming to solve with this product or initiative?
• What distinguishes your product from the others that are currently on the market?
• What are your company’s mission and values to show what makes you stand out?
• What unique aspects distinguish your work? 

To create a press kit you need to:

• Establish the press kit’s purpose. 
• Write your business story.
• Compile company facts
• Create team bios and link them to other press releases.
• Positive customer testimonials (if available).

7. Host Informative Webinars: Educate and Generate Buzz

Webinars are a great way to showcase your product’s features, answer audience questions in real time, and gather valuable feedback. 

Highlight how your product solves customer problems and what makes it unique. Offer incentives like exclusive discounts, early access to your product, or bonus content to those who register and attend.

HubSpot frequently holds webinars to announce new features and products. They use it to give their audience insightful information and instruction.

8. Hype with Creative Teasers: Keep Them Guessing

You can increase the interest people have in what you’re selling by giving them a sneak peek of your product. Show them certain features or bundle choices they might find exciting. 

Think blurred product images with countdown timers or exclusive email campaigns hinting at an exciting launch. You can even run contests where people guess what the product is based on teaser clues!

You can also send an intriguing email campaign such as:

“Next week, we’re launching something new. We assure you that you will love it”.

This creates anticipation for the brand’s launch. 

Brands such as Dropbox use teasers to reveal new features and updates and keep users interested and anticipating.

9. Build Relationships with Email Marketing: Nurture Leads and Drive Sales

Slack invited people to beta test and offer feedback on their platform through targeted email campaigns. This strategy generates insights into your customers’ views about your product.

To achieve this: 

• Grow Your List: Offer valuable lead magnets like ebooks, checklists, or free trials to incentivize sign-ups.
• Targeted Communication: Segment your email list and send targeted messages that resonate with different audience segments. Promote your product launch with special offers, exclusive discounts, and early access opportunities.
• Automation Tools: With email automation, you can send out a series of welcome emails regularly. You can use tools like Mailchimp or Constant Contact to streamline the process.

10. Get Your Help Center Ready: Answer Questions Before They Ask

Customers will have questions.  Prepare a detailed FAQ section addressing common inquiries about your product and its functionalities.  A well-organized FAQ section can reduce customer support inquiries and improve the overall customer experience.

Faqprime can simplify building your help center. This AI-powered tool helps you:

• Never Start from Scratch: Faqprime’s AI, in cruise mode, generates the initial draft of your knowledge base content, saving you time and effort.
• Branding Customization: You can make your knowledge base look and feel like your brand by using your own domain, logo, brand colors, and customized navigation elements.
• AI-Generated Content: Ask Faqprime to rewrite questions, generate answers, or find key points for your articles using AI assistance1.
• Import Chat History: Import your chat conversation history to recognize common questions and create relevant answers.
• Content Maintenance: Use Faqprime’s question suggestions and article performance metrics to keep your knowledge base up-to-date.

Tips for a Successful Pre-launch

1. Define Your Goals

Whether the goal of your pre-launch campaign is to generate buzz, gather leads, or drive visitors to your website, make sure you define it. To define your goals to align with your product vision, you need to:

✅ Identify your target audience. 

✅ Define your launch objectives and choose your launch metrics. 

✅ Set your launch targets then monitor and adjust your launch goals and metrics.

2. Give Early Adopters Incentives

If early adopters are satisfied, they’ll spread the word, so it’s essential to keep them happy. 

Steps To Follow To Give Early Adopters Incentives:

✅ Offer early access to your products or special discounts to those who engage in your pre-launch campaign. This creates a sense of exclusivity and urgency.

✅  Provide recognition and appreciation.

✅  Create incentives and rewards.  

✅ Finally, build a relationship and trust with customers.

3. Gather Insightful Feedback 

For the product you’re launching, you can gather input to help shape further revisions. You may also think about suggestions for new product lines that target specific demographics or solve issues. Observe what individuals are saying and start by addressing the most prevalent problems. 

Steps To Follow To Gather Insightful Feedback:

✅ Determine your audience.

✅ Send email and SMS surveys.

✅ Gather online and in-product feedback.

✅ Analyze product usage data.

4. Monitor Sales Performance

Even for small-scale launches, you must make use of all the platforms and resources at your disposal. You can use them to monitor pertinent metrics, such as the top and worst-selling product variations. Sales trackers like Trackbee can come in handy.

Steps To Follow To Monitor Sales Performance:

✅ Determine variables such as win rates, client happiness, and sales team efficiency to gauge sales performance. 

✅ Analyze internal data. 

✅ Compare performance to benchmarks. 

✅ Assess sales strategies and survey customers.

5. Planning Agile Releases

Crafting an effective launch strategy depends on thorough release preparation. Attention to detail and the ability to create a flexible plan are both crucial. An agile release strategy can support your product roadmap and help achieve launch objectives.

Steps To Follow In Planning Agile Releases:

✅ Define the product vision to create an agile release plan. 

✅ Review the product backlog and rate the features. 

✅ Develop a user story map based on the product vision and stakeholder feedback. 

✅ Call a Scrum release planning meeting with all relevant parties to go over the suggested plan. 

✅ Make any necessary revisions, and synchronize the deliverables for the product. 

✅ Complete and distribute the product release schedule, after the planning meeting. Make any necessary changes and distribute the product release schedule to all involved parties. 

The release plan should always be available to everyone for updates and reference. By using a Scrum release plan, the team can maintain focus on the appropriate tasks at the appropriate times.

6. Creating a User Persona

Think of a user persona as creating a character for your product. It’s like imagining an ideal friend who is the perfect user of your product. Understanding your users’ demands and behaviors can change the way you build your product. This will help make it more successful and interesting.

Developing user personas requires a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.

Steps To Follow To Create A User Persona:

✅ You need to conduct research.

✅ Examine your study results to detect recurring patterns in your audience. 

✅ Create thorough user persona profiles for each target audience category based on your research. 

✅ Validate your user personas after you’ve generated them. Show them to your colleagues, stakeholders, and even current clients. To make sure your personas are accurate, get feedback and make any necessary adjustments.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Which Is The Most Important Question To Ask Before Creating A Product?

How are my target customers using my product at the moment? If you don’t currently have a product, finding out what issues customers have with comparable items that are already on the market may be necessary to provide an answer to this question. Being aware of these benefits can assist your company in concentrating on the most crucial aspects.

2. Should My Pre-Launch Approach Include Pre-Order Options?

Pre-order options are ways to capture customer interest in your product and ensure sales before its official launch. Early adopters might also be among the first to obtain the products thanks to it.

3. What Aspects Need To Be Taken Into Account When A New Product Is Introduced?

Timing, pricing, packaging, product name, advertising, target market, competition, testing, reviews, and a flexible and smart marketing approach are all important factors to take into account when launching a new product. Time must coincide with both micro and macroeconomic variables. Customers must be satisfied with the price.

4. Why Is Pre-Launch Necessary?

It helps generate curiosity and anticipation. Also to build a database of email addresses and social media followers at your beck and call.

5. What Distinguishes A Launch From A Pre-Launch?

The pre-launch stage lays the foundation for an effective launch. It includes conducting market research, establishing objectives, and creating a go-to-market plan. On the other side, you can carry out and execute your marketing plan throughout the launch phase.