Keep Me In Suspense
In this connected age, it feels harder and harder to keep anything a secret. Whether it’s an internal leak, an early regulatory filing, or one of the myriad of websites and blogs dedicated to finding secrets about our favorite products, we generally know what’s coming down the pipeline.
Yet, even though we generally know well in advance, Apple still manages to wow us with every press event they have. There’s a number of reasons for this I’ll go into here in a sec.
Product launches should always be special times for companies. Your product, the result of countless hours of planning, development, testing, and preparing, should always be a high point of your year. For many companies, product releases are not a regular occurrence depending on what industry you’re in. However, no matter how many products you launch in a given window, each of them should be cause for celebration.
If you’re in an industry where there’s a high amount of visibility, and it seems like everyone knows what you’re about to release before you do, you can still have an impactful launch.
Here’s a few tips on how to get the most out your product launches.
1. Make Sure Your Schedule is Bulletproof.
In instances where your product is not immediately available, your target on-sale date has to be solid. A day or two creep is not the end of the world, but if it starts looking like weeks or months, you’re going to lose momentum. Customers who are excited for your new product will start making plans around its availability, and if you don’t deliver, you’re going to disappoint them.
2. Small Teases are Fine, But Don’t Spill The Beans Too Early.
If you’re doing something truly groundbreaking and exciting, the temptation to tell the world gets stronger and stronger the closer you get to your release date. Little teases like a shadowy outline, or a cryptic Twitter post here and there the closer you get to your announcement are perfectly ok. The worst thing you could do is make a small announcement early without any details, or if your real launch is someways off. You’ll have lost momentum and a lot of the excitement you could have had when the actual release comes. Worst still, you could look like you haven’t fully planned out what you’re preparing to do.
3. If Your New Product Leaks Early, Say Nothing.
If you look back at our Apple example, there’s speculation months, and almost years in advance of what new products they’re working on. They’ve become the masters of not speaking on those rumors, or letting them affect their launches. Take a lesson from their playbook if you get hit with rumors and questions and deflect to something else, or say nothing at all. Never give a rumor or leak any substantiation.
4. Make Launch Day Special.
When you’re ready to show the world your new product, it should be as far-reaching and captivating as you can make it. Not every company has their own private theatre to do product releases in, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have an impactful release. With social media, the ease of doing audio and video, and even print, you can still build excitement with your customers. Having all the information, and presenting it out in ways that speaks to your current audience, as well as potential new ones, you can capitalize on all your hard work.
5. Celebrate Your Success.
After the launch has happened, and the result of all your hard work is out in the world, take some time to celebrate internally. Whether it’s a luncheon, pizza for everyone, or something even larger, your team should have acknowledgement of all their hard work.
6. Circle Back and Analyze Your Mistakes.
After the celebration, and all of the excitement dies down a little, go back and review everything you did for your launch. Look to what worked well, and what didn’t work so well and improve for the next time. No one is perfect, and mistakes can happen. However, by continually reviewing and improving, you’ll make your life easier the next time.
In the course of my career, I’ve kind of lost track of how many product launches I’ve been a part of. Some of them have been small, and some of them have been large. However, all of them were approached in the same way of making them exciting for our customers. A product launch should always build momentum, and hopefully with it more sales and profit.
As I said earlier, even in this age where it feels like there are no secrets, your product launch can still be meaningful if well planned.
Should you find yourself wanting to give your customers that “One More Thing”, or just need launch help in general, Salyer and Associates is here to help.