How to Make Your Product Launch a Success with Content Marketing

October 8, 2014

Launching a new product for your business can be an exciting time, but it can also be very scary. Product launches bring uncertainty and change, but they can also bring in more revenue and a stronger company brand. If you’re wondering how to successfully launch your product with content marketing, there are several key brand and content marketing elements to consider.

Adding Value

When it comes to content marketing, much of the discussion centres on “adding value,” or providing something meaningful to your readers. When marketing or launching new products, value is especially important. You need to be able to show your readers how your new product will benefit them and make their lives better. Why should they be interested in your new product? Answering this question sufficiently is a critical element of successfully incorporating content marketing and brand awareness into a product launch. One of the critical components of adding value is making sure that you tie your product or service back to a real world situation that most consumers will be facing. This will help them understand exactly how what you offer will have value.

Engaging Your Audience

Some of the best digital marketing campaigns are the ones that focus on what real people have to say. Thanks to the power of social media, this is easier than ever before. Many large companies are beginning to directly engage their audience via social media by asking for their participation in marketing efforts. For example, take Virgin Mobile’s recent ‘Meal for a Meal’ campaign. Using a single hashtag, the campaign encourages fans to share a picture of their meal in order to get a free meal for someone else, as well as being able to interact directly with the company itself. This kind of engagement is crucial for product launches because it helps get people’s attention about a product or company they previously were unaware of. Try asking your users a question that relates to the new product that you are launching, or conducting an interactive survey that allows users to give their input on what you are launching. Whatever you do, your content should drive your audience to want to give you input; remember that social media is all about engagement. This part of how to make your product launch a success with content marketing is important, since it makes your audience invest some time and energy into your new product, making them more likely to stick around and see for themselves how the product can benefit them.

Creating a Mystery

One of the best ways to use content to promote a new product launch is to add an element of mystery to your new product. Think about releasing small details: a single sentence, a partially-obscured photograph of your new product or someone using your new product. When you make people curious, they want to know more about what exactly it is you are launching and how it may be able to help them. This advice on how to make your product launch a success with content marketing will help you position your content in a way that supports your products.

Listening To Feedback

Prominent American technological evangelist Guy Kawasaki has an interesting strategy when it comes to the topic of how to make your product launch a success with content marketing.Kawasaki advises companies to get feedback throughout the entire process of creating and launching a new product and to release information about products in the early stages, which helps create raving fans that help you spread the word about your new offerings. Even if you do not decide to emulate Kawasaki’s exact approach, you still need to be sure that you get input from your existing or prospective customers about your new product launch. This feedback will help you determine if you are on track for a successful launch, and, if not, how you can change your launch strategy to get there. If you’re syndicating your content, you can also get social media platform-specific feedback that will help you tweak your content for that particular audience, helping you hone your content strategy for your product on a platform-by-platform basis. 

Content marketing is a very solid foundation from which you will be able to build a marketing campaign that will help you launch your new product successfully. Hopefully these three elements have given you some ideas on how you can improve your marketing and product launches. Keeping your communication novel and on-brand is a great way to keep your audience listening to what you have to say, and enthusiastic about the new products you bring to market. Take steps to make your content engaging and valuable and you can use it to position and create demand for a service or product before it even becomes available for people to buy.

Featured photo by Elvert Barnes, 2013 CC-BY-SA