After weeks, months, maybe even years of research and development, you’ve finally done it: you’ve created an amazing new product. At least to you and your supporters, your product is amazing. But how do you convey that to the general public? And how are you supposed to get that product to sell?
Launching a new product is equal parts exciting as it is stressful, especially for anyone new to the business world. In this article, we will go over the basic steps you should include in your product launch plan to ensure it doesn’t become a member of the 75% of consumer packaged goods and retail products that fall short of $7.5 million in earnings during their first year.
Research The Market
Conducting proper preliminary market research when launching a new product is an essential step on the path to achieving your business goals. Look into your biggest competitors, and learn what it is that has brought them success as well as any weak spots in their approach. Remember, a smart person learns from his/her own mistakes. A wise one learns from the mistakes of others.
In addition to researching your competition, you will also want to research your target audience. Having knowledge of the values, habits, and needs of the demographic you want to sell to will help you create a better business model and potentially even a better product. Don’t be afraid to switch things up a bit based on what you discover during your research stage.
Create a Plan
As with any new project, making a plan is absolutely vital to any business venture. When you have a well thought out plan for your product’s success, you are more likely to succeed.
Start your plan by defining your end goal. Are you looking to keep your company a local, family-owned business? Or are you setting out to disrupt the market, grow rapidly, and smoke your competition? Decide early on what the life course of your business should be so you can then draw out the steps you’ll need to take to get there.
If you plan to sell in retail locations (as opposed to conducting e-commerce, which we will touch upon later), it is best to start small and work your way up to the big-box stores. Build rapport with smaller retailers first to get a hang of the business, then begin looking into more prominent vendors.
Stores such as Whole Foods and Walmart will have you fill out lengthy applications to get on their shelves, something that can be intimidating to brands just starting out. If somewhere like Whole Foods is on your list of vendors to eventually reach out to, check out this list of other retailers that may be a good jumping off point for a brand that is just starting out.
Another important question to ask yourself is: what kind of roadblocks will you experience along your journey? Will funding ever be an issue? Know the budget you are currently working with, as well as how much money you will have to make or receive from investors at certain points in the future in order to accommodate growth.
Figure out which partners (if any) you may have to work with down the road. Calculate the costs of manufacturing, distribution, and other essential processes not just for your current business, but for the business you envision it growing into. Be ready to meet strong demand for your product while also preparing for potential setbacks.
Develop a Marketing Strategy
Once you’ve answered the what, where, and who, it is time to begin strategizing the how. How will you garner success? How will you get your product out there? How will you prove to the world how amazing and innovative it is? The answer to these questions begins with marketing.
Now that you understand your target market, it is necessary to establish an understanding of your business’s competitive position within that market. If you are launching your product into a highly competitive space such as consumer packaged goods (CPGs), you will want to focus your marketing strategy on demonstrating your product’s value not just to the consumer, but to the supply chain partners (such as distributors, wholesalers, and retailers) who decide whether or not to stock your product.
Formulating a marketing budget is another critical part of your strategy. This budget should include the costs of any promotions, advertisements, or campaigns you plan to do, as well as a budget for your marketing team, whatever that looks like. If you can’t afford to hire a full marketing team, or even an in house marketing specialist, you may consider outsourcing your marketing to an agency. Explore your options and account for any potential shake ups in your strategy.
Develop a Sales Strategy
Devising a sales strategy is yet another critical element to launching a new product. You will need to take into consideration factors such as budget and bandwidth. You should reach a decision on where you plan to conduct the majority of your sales, and whether or not this will change given your product’s success. Will you start with only e-commerce sales, or sell in brick-and-mortar environments as well? How are you going to get your product from production into the hands of your consumers?
If you plan to sell solely online, you’ll need to learn the options available to you for e-commerce. There is the option to sell through third party vendors such as Amazon, or you could opt to sell from your own webstore. While your business’s website should already be aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly, a site that is your main point of sales needs to be set up differently than one that is there simply to provide information on your business.
When developing your sales strategy, it is also necessary to keep in mind the market research you conducted. Revisit your target customer base, and determine if there are variations of your ideal buyer persona that may be too costly or too difficult to go after. Streamlining your customer base, especially during the initial product launch stage, will help you avoid situations where you’d otherwise be pursuing unprofitable consumers.
Track Your Progress
At the end of the day, perhaps decisive factor in whether your product succeeds or fails is how well you track your progress. Tracking progress in both marketing and sales will help inform you on what works and what doesn’t, and will empower you to make the proper adjustments accordingly.
Always be sure to record data on the effectiveness of marketing tactics. Do in person demos seem to be more impactful with your customer base than Facebook ads? Did the wording in your last cold blast email generate a higher click through rate? Keeping track of this data is of the utmost importance when it comes to optimizing your outreach.
Once you’ve collected enough data, It is time to review, revise, and repeat the process. Your sales and marketing strategies will have to change based on what you learn through trial and error, and your original product plan should not be set in stone either. Business is exciting because the market is constantly changing; successful businesses have mastered the art of adapting to these changes.
