when you already have a successful range of products in the market, it can be challenging to bring something new to your customers. How will the new product be received? Should you stay within your current field? What if your customers aren’t interested?
But don’t let these concerns hold you back. Stores can still achieve success when launching new products.
What is Product Launch?
A product launch is when a merchant introduces a new product to their online store or physical store. It is a coordinated plan that outlines the steps you will take to bring the product to market. The launch plan also includes how to promote the product for several months afterward to gain the audience and increase sales.
It can be as simple as introducing a new color for shoes or as complex as launching an entirely new clothing line. Product launches can happen virtually and in physical stores. Your goal is to ensure that all your employees and target customers are aware of the new product.
Benefits of Launching New Products
Launching a new product is a significant decision and, when done correctly, can lead to the following benefits:
Increased Sales and Conversions
The math is simple – the more products you offer, the greater your potential sales opportunities. Of course, there are various factors that influence the profitability of launching new products. However, if you know your audience and how to design products that meet demand, you should see an increase in sales and conversions.
“Our brand, stories, and messaging are crafted for a very specific audience. This makes the product relatable and achieves incredible conversion rates of around 37%.” Jay John, Marketer at The Crown Choice
When product launches are done correctly, it drives more traffic to your stores and website. This means more eyes on your other lines, which can further increase sales.
Increased Brand Awareness
Studies show that 56% of global survey participants state that recommendations from friends and family are a source of awareness for new products. Every time you launch a new product, you release a series of ads, newsletters, social media posts, and blogs to attract more eyes to your business. If you do this consistently, people will become familiar with your brand and its products (including those coming soon).
More Product Diversity
Your product assortment, also known as your merchandise mix, is the range of different products you offer to customers. These products shape your image and define the reasons people shop at your store.
A wide product range can reduce reliance on limited items, but those items must connect to your brand. If you sell high-fashion shoes and suddenly start selling toasters, you’ll confuse customers and damage your brand.
It all depends on your business model. For instance, if you target women who love shoes, you might focus on adding different colors and styles of women’s shoes. However, if you want to attract a broader audience, you could introduce a new line of products like men’s shoes or children’s footwear. Every new product you launch is an opportunity to reach and delight your customers by offering goods they will love.
Risks of Launching New Products
Failed launches are a nightmare for every entrepreneur. However, it happens to even the best of us. According to Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, over 30,000 new consumer products are launched every year, and 95% of them fail.
For example, look at the failed Amazon phone – it was discontinued after 13 months, and the idea was completely shut down.
While
There are ways to reduce the likelihood of this happening, and it’s good to know the common risks so you can avoid them.
Let’s take a look.
Launching Undeveloped Products
You might get a great idea and sell it to yourself before doing any market research. Having a great idea is a good start. But you need to understand what the market needs to design it with features that people will actually pay for.
Without this input, you’re risking ending up with a poorly designed product that doesn’t sell well. Or worse, thousands of dollars down the drain. If you don’t have a strong understanding of your target market, why not talk to them? What do they need that they don’t have? You might uncover key insights necessary for creating a successful product.
Offering a Product No One Wants
Before designing a product, you should validate it. Otherwise, you risk releasing an item that no one buys. This is where talking to your customers (or audience) and conducting competitor research can help.
Developing a product based on an assumption is not a good idea. Instead, use data-driven methods such as surveys, interviews, and analysis to determine whether your ideas resonate with potential buyers and address their problems.
Find out if there are similar products to your idea. If there are, it means there is a market. But if there are too many, the market may be saturated. If you know what’s already out there, you can compare your idea and find ways to improve it.
“The first questions you should ask yourself are about validating your business idea: How many people are facing the problem you want to solve? And will they be willing to pay for your product/service?”, says Matt Perry, marketing specialist at BuyMoldavite.
“The fastest way to get answers is to reach out directly to the source. Connect with real people within the group you are trying to help and listen to their feedback. You can set up a dry test by creating a landing page for your idea and adding a subscribe button to see who is interested,” he adds.
“Identify the features, benefits, and desired outcome for your customers. You can assess demand by tracking the number of clicks. If a lot of people engage with it, that’s enough validation that you have an idea worth investing in.”
Product Line Saturation
This can happen when you launch more than one product or two at the same time. Or similar products competing with your original product offering. An example of this is when you launch many options.
For instance, 50 color options for a shirt in the same design. When you offer many variations of something, consumers often gravitate toward just a few items, leaving a lot of unsold inventory.
Poor Timing
You’ve validated and designed your product, and now it’s ready for launch. But is it the right time now? Or even three months down the line?
Timing is everything, especially for seasonal products. However, even if consumers buy your product all year round, they may not be in the market for it when you launch. There’s also the possibility of launching a product in a new market too early, not realizing that a major shift is about to happen. Or launching the product too late and allowing competitors to steal the spotlight.
“You can make or break your product by entering the market too early or too late,” says Jared Smith, CEO of Joy Organics. “If you let competitors get ahead of you, it will diminish the excitement you worked hard to create.
“To stay ahead, you need to be aware of what’s going on around you. Stick to your timelines and be aware of your competitor’s speed if you want to be the first off the block in selling your product as the best and latest answer.”
Offering
New Products
The biggest problem companies face when launching a new product is lack of readiness, according to research conducted by Harvard Business Review. Let’s take a look at how to launch a product from the ground up:
Research
Like any good business plan, good research is worth the effort. Is your new product targeting the same age group as your previous products, or are you trying to enter a new market?
Either way, it takes time to conduct thorough market research before setting up your launch plan to give your new line the best possible start.
If you want to reach the same target age group, a great place to start your research is with your current customers. Looking at some of your early customers for feedback on your new line will gauge how it will be received by your larger audience. These customers already love you and want your brand to succeed.
On the other hand, if you are trying to take a new direction or enter a different market, you’ll want to start by creating a profile of your new target customers. The new target market will likely have a different demographic distribution than the original brand.
Building a persona that fits this new market will help you pinpoint the best strategies that will work best to help you successfully launch your new line.
Writing a Positioning Statement
A positioning statement succinctly defines your product or service, your target customers, and how it meets the needs of this audience.
This is useful both externally and internally. You can put a version of it on your website and marketing materials, and share it with stakeholders and teams in marketing, sales, and support.
It’s similar to a value proposition, but it dives deeper into the brand identity, purpose, and what makes it unique. So it will answer questions like: Who do you serve? What do you offer them? How do you deliver it? What is your mission and why? How does your product compare to its competitors?
As an example, here’s Nike’s positioning statement: “For athletes who need high-quality and stylish sportswear, Nike offers customers high-performance athletic wear and shoes made from the finest materials. Its products are the most advanced in the sportswear industry due to Nike’s commitment to innovation and investment in the latest technologies.”
Understanding Your Competitors
How do your competitors position their product or service? Who are their customers? Where and how do they promote this audience?
Knowing your competitors’ strategies provides insights into how to approach your product development. Use this information to identify potential customers and the best marketing channels to reach them. Study the content and formats competitors use to achieve their goals. Then consider incorporating them, but in your brand’s voice and style.
Of course, this is easier when there is a level playing field. Competing against giants is tough, but definitely possible; it just requires creativity.
Imagine trying to compete with a popular product like this:
While it may seem challenging, it is certainly possible. Here’s what one small business owner decided to do to compete in this tough market:
“We’ve had epic wins and catastrophic failures with launching new products. We sell boring household products dominated by global brands like Clorox, 3M, and Rubbermaid. Instead of battling Goliaths head-on, our process is finding a gap that these giants consider too small to bother with,” explains Jay John, a marketer at The Crown Choice.
“Instead of creating another boring broom, we identify who we want to sell to, what the target customer is currently buying the most, and then we add features to increase perceived value, such as a handle that doesn’t easily break or folds for easy storage.”
“These products still sell strong because we’re not trying to sell to everyone. By keeping our product launches narrow and focused, the big competitors don’t creep into our space, and the small competitors can’t either.”
Creating
Market Access Plan
The market access strategy is a roadmap for reaching potential buyers through multiple touchpoints and gaining a competitive edge. It is a plan for engaging with potential customers across various channels from awareness to purchase.
A market access strategy should include:
- Identifying where potential customers are online
- Developing a web presence
- Creating social media profiles
- Building email lists and email campaigns
- Establishing partnerships with influencers
- Launching events
- Providing incentives to increase traffic
- Measuring success using analytics tools
The goal of any market access strategy is to increase sales while reducing costs. You’ll need to be strategic in selecting the tactics you choose based on your budget, resources, and current performance metrics. For example, if you’re not seeing much growth, you may decide to focus more on paid advertising instead of investing in organic search engine optimization.
Creating a Promotional Plan
The success of a product launch heavily relies on its marketing: the more people know about it, the greater the chances of selling it. But to achieve optimal results, you need to promote and launch your product.
After conducting market and customer research, use it to develop a marketing campaign.
Here’s what you should do:
- Define your budget and launch day
- Choose the media you will use (social media, podcasts, guest blogs, paid ads)
- Select the offer (buy one get one free, freebies, discounts)
- Consider partnerships (social media influencers, affiliates, non-competing brands)
- Launch promotions in advance (at least two months ahead)
- Measure reach and conversions (waitlist sign-ups, email subscriptions, pre-orders)
- Optimize your strategy to increase reach and conversions (changing channels; testing offers and ad copy)
And don’t forget your biggest supporters – your current customers.
“Your loyal customers are crucial when it comes to promoting the product, as they are more likely to buy it and also spread the word to their networks,” says Adam Fard, founder of Adam Fard UX Agency.
“This can be achieved through a special pre-launch party, either in-person or virtual, in addition to an online tour or sneak peek or demo. Alternatively, there may be a specific invitation to try it out and provide feedback. Those personalized gifts show your appreciation for loyal customers and also help to maintain their loyalty.”
Creating Buzz
When launching a new collection, you don’t have to reveal everything all at once. Creating buzz around your new product will generate excitement and make people talk about it before it hits the market.
Instagram, in particular, is a great platform for giving customers a sneak peek of what’s to come without revealing everything all at once. You can achieve this through behind-the-scenes photos (before the launch of the new product or collection) and teaser images, like this post from Adidas:
Take a look at this post on Instagram:
Doing a countdown for your new product launch is another way to build excitement. Use a plugin or app like Countdown Timer or Hurrify to install a countdown clock on your Shopify store. To build excitement in-store, you can place a countdown on a chalkboard or using digital signage.
Building Relationships with Influencers
Modern consumers tend to rely more on online customer reviews and word-of-mouth referrals when making decisions about the products they purchase. Therefore, it makes sense for them to be more interested in buying your new product if they hear about it from a real person.
This is why reaching out to influencers is a good way to reach your target audience and build brand trust. These relationships can take various forms:
- Free product: For smaller influencers or influencers who are already big fans of your brand, it may be enough to give them a free product in exchange for coverage of your new collection.
- Advertising
- Paid: For some individuals, being an influencer is a full-time job. Established influencers may have a standard rate for promoted posts on their social media accounts and blogs.
- Brand Ambassadors: Brand ambassador programs can vary significantly. Some may provide ambassadors with a steady stream of products alongside new line launches. Others offer a beneficial platform for mutual promotion between the brand and the ambassador. Regardless of the details, this model represents a formal long-term partnership between the influencer and the brand.
Promoting it to Your Email List
Using your email list to inform your customers about your upcoming product launch allows you to track useful statistics, such as open rates. Additionally, you’re reaching an already engaged audience with minimal effort. By using your email list to announce a new line, you gain the ability to provide customers with more details about the
Source: https://www.shopify.com/retail/new-product-launch
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