How To Build Online Hype For A New Product Launch
When you’re developing a new product, it’s important that you build a bit of hype around it before launch day so you can hit the ground running. If you don’t do that and you just launch it out of nowhere, sales are going to be slow. But if you get people excited about it so they’re counting down the days until they can buy it, you’ll see a good return on your investment in the first few weeks and months. If you’re in the process of developing a new product for your business, you need to start doing these things to get people excited about it.
Identify The Market Segment
Your market segment isn’t necessarily the same as your target market and it’s important to make that distinction. You need to think about which of your existing customers are likely to be interested in the new product. For example, if you’re a shoe manufacturer that sells a wide range of products, you’ll have a lot of different demographics buying your products. If your new product is a men’s running trainer, you’re not going to make any sales to your existing female customers or any male customers that aren’t very athletic. Before you start marketing the product, you need to work out exactly who you need to be targeting, otherwise, you’ll end up wasting resources targeting people that are never going to be interested in your product.
Invest In Digital Marketing
Social media is by far the best way to build hype around a product. You might have seen a recent Netflix documentary about the infamous Fyre festival. If you haven’t, it was an exclusive and very expensive music festival on an island that was hyped for months on social media. But the actual reality was a complete disaster, the acts all canceled and all of the things that were advertised never materialised. The organisers of the festival ending up facing criminal charges. I’m not suggesting you follow that example but it just goes to show how powerful social media hype can be once people start sharing things with their friends. When you’re in the process of developing a new product, you need to invest in a digital marketing agency to help you start building interest. You can try to do it on your own but gaining that traction online is a difficult thing to do so it’s usually best to hire professionals.
Tell The Story On Your Blog
People engage well with a story that they can follow. If you just keep posting information about the release date of the product and nothing else, people will lose interest. Hopefully, you’re already using a blog to promote your business and you should tell the story of your new product on there. Keep your customers up to date with the development of the product as you go along. For example, write posts about prototype testing and changes that you’re making, post pictures of the meetings that you’re having and the manufacturing process, and ask your customers for their input. If people are following the story from the initial idea all the way to the finished product, they’ll feel like they’re a part of it and they’ll want to buy it when it is eventually released.
If you don’t build hype around your product, the launch will be a big anti-climax and it’ll take months to get sales going.
