The process of product launch in any industry, even with a known brand, comes with a lot of uncertainties. Let us clarify this for you with a fact! Approximately 10,000 new products make their way into the consumer and packaged goods industry alone. And within the duration of 2 years, nearly 85% of these items are put into the category of failure and are scrapped. Isn’t that scary?

Let’s face it – There is no hard and fast rule to capture the heart of the audience. But there are few methods to understand who your target audience is and how you can reach them. Learning the latest product launch practices will give you relevant insights into how to make your product launch an infallible success. So without further ado, delve under this article, explore these practices and let yourself fetch all the answers.

First things first, before executing the actual launch process, you have to ensure that you have followed a seamless pre-launch strategy which includes:

1. Give enough time to understand the product in full depth.
   

2. Gather the team and understand the problem that you are trying to solve.
   

3. In short, get to know the pain points of the target audience and how your product can help them.
   

Besides the product manager, the marketer should be the most erudite person with that particular thing.

Ensure that you have enough resources to carry out the launch process. If your new product can be linked to the existing product line, you can use fewer resources for the launch process. See if you have enough human resources within the organization to manage the process. If not, you will have to opt for external resources.

You can invest in technology that can fasten up your process. For instance – email marketing software handles the time-consuming task of reaching out to the whole email list. In this way, you can put all your focus on other essential activities.  

Now, let’s dive into the insights on best practices of product launch.

Collect actionable data – To effectively target the audience, you need to have a robust database about the purchase history, sharing history, and wishlists of the customers. As per the experts, A/B testing, also known as split testing, helps pinpoint the demographics accurately, leading to an 80% higher trial rate and 17% higher repeat purchase rate.  

No wonder that the consumers of today are constantly in search of a highly relevant and personalized shopping experience. And you can create that loyalty among the customers through personalized marketing. It includes specific offers based on past purchases, proximity, and purchase frequency of the consumers.

Engage new customers – A successful product launch is not only about making more sales. It is also about convincing shoppers and turning them into loyal customers.

Let us tell you an interesting fact here! It takes nearly eight purchases for a trial buyer to stick to a particular brand. Therefore, do not put an end to your marketing efforts once the purchase is made. Indulge in the practices like emails, social media management, and retargeting ads to maintain engagement among the consumers.

Get the answers to a few questions. For example – Is it necessary to introduce another offer to fuel the next sale? Is there any complimentary product that can spice up the product usage for the buyers? If you deliver the answers to this aftermarket information through email, call or text, it can be a key differentiator in your marketing efforts.

Reward loyal customers - If you want to drive more and more consumers, then you have to adopt something unique. You can begin conducting the loyalty programs. Or, in accordance with the information mentioned at www.shopsmart.com.au, you can go for distributing digital loyalty cards to the customers. This works as an added incentive for you.

Additionally, in this techno-friendly world, you can give the facility to the customers to digitally manage these reward cards in their smartphone with the help of a loyalty card e-wallet. This works positively towards retaining the buyers and achieving a higher return on investment.

An effective marketing strategy – Do you know that many brands make the blunder of heavy investment in the foremost year of promotion, but it loses more than half of all the buyers between the first and second purchase? Thus, it is needless to say that you have to adopt an impeccable marketing strategy for the long term.

The strategy can include a combination of content marketing, collaboration with the influencers, and initiating a forum for customer interaction. These are just examples. There are numerous strategies that you can create to take your product a notch higher.

Evaluate the effectiveness of the launch plan – In addition to the launch process, evaluating the efficacy of the launch plan is also an imperative step in determining its success. So, what to do here? Keep a tab on key performance indicators so that you can take the success of your next product even higher. Moreover, look over the reviews of the satisfied and unsatisfied consumers. This will strengthen your future strategies.  

To add to it more, you can incentivize their feedback with a code or discount. Feedbacks make all the difference when it comes to having a lucrative product. This depicts that customers are supreme for you.

To sum it up all

Believe it or not, with the insights on practices as mentioned above, you are all set to excite the market with an excellent product. Ensure that your product provides the solution to the pain points of the audience. Spend enough time on researching, planning, and forecasting as it will ensure a better chance of a seamless launch. Be flexible to make the changes as per the inputs of your team and influencers.

Furthermore, collect plenty of information about successful and failed product launches to know the possible reasons for their consequences. Not to mention that every product launch is different, but the lesson you will learn through this information will significantly impact your approach towards the product launch.

Lastly, pay attention to the consumer habits as Charles Duhigg can’t be more right when he said –

“Consumer habits are key to understanding how to launch a product.”