The key questions entrepreneurs ask themselves before launching a product are “Will anyone want it?” and “How will potential customers learn about it?”. These dilemmas appear even after months or years of planning and crafting a product keeping your target audience’s needs and challenges in mind.
Sure, you know why a person may use your product, but, “Will they do so?” Unfortunately, there exist several distractions in a potential customer’s product adoption journey. From your competitors offering similar products to your marketing team unintentionally creating informational gaps, several factors are at play here.
As a result, potential customers lose focus. To help them regain it and channel it towards your offering is only possible if you create a buzz around your product well before its launch.
As soon as you realize that these challenges will come your way, you should start developing pre-launch content ideas to generate a refined focus on your product. These content ideas can range from releasing video content to running virtual competitions to throwing pre-launch parties. Remember, this is a critical step toward conversions.
So, what we beseech you to do is create a pre-launch checklist, or better yet, we have made one for you and request you to use it as a starter toolkit.
5 Pre-launch Content Ideas to Keep Users Engaged Before Product Launch
In simple words, here are the five things you need to do to create a buzz around your product before it even hits the market.
1. Start a Drip-Feed Campaign as Early as Possible
This is especially critical if you operate within the B2B space, where the adoption curve is longer because the learning curve is longer. Also, the inertia to switch from a competitor’s product to yours is slower.
Therefore, starting as early as possible, meaning deploying pre-launch content ideas well before launching the product, will help create anticipation for your product.
To do this, you must leverage your in-house email list or purchase one. Through mailing lists, you can start a drip marketing campaign that educates users about your product over time. Your drip campaign will be a set of pre-written messages that should ideally mention the following:
- The story behind your product
- The problems it solves
- Materials/technology/platforms used
- How have you sourced them?
- Pricing plans
- Why is it better than competitor offerings?
Try to personalize your drip campaign by getting the tone of your content right. Don’t only stick to sharing text-heavy content. Add videos, infographics, and any other forms of interactive media in your emails. Once you get creative with your drip emails, the possibilities are huge.
2. Create Engagement Using Influencer-Generated Pre-Launch Content
Influencer marketing is a fast-growing marketing strategy and can have a huge impact on creating a buzz about your product. Online influencers are individuals from all walks of life who have established their thought authority on a particular social or professional media platform.
So, they routinely post on their handles and have hundreds, thousands, and sometimes millions of followers who trust them. Today, influencer marketing works like virtual word-of-mouth. Safe to say, if you engage the right set of influencers who share exciting content about your upcoming product, you will grab the eyeballs of your potential customers. However, for this, you must let influencers use your product for free.
Influencer marketing works especially well for niche products, as influencers are experts on niche topics and areas. This is why several B2B companies, such as software startups or e-commerce brands, forge paid or unpaid partnerships with them to talk up their niche products.
In a nutshell, influencers are an excellent way to get a dialogue started about your product before its launch.
Case Study: IBM
IBM is a behemoth company with a workforce of over 20,000. They chose the ones with a significant social media standing as brand advocates. These “IBMers” (a title they identify themselves with) were encouraged to share thought authority content around IBM Verse before its launch.
IBM Verse is a business email and messaging experience that includes social analytics and advanced search capabilities. As a result, IBM Verse gained a whopping 50,000 subscriptions within two weeks of its launch.
3. Build a Free Press Kit
Building upon the thread of influencer marketing, the next step you must take is to get local or global publications to take notice of your product. To feature in top journals, magazines, or YouTube Channels, have a press kit ready to go.
This will pique the interest of your potential customers, who may seek you out before or soon after the actual launch.
Here is what this kit must include:
- Brand Introduction
- Product Description
- Free product samples
- Possible product FAQs
- Introduction to team members
- Details of previous press releases or any other media coverage
- Awards won (if any)
- CSR or any other charity work
- Details of pilot studies
- Brand vision, mission, and values
“Clearly and succinctly lay out what makes your brand special in the category: What are you doing that the competition isn’t? Are you offering the consumer greater value? Are you more sustainable? Are you creating a new category?”
– CEO and Founder of Bonny, Jessica Postiglione
4. Create SEO-friendly Pre-Launch Content
Several businesses use SEO-forward content marketing only for launched products. But this cost-effective tool works just as well for user-engagement pre-launch.
You can partner with a content marketing company to work out a pre-launch content marketing strategy. With their keen insight and ready writing skills, you can quickly start churning content on platforms where it will be seen and engaged with. This will organically boost engagement.
Now, long-form content, like blogs and case studies, works exceptionally well, especially if you operate within the B2B domain. But, don’t restrict your pre-launch content ideas to these two mediums alone. Sure, invest in outsourcing long-form content creation, but then use this repository to publish and distribute content through relevant channels, like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or any special academic portals your target audience keeps in regard.
Here are a few pre-launch content ideas to draw engagement before the product launch.
- Repurpose your blogs into video content and intriguing infographics for social media.
- Create and release teasers for social media. You can do it the way Samsung did.
Samsung engaging potential users before product launch | Source
Publish guest posts for backlinks. Doing this will drive organic to your website or blog site.
Make sure your web landing pages carry a short copy along with an image hinting at an impending launch.
Post captivating explainer videos if you are willing to virtually flaunt the product.
5. Host a Pre-Launch Event
A pre-launch event is a way for brands to invite their target industry’s key players and decision-makers, which is otherwise very difficult. So, if you can invest some money towards hosting a pre-launch party or event, your chances of getting important entities excited about your product go up.
What’s more, you don’t even have to throw a soiree. Handpick 50-odd influential people, including industry influencers, and present your product video to them.
Engaging a focused group of people will, in turn, lead to a large-scale engagement for your upcoming offerings.
At the end of your presentation, gently inform them of the action you need them to take, perhaps post the pics of the event on their social or professional media handles, and show other key personnel the product. Basically, tell them what you need and why you need their help.
But if an offline event is not possible, consider hosting a webinar. You can provide live demos during the event and get people to sign up for free trials.
Bonus: Do This Right After The Product Launch
While these are the five pre-launch ideas, you must also know what to do right after the launch. Here is a brief list of the same.
- Incentivize early adopters
- Gather feedback and fine-tune your product
- Continue offering free samples
Before we go, bear in mind that creating hype pre-launch with the help of the aforementioned five tactics will not only keep users engaged but will also infuse product and brand familiarity in the market. This can have a massive impact on your overall sales and revenue.