I know you've seen the big guys to them - we've all had that series of seemingly endless emails in our inbox when it seems that just about everyone is promoting a particular product or event.
Of course, what I mean here is product launches, and I want to give my own marketing lessons from the first product launch I ran.
But why are they so big? Well, it isn't confined to internet marketing - think about the buzz around the latest apple product - product launches really do work. And the reason is really simple- they convert. The excitement and the scarcity created by the time limited nature of it means that more purchases come your way than if you had a simple 'products' tab on your website.
And the effect is just multiplied when you get a bunch of affiliate partners behind them.
So when I wanted to get my latest digital product out there I decided to use the same model. I've done a lot of training and I understand what's behind it - the idea of drip-fed videos or content over a few days, building up to a sales page or a big opt-in. But was it really as simple as just putting the content on line and letting it go live?
For me, the big learning was around video. I'm fairly new at video and I've done a few screen cast videos before but the whole to-camera stuff was new for me. And it wasn't quite as easy as I thought - getting the sound right, not too much background noise was a huge challenge!
But the big lessons for me were more about the internal stuff and how you need to manage the process. Here's my top four...
Get help right from the start. It might well be the case that you can do it all but there are a couple of reasons why you'll want to bring in someone to help you. First of all it's simple economics - while you probably can do it all, it might not be the best use of your time. Second of all, if, like most of us, you're a solopreneur, then just having someone around can make the whole process a lot more fun and a lot less stressful. Expect problems - especially technical ones! Well of course with anything new there are going to be problems. And with anything on the internet these are very likely to be technical ones. If you expect them to happen at some point then they don't seem so huge when they do happen. And if you have someone with you along the way then likelihood is that he or she can help you out or at least help you figure out where to go for help. You know that saying a problem shared is a problem halved? In this case it really does apply! Manage your energy. With all this anticipation and all the learning you're going through there will be even more highs and lows in your energy levels. It all starts off exciting and there's a real thrill in doing something new. But then it seems to take longer, or you run into roadblocks and you wonder whether it's ever going to get off the ground. It will, believe me. Expect the timescale to double. And then there's the timing. I don't know about doubling but don't tie yourself into a crazy short timescale. Have a sketch plan but then expect it to change. And at the other extreme, don't allow it to go on for too long. At some point it's got to go live - just run with it and see how it looks - you can always change it later!These are my lessons. And I think the biggest piece of advice I could pass on entrepreneur to entrepreneur is really just go to for it. I had to start somewhere and you have to too.
So ask yourself where can you implement even a mini-launch in your business? What have you got that you can get your list or your social media contacts excited about? And then feed some content out over the course of a few days and see what happens. You will definitely learn something and you'll get the confidence to do it again with improvements!
Oh, and if you want to check out my launch version 1.0 it's over at http://momentumthinking.com
Successful Product Launching
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