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Ultimate Product Launch Marketing Plan for Startups

Updated on June 17, 2021

7 Min Read
Startup-launch-plan-marketing

The most important time in a startup’s life cycle is its launch. If you think that you can get through to this stage without having a product launch marketing plan then your startup idea might end up being your nightmare.

The most important aspect of a startup product launch strategy is how you will go about marketing your product at the launch stage.

The product launch marketing plan is a part of the ‘Product Launch Plan’.

What is a Product Launch Plan?

A product launch plan is a documented summary of ideas, activities, and processes a company uses to release its product in the market.

The product launch plan also includes pre-launch market research, beta testing plan, and user onboarding plan.

Why Prepare a Product Launch Marketing Plan?

A product launch plan consists of strategies and procedures a company may use to develop communication channels for its target audience.

A marketing plan helps you target your potential customers, their channels of information and ways to target them. Your whole business is dependent on a solid digital marketing strategy and requires planning and timely execution at its launch stage. Having a product launch plan helps you in:

  • Evaluating the effectiveness of your product launch marketing strategy.
  • Listing resources you will need to put in place your plan.
  • Knowing your customers and your competitors.
  • Describing your business and its products and services.
  • Identifying the marketing approaches you will use.

A Complete Marketing Plan for Your Startup Success

Elements of a Product Launch Plan

After analyzing some of the successful new product launches, we have come up with very specific elements to include while designing marketing plan for new product launch.

1. The Intent of Your Business

In this phase, you must figure out what your business intent s to meet. During the course of defining your marketing strategies, you must develop action-oriented insights into why your business is more dependable. By doing this, you are helping your customers to know your business better.

2. Identify the Potential Audience

The market is like an ocean of potential customers willing to buy a product; but what makes you think that they will buy your product as well?

First, you have to identify which category of consumers you are targeting. A detailed description of these categories would make your efforts worth it. You should describe the target audience in detail to have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to achieve.

Once this is done, test the effectiveness of your pitch and product viability. Building your product can take an incredible amount of money and resources. You can however build a quick MVP with online website builder tools that can bring down the cost of building your website.

3. Know Your Competitors

You must keep in focus that your competitor does not want you there because they might not welcome challenges. And not everyone wants you playing in the big league. Mind it. Coming up with an original idea will help you stand out and be prominent in a market full of saturated ideas.

More often than not, startups don’t spend much time to test their competitors. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses with a strong analysis of your competitors can give you a head start.

4. Solid Brand Positioning Statement

Your brand and what it intends to do for the customers will be an integral part of your marketing arsenal. This can be your strongest competitive advantage. A simple yet comprehensive statement of how you will meet your customers’ needs while edging out the competitors can do wonders for you.

The positioning statement with a target-oriented approach to solving problems is a better approach than those with wayward vision.

5. Conduct Beta Tests

After your product has hit the market, conduct tests and ask people for feedback. You should run these tests through actual customers. Ask them what is wrong with your product. How you can improve it further? Eric Ries from Lean Startup says that by conducting public beta tests they were able to bring a product to the market that the public actually wanted.

You should note that your customers see the product from another perspective that your team may not be able to provide.

6. Create and Perfect Your Pitching Deck

Once your MVP is ready, prepare a pitch deck to pitch investors in pitching sessions. Startup experts recommend that a pitch deck should not have more than 19 cards. In fact, we have a complete guide about preparing a pitch deck for you that can help investors understand your startup within the minimum time period.

Peter Thiel, the author of Zero to One and the Co-founder of Paypal advice to prepare two pitch decks. One you will use to pitch to investors during the sessions. It will have more visuals. Prepare a second pitch deck that has more detailed information. You will send it to investors and attendees through email. This will help them (especially the attendees) about the scope of your product. And, maybe the investors who may not have understood your idea in the pitching session become interested in it after reviewing its potential.

Here is a fine example of AirBnB Pitch Deck from Malcolm Lewis. Also, check out this inspirational resource containing 17 pitch deck templates from the best of the startups.

7. Participate in Startup Competitions

So, you have prepared a pitching deck. Now what? Participate in pitching competitions. Jodi Goldstein provides some golden rules for founders, they should follow to enter competitions.

Here is a summary but you can read the whole article on Forbes.

  • Don’t go pitching blindly: Make sure you read the terms of the competition. There are many pitching sessions that would want a stake in your startup just for PITCHING!
  • What benefit does pitching offer you? Before pitching in the session, evaluate the pros and cons of the competition. There is one rule of thumb. If the competition offers benefits even if you lose then you should apply. Otherwise, stay away. Benefits can be anything from networking with investors to meeting more partners and co-founders. Etc. But the benefits should be measurable.
  • Keep control of the pitch: Yes these are experts that you are pitching to, but it is your startup. So, keep control of the pitch. Don’t be afraid if they say that your startup lacks potential or it isn’t going to solve the problem or something similar. Just be confident and boldly say that you are confident that your product can solve it. Pitching sessions aren’t about debating or arguments. The investors are just trying to check if you have potential.

In the end, pitching sessions aren’t just about finding investors but marketing your business. Who knows maybe you can get customers from these sessions.

8. Identify Platforms to Announce Startup Product Launch

While the above two points are a necessary part of the product launch marketing plan, they relate to investor pitches and funding. Not all startups are lucky enough to get funds and most of them are bootstrapped. But even with a bootstrapped startup, you can spread the word through launching platforms such as Product Hunt, Beta List, Hacker News, and many others.

Each of these new product launch platforms has its terms and conditions. Do ensure to read them before submitting your product to avoid getting banned.

We got really good traction by launching Cloudways Startup Program on Product Hunt. You should try it as well.

Cloudways-Product-Hunt

9. Promote through Announcement Sites and Press Releases

Similarly, you can promote your startup through press releases and announcement websites. Though online press release submission websites have now lost their charm, they are still relevant for a new product launch marketing plan. Why? Because these can send signals to search engines and even help get the word out among journalistic circles – these efforts combined benefit the digital marketing strategy for product launch.

Yes, we also do it!

Cloudways-PR

Tips for Writing a Press Release:

  • Write an attractive Headline
  • Tell your (startup) story
  • Describe briefly
  • Write in the inverted pyramid style
  • Don’t forget to add your contact information

Identifying Marketing Strategies

Now that you have to figure out ways to reach your customers. Apart from the conventional approaches like print and broadcast media, we have put together a small list of some digital marketing channels that may benefit your business.

Social Media

Social media is the face of modern-day marketing. It has become a crucial part of any business’ marketing plan because you can target a wider audience, which in turn may lead to potential customers. Through social media, budding entrepreneurs and startups can either make it or break it. You must focus on smaller goals by following a systematic approach.

This is the era of social media and digital marketing and it’s vital to analyze your worth on social media. An attractive blog site, an active Facebook and Twitter page can serve as weapons for your social media artillery.

Learn to Effectively Use Social Media to Generate Leads

Email Marketing

Email marketing, indeed a tried-and-tested concept, is an effective and popular medium of promotion and marketing for many startups. Organizations can employ email marketing techniques to amplify their business’ reach. In addition to this, newsletters, promotional emails, and campaign emails can surely help the cause further.

Email Marketing Guide that Will Help You With Growth

Blog Strategy

No business can survive without an active blog today. It’s considered a building block of modern marketing. It helps in amplifying a company’s social positioning and promoting the brand. Maintaining and regularly updating your blog with helpful and useful articles will help keep visitors coming to your blog and get familiar with your business.

SEO and Link Building

Systematic SEO schemas can help in a number of ways to improve your web presence, digital PR, blog, and social media marketing activities. A strong SEO strategy can help in extending the content and have a better impact on your potential customers.

A Complete Guide to SEO Optimized Startup Website

Online Advertising

Advertising is key. First, you have to get familiar with your brand and then you can advertise it to the proper audience and your target market. By targeting your audience and advertising the appropriate messages to them, you can woo them and amplify your business.

Product Launch Marketing Checklist:

  • Develop a story behind the product launch
  • Prepare a launch plan
  • Define your success metrics
  • Identify marketing channels for launch
  • Successfully finish the Beta testing
  • Select your product launch date
  • Communicate the product launch with all the employees
  • Outreach journalists (PR)
  • Get the creatives ready
  • Prepare for the launch event (if any)
  • Plan social media posts and articles about the product launch
  • Place lead magnets on your website/blog

Your Time Starts Now!

When you are running a startup, following your gut feeling is not always a nice idea. You must have a well-documented plan to go about things.

By following this product launch marketing plan, you will definitely find your way to a successful launch and you will be able to seek the attention of your target audience. Make sure that you keep these valuable points in focus before you start your entrepreneurial journey.

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Arsalan Sajid

Arsalan, a Digital Marketer by profession, works as a Startups and Digital Agencies Community Manager at Cloudways. He loves all things entrepreneurial and wakes up every day with the desire to enable the dreams of aspiring entrepreneurs through his work!

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