5 Tips for a Successful First Product Launch

The launch of your first product can be quite nerve-racking. You invest your sweat equity into creating an excellent product, have tested it for its practicality and usability, and now you want people to give their opinion on your efforts. An important thing to keep in mind at this point is that a failed first product can make things doubly difficult for you in future if you wish to launch more products. This is why you want to do all you can to ensure your first product goes smoothly. Here are some tips to help you make your first product launch a success:

1. Does it Work? Test it!

The first step to launching any service or product into the market is to make sure that it works. You have to take your product through all the necessary testing before it’s in a usable form. It’s also worth noting that your product needs to be tested by experts as well as from the perspective of a consumer’s point of view. When third-party experts test a product, they go into the details, technicalities, and intricacies that you might have overlooked. On the other hand, consumers use products for day-to-day use, and that’s the experience you have to target and make smooth. No matter how refined your product is, your target audience will reject it if it does not offer a smooth experience when using it regularly.

2. No Need for Perfection

Many times, issues are not with the product itself but in the mentality of those launching it. Often, business owners attempt to perfect their product before they launch it. While it’s true that your product should be in a usable form when launched, it’s not at all practical to make it perfect on its launch day. (Even the best smartphones of today did not start in the form you see now.) This concept is called an MVP, a minimum viable product. This means that it meets the minimum of what consumers want, without wasting time perfecting features that haven’t even been tested yet. What you need to realize is that customers will use the product anyway and then give their feedback on what they like or don’t like. Based on their feedback, you can perfect your product.

3. Create a Buzz

Whether you have an ongoing project or one you’re about to launch, the most important thing to do to captivate the masses is to use your marketing channels effectively. The first thing you want to do is create a page just for the product on various social networking platforms well before the launch of the product. This is one way to encourage people to anticipate your product before its launch. Another thing to do is to create a blog post or press release to talk about your product, and more importantly, use influencers to spread the word. However, when talking about your product before its launch, you have to be sure to highlight the problem you are solving and the solution you are about to deliver. Don’t promise things that your product won’t be able to deliver on.

4. Use Inventive Marketing Tactics

In addition to just marketing your product, you have to think of unique ways to pique interest. First, you want to reward people that have been sticking with you through the launching period. For example, you could launch a free giveaway campaign and hand out free samples on the launch day. Another idea is to give free samples to people who have the most unique and interesting comments on your Facebook product page.

One effective marketing tactic is to introduce the idea of scarcity. You can state that your product will not be available forever or only in unlimited quantities at the launch. This will make people push hard to get their hands on your product during its launch. You can introduce scarcity by offering a certain part of the product for only a few days. Apple and Google do this by launching a particular color for their smartphones in only limited quantities, for example.

5. Always Use Analytics

When you launch a product, you want to know how successful the launch was. Not only that, but you also want to know which parts of the launch were most successful. In fact, you should be analyzing your launch throughout the process. This can be done using project management software, which gives you clear insight into what’s working at your launch and what’s not. A successful product launch depends greatly on how you have mobilized your teams and utilized their skills and talents. In a similar way, use analytical software tools post-launch to understand the effectiveness of your various marketing campaigns.

The Bottom Line

You want to fuel your first product launch with your best efforts. Issues at any part of the launch can result in failure, and in today’s competitive market, your first impression is sometimes the last impression. You should take advantage of effective project management to ensure your product launch is successful. From conception and design to deliverance, your entire project management cycle will be most effective if it’s implemented by the use of latest software technological tools and effective analytics.