16 Tactics You Can Use for Marketing a New Product
Quick Navigation
Product marketing starts with idea conception. You may think product marketing ends after a launch, but it doesn’t. Promotion lasts for as long as you offer and sell a product to the public. But early promotion can help you maximize sales and audience retention as you move further away from the launch. There are seemingly endless possibilities for how you can market a new product, so we’ve gathered a few options to review so you can find out which ones work best for your company.
12 Effective Channels To Market Your New Product
Promotional channels are the actual posts, content, and hosting sites you use to market your product. Here are 12 examples of channels you can use when trying to sell a new item or service:
1. Exclusive Preview
Exclusive previews are offered only to select customers or subscribers. They let your most loyal followers and audience members get the chance to see what you’re releasing before it’s available to the general public. You may also target a particular group because they’re most likely to buy a new product you release.
You can create your exclusive preview in a variety of formats. Consider in-person or virtual pre-launch parties, plant tours, or product demos. You may also send out special test packages or samples of the product to get feedback from your most loyal customers and let them share their experiences on social media.
2. Introductory Offers
You may make a product available as an introductory offer instead of marketing it on its own. For example, this could work well if you run a subscription service. Instead of adding a new product to your line, you might offer it as a special gift for new subscribers or renewing customers. There are other ways to promote a product as an introductory offer, such as:
- Providing discount pricing
- Offering joint promotion with a complementary service
- Adding a voucher for the product with purchase
- Introducing a buy-one-get-one-free deal
- Adding additional points to a customer’s loyalty program for purchase
- Offering the product as a gift for referrals
- Bundling or packaging the product with another product for reduced rates
You can offer these types of promotions for a limited time. By suggesting limitations around purchasing time or quantity, you introduce an urgency that may generate sales.
Image via Unsplash by @homajob
3. Google My Business Promotions
Google My Business is a great tool for getting more information about your company onto organic search engine results pages (SERPs). You can use the application’s dashboard to create an “Offer” or “What’s new” post. Either may be appropriate for new product marketing. “What’s new” posts may be better for announcing things like product launches or sharing information about new products. These posts expire every seven days. You can continue to post the same updates every week or create new ones to test a fresh approach.
“Offer” posts work better for coupons and deals. You can set the time and duration for how long these promotions run. It may be most effective to use pictures and a call to action to draw attention to your posts. You can also upload photos of your promotions to your Google My Business profile and have them appear in the photos tab or the products and services tab of the listing.
4. Contests and Giveaways
Contests on your website and social media can be a fun way to connect with customers. You may hold a social media contest or a product giveaway before launch to help generate interest. Taking part in this type of event can make people feel like the contest is exclusive, which may increase the desire to join. It’s a good idea to announce the content across all your channels, not just the social media platform where it’s running. You can also put it in your email newsletter, put it on your website, or even pay for ads across the internet.
5. Email Marketing
Email marketing is helpful for promoting new products because your subscribers have already consented to hear from you. You can run an email campaign specifically about your new product or include it in another contact, like a newsletter. If you segment your email list, you can use those groupings to your advantage. Consider sending the letter to just a specific subset of customers, like those enrolled in your rewards program.
6. Blog Posts
If you don’t have a landing page to promote new products on your website, a blog post can be a substitute. Written content lets you go in depth with the details, benefits, and features of a launch that you’d add to a landing page. You can then share the blog post through emails or link back to it on social media. Need help to get started with blogging? CopyPress is up to the task! Set up a call today to learn all about how our content writing services can help you stand out among competitors.
7. Events
Events can be a great way to get people excited about a new product. You can hold events online or in person. They can range from big product launch parties to small things like information sessions and open houses. You may also collaborate with events in your geographic area. If your business is part of a larger business district, you may join in for community day, a parade, or another type of sponsored event. This could help you access a larger crowd than you might otherwise get for just a solo event.
Online event options may include hosting live sessions on social media, product question-and-answer sessions, or collaborating with influencers for a joint venture.
8. Upgrades
Upgrades may work well for service-based businesses. You can provide complimentary or temporary upgrades for existing customers to try something new with something they already use. For example, a spa may offer upgrades for new hot towel services or the use of special oils during a massage. These may be free upgrades when they’re first introduced or for a limited time, but they can become an exclusive paid feature later.
9. Trade-Ins
Letting people trade in their old products for new ones is another way to promote new products. Trade-in programs are effective because people feel like they’re getting a deal by exchanging something they already have for something new. This is a popular technique in places like car dealerships and electronics stores. You may resell the trade-in product to other customers for a discount. You may also use them as giveaway prizes or even sell them for parts.
10. Customer Reviews
Let people who have already tried your product do the work for you. This initial customer review group might include people who tried things from your exclusive offers and the first people to purchase after launch. Ask customers to write online reviews, provide video clips, or to contribute to your testimonials. For digital marketing, online reviews are like personal recommendations or word-of-mouth marketing. People may be more likely to trust what another consumer rather than what the company says about a product.
11. Social Media Posts
Posting about your promotions on social media may sound like a common sense, but that’s because it’s a good way to reach your followers. People that follow your social media already care about what you do and what you’re selling. You can share pictures and posts about other channels like events and blog posts in this format. Social media also has the added benefits of a comments section. People can ask questions about the product which you can then answer, and they can share what they think about the details of an upcoming launch.
12. Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are just one type of paid advertising you can use to share your product promotions. You can make these types of ads highly personalized because they use community and personal profile data to curate the best target audience. This can help you get a super specific view of the types of people who may see your ads.
16 Tactics for Marketing a New Product
“Tactics” refers to the strategy you apply to your chosen channel or channels. Some tactics also help you prepare to create content for those channels. Here are 16 marketing tactics you can use when launching and selling a new product or service:
1. Tell a Story
Don’t just toss an advertisement up on the internet and hope people notice it. Instead, take your customers on a journey. Use storytelling with your social media or blog posts to share information about the product, its creation process, and its features. This helps draw the customers to the product and become interested in it. You might personify the product to tell its own story. You may also tell an origin story of how you came to create it or provide a fictional scenario of how it could make a difference in your customers’ lives.
The specifics of the story itself aren’t the focus of the technique. As long as it’s interesting to your target audience and tells them how or why using the product is in their best interest, it’s a solid approach to marketing a new product.
2. Study Your Competition
Make a list of businesses that offer products or services similar to the ones you plan to launch. Even if you have a list of reasons why your product is unique, there’s likely at least one other product out there that’s similar. When deciding which competitors to analyze, think about the size of the companies, locations, target audience, and the products or services offered. Your best competition may be the ones most similar to you in those categories and some of the most popular names and brands in the industry.
Once you decide which businesses to look at, become familiar with their practices. Review their ads, marketing materials, and websites for information. Study the products they offer and how they sell them to the public. This can help you see how your plans compare to what’s already offered.
3. Know Your Target Audience
Focusing on the prospects you feel are most likely to make a purchase can help you launch your product with the least amount of financial output. These may be customers who already shop with you or those who are likely to purchase if you introduce something new. The best prospects may have a need for what you offer and can afford it. Knowing what audiences look for when shopping can also help with your launch. It may be easier to address an existing need than to convince people to purchase something without a pre-established market.
4. Create a Unique Value Proposition
Value proposition is knowing the unique details that make your product or service attractive to customers. Figure out what makes your product different from the things that are already on the market. Then decide why those features appeal to the public. These are areas you can take to your marketing channels and talk up to consumers.
5. Define Your Strategy and Tactics
Creating an actual plan that lists your strategies and tactics can make promotion easier. First, decide which channels to use. Multichannel marketing often works best. Consider picking channels your target audience visits the most and where they’re receptive to advertisements and promotions. You may also choose to supplement your digital marketing with traditional marketing so you can reach offline audiences as well.
6. Test Your Concepts
Test your products and marketing tactics before you spend a lot of money on a campaign. Use focus groups, discussions, and online research to learn what people look for in new products. You can also run marketing campaign A/B tests to discover which elements get you the most conversions. This can help you see if you’re reaching the right people. If you find you need to make changes, you can do so and run more tests before proceeding with a full campaign.
7. Roll Out Your Campaign
After all your planning and testing, it’s time for your campaign to make its debut. How and where you roll out the campaign may determine the visibility and attention your new product receives. You may try a media relations tactic that includes sharing press releases, agreeing to interviews, and getting coverage from traditional media channels like news stations and magazines.
You may also choose to hold a launch event and build your own publicity. Using a combination of paid and free promotional methods may enhance your reach while saving you some money. Monitoring your campaign rollouts can help you learn about what works well and what you can improve for the next one.
8. Know the Product’s Life Cycle
Your product launch is just the beginning of its life cycle. You’ll likely continue to run campaigns for it or promote it beyond the initial launch. Understanding the life cycle can help you choose which marketing channels and tactics to use as the product matures. Predicting how this life cycle works may help you prepare for the ways you’ll keep it in front of the public in the future.
9. Increase Organic Visibility
When engaging in digital marketing, it’s a good idea to work on your search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to increase organic visibility. Your Google My Business posts and updates are one way to do this. Other factors to optimize on your website and social media profiles include:
- Keywords: During your research, find out which keywords your competitors’ products rank for and see if they work for your launch as well. Describe your products using these words to get your materials to rank higher in SERPs.
- Meta descriptions: These summaries of your webpage appear in SERPs and help search engines figure out how to rank your content. They’re short, usually less than or equal to 160 characters, so that the entire thing fits in a preview window.
- First paragraphs: A page’s first paragraph helps readers and search engines understand what the rest of the content on the page is about. This is where you can list the most important information about your product to get it higher in the right rankings.
10. Create Shareable Content
Creating shareable content is a good way to get your readers and others on the internet to do some of your promotional work for you. Different types of media may qualify as shareable content, such as articles, graphics, and memes. The type of shareable content you create may depend on which promotional channels you use. For example, you might use static images for sharing on Instagram and blog posts when sharing on Facebook.
11. Use Remarketing
Remarketing, also called re-targeting, is a type of digital marketing that pushes ads out to people who have visited a specific website or page without taking a certain action. It’s called remarketing because it’s a bit like a second chance for you to reach the customer and try to get them to make a conversion.
For example, you could display a remarketing ad to someone who visits your online store and puts items in the cart but doesn’t make the purchase. As a whole, this tactic helps direct people through the sales funnel in the direction you want them to go.
12. Create a Recommendation System
If you’ve ever heard of referral services or affiliate marketing, a recommendation system is similar. Creating this type of referral system encourages people to give reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations to others. Creating a rewards program, affiliate marketing group, or other related system that benefits customers when they review products counts as this type of marketing tactic. Consider offering discount coupons, the opportunity to gather points, or the chance to qualify for perks like free shipping in order to incentivize customers to participate.
13. Optimize Website Speed
A reliable website speed can enhance your customer experience, your search engine results, and conversions. The faster your site loads, the better user experience you provide. To optimize your website speed, consider making your image file sizes smaller or fixing code behind the scenes to improve load times.
14. Establish Influencer Relationships
Influencer marketing is almost synonymous with social media marketing today. Influencers are the people others follow online simply because they feel they’re popular or knowledgeable within a certain niche. You can use this to your advantage. If customers view influencers as trustworthy, an influencer’s positive review of your product may persuade them to make a purchase.
You can find influencers who specialize in photography, videography, written content, and more. Though you enter business partnerships with influencers that require compensation, it’s helpful to look for people who already like and use your products. This can make their recommendations to followers more authentic.
15. Monitor Customer Service
After a product launch, as more people buy and try your products, you may see an increase in customer service requests. Set up a system that can receive requests 24/7. Monitor when and how you respond to people who ask questions about shopping, shipping, and the product itself. This can help you choose the best methods of customer service. If someone feels the company cares about them as a person, they may be more likely to become a repeat customer. They may also recommend the brand to friends or brag about it on social media.
16. Prepare Your FAQ
Similar to monitoring your customer service, prepare you frequently asked questions (FAQ) section before your product launch. Putting this information out before the release may encourage people to learn more about the product before they buy it. This may also encourage them to ask additional questions you haven’t addressed rather than repeating inquiries from the FAQ. In addition, a FAQ page can help reduce the number of customer service requests after launch.
The best ways to promote your new products and services depend on where you get the most audience traffic from and how your audience behaves online. Using multiple channels and cross-promoting content can make your message more cohesive. This marketing strategy may also help you reach more people and increase engagement.
CopyPress writer
More from the author:
