Short guide to pre launch marketing

Call it trend or the need of today’s market that it has become mandatory to set up a pre launch marketing campaign. This creates a buzz in the market about your upcoming product and helps in gauging the success or failure. However, success and failure very much depends on the way you have made the product, its usability and the way you are promoting it… but you can at least estimate its reception by your target audience. And, let’s admit it, we all want our product to be a huge success and what if our product becomes big hit? are we ready for it? are you promoting among right audience? With pre launch campaign, you get answers of many such questions.

Let’s assume, you have set up a pre launch campaign for your upcoming ecommerce store and you get a massive response that you haven’t imagined. If your prelaunch campaign is a big success, then you surely get huge traffic on your e-store. Looking at the response you can ready infrastructure for your e-store that can accommodate huge traffic without crashing. You also get ample time to set up a team for customer queries, this helps you in building a strong customer satisfaction. So, you can plan many such activities in advance.

How to begin with it?

Get a Signup page  sign up page

So, you have finally decided to set up a prelaunch campaign.. Great! First thing that you need to do is get a signup page.

But why would anybody sign up? Because you would be giving away freebies, informational content, free coupons, discount coupons of your upcoming store… something that impulse your visitor to sign up without losing anything. One more thing, this is the time to build the credibility… don’t create buggy sign up page. Do send the acknowledgement message or email.

Get connected on facebook

Accept the fact that facebook contribute very less in driving traffic or new clients to your business. But yes, you can use it as strong platform for image building. You may or may not opt for facebook advertisement for telling new people about your campaign. But use your own network to spread the news of your upcoming product and circulate your signup page.

Reward the referrals sign up page 2

Would you share my visiting card among your friends if I offer you free gift coupon per card? Why not? There is no harm in inviting referrals. In fact, this is one of the most effective techniques for promotion. Call your visitor to refer you and reward them with something lucrative. Remember, make the rewards achievable and inspiring. Say, you get a free coupon for 5 referrals. Nobody would even think of referring your page if you offer something like, free gift coupon for 50 referrals.

This is a very famous story of Harry’s (a men’s grooming brand) pre launch marketing campaign. They simply have 2 page microsite. One page asks visitor to enter their email address. Second page asks the visitor to share the link to friends so that they can get a chance to win free gifts. And surprisingly, they manage to gather 100,000 emails in one week.

Tweet, tweet and Retweet tweet image

If used properly, twitter is a very powerful tool to build new audience. All you need to do is identify people with similar interest, follow them, RT their tweets, tweet about your own product.

But remember, do not brag about yourself, what you say should seamlessly talk about your product or landing page or signup page. Also, it is very important to RT your own tweet so as not to get lost under piles of tweets.

Shoot emails but not spam!

Email marketing gives a more personalized touch. It also attract subscribers. For this, you may contact email marketing service provider or dig out your own contacts. Send them periodic emails to sign up with you and tell them about your progress. Send informative, non-promotional content.

What you should not do!

Too much information on landing page
I know you are excited about your product and want to tell everyone about it. But keeping a simple signup page would help in attracting more sign up. Just a few words about yourself would do the job. This maintains the curiosity among the visitors and impulse them to join you.

Spamming your link
Say a strict no to spamming, if you don’t want to get reported as spam and get yourself banned before even getting live. Spread your link to every media reasonably. Do not scream for attention.

Ignoring the competitors
No matter if you have a mind blowing product, it is always important to have a keep an eye on your competitor. If required, follow their strategy closely and steal it. Go and promote yourself where your competitor is promoting. Offer something more interesting that your competitor does.

Keep a check on budget
It’s good to invest some money on your campaigns but don’t overspend. Remember, it’s just the pre launch… the big day is yet to come. You should be ready with ample of monetary resources for accommodating increasing demand.