Every day, thousands of new products make their grand entrance into the market.
Some come in with a bang — others come in and quickly fizzle out like a dude firework.
Even if what you’ve created is nothing short of revolutionary, the harsh reality is that it could still end up getting lost in a sea of endless launches.
To keep this from happening, you have to be smart and strategic about launching your product.
In this guide, we’re going to give you 6 time-tested, proven ways to crush the marketing for your new product and increase the chances it makes major headway in your industry.
Launch a Free Mini-Course Or Webinar
Launching a free mini-course or webinar BEFORE you actually launch your offer is a great way to start preparing people in your audience for the launch.
To help you see what that looks like in practice, take a look at the example below:
Marie Forleo is preparing to launch her “B-school” training program.
Instead of just announcing that it’s coming, she’s laying the foundations to generate interest in the launch.
She’s preparing by launching a free masterclass on building a thriving business and advertising it inside the menu on her website.
When people click the link to the free training, they’re taken to this landing page:
In a similar fashion, Evercoach uses a masterclass to start building buzz for their product.
You can see how they’re doing it in the emails below:
Whenever subscribers click the links inside each email, they’re taken to a landing page to register for the free webinar.
Then, after the webinar, Evercoach begins sharing details for the course:
These strategies are incredibly effective for a few different reasons.
First, they provide value upfront before asking for something in return.
Where most marketers and entrepreneurs get this wrong is by simply asking people to buy their product BEFORE providing value to their audience.
This leads us to the second reason a pre-launch mini-course or webinar is so effective.
Using this strategy helps build trust in your audience.
It shows them that you understand the problems that they’re facing or that you understand what potential solutions could look like.
And by delivering value upfront, you give yourself an opportunity to build that trust with your audience.
Then, you can segment your subscribers into a separate list based on their interest in the free webinar or mini-course, helping you keep your lists organized and increasing your conversion metrics.
To implement this strategy, you’ll need a few things, like a landing page to promote your free class, a signup page, and a series of followup emails.
While you may be great at creating content related to your business, the last thing you want to do is fight with software to put this strategy into motion.
That’s where ClickFunnels comes in.
You can build your landing pages with professionally designed, conversion-optimized templates.
Then, you can create email workflows easily using the built-in automations.
If you haven’t already, click here to start your free 14-day ClickFunnels trial now.
When you log in, you can begin choosing a template to base your free webinar or mini-course on:
Then you can use a pre-built email automation workflow or begin creating your own:
Once you have both of these in place, you can begin promoting the free mini-course or webinar to your audience, raising their awareness and generating buzz around the launch.
This brings us to the next strategy you can use to crush the marketing for your new product.
Build Anticipation
Generating buzz and building anticipation for your upcoming product launch gives you a huge advantage.
Instead of just dropping an announcement that you just launched, spending time letting people know what you’re working on, how it can help them, and when it’s coming is a great way to build interest.
By preparing for the launch using this strategy, you can increase the number of people who may want to purchase the product as soon as it’s launched.
To see how powerful it can be, take a look at some of today’s biggest brands and how they use it.
This is an ad from one of Apple’s recent launches:
Nike is another great example.
In the image below, you can see one of their latest shoe drops on their website:
The shoes weren’t available as soon as they were dropped.
Instead, they were listed on the website, and then notifications went out letting people know.
Social media was used to help generate attention and anticipation, getting people talking about which style they liked best.
This strategy helped them generate a TON of free marketing and drive even more traffic to their launch.
Which is something Ahrefs has mastered.
Take a look at the example below to see how they’re using social media to create anticipation:
A simple question posted to their social media has people reacting to the post and asking questions.
Then, as more people interact with the post, the social media algorithms will begin promoting the post to even more people.
By the time Ahrefs launches, they’ve generated a TON of extra attention — all from one post.
They’re not the only business capitalizing on this strategy, though.
Take a look how Amir Salihefendic uses it:
He posted a screenshot from his upcoming launch and generated almost 20,000 views.
If you have an email list, you can start announcing your upcoming launch to them, too.
Check out the example from Whitney Wolfe’s MasterClass below:
Here’s another example from Last Crumb, promoting their new Platinum cookies:
With this strategy, your goal isn’t just to raise awareness and generate anticipation, though.
You also want to make sure that you’re getting people who are anticipating the launch onto their own waitlist so you can announce it directly to them when the time comes.
Marie Forleo regularly announces new launches and moves people onto a waitlist.
Last Crumb loves using waitlists to generate anticipation for their launches.
When they release a new cookie lineup, they’ll let people subscribe via email and SMS messaging to get instantly notified when their new cookie gets released.
Instead of simply just dropping a new product on your audience, take the time to let them know what’s coming.
Get creative with how you tease the product like Nike and Apple have done.
Have some fun with it like Marie Forleo and Last Crumb.
This will help you cultivate the attention and anticipation you need to ensure your product takes off out of the gate, instead of launching to crickets.
Niche Community Engagement
Niche communities can be absolute goldmines for helping your product launches take off, too.
By tapping into these communities and developing a strong reputation, you can use them to build brand awareness and credibility.
The key to accomplishing those two goals, though, is by providing valuable content and insights and then participating in discussions.
For example, the post below provides value first and then subtly introduces their product:
If all you’re doing is spamming your products or telling people to buy, chances are you’ll be booted from the community fairly quickly.
That will leave a bad mark on your brand image since these communities tend to be so small.
Now, in the example above, take a look at the forum: Shopify Zero Marketing Budget.
It’s a place where eCommerce companies are hanging out which is the perfect target audience for a tool that focuses on influencer marketing.
Since so many Shopify store owners use influencer marketing to help generate buzz and drive sales, by legitimately helping them inside these small communities, SARAL is able to build a brand presence.
When done the right way, though, it doesn’t come across as spammy or promotional.
Take a look at this to see what we mean:
The example above is someone directly selling their services to a niche community.
The post doesn’t come across as spammy or promotional, even though it is a direct sales pitch.
It starts by providing value and then encourages people to connect with him if they want to learn more.
People who reach out to him become leads and then customers.
The community he is posting to is DTC Founders on Facebook, giving him a huge audience to tap into as long as he’s taking a value-first approach.
The key to making this strategy work is identifying the right community before you start.
Take a look at the chart below for some help hints on finding your perfect niche community:
| Forum Type | Platform Examples |
|---|---|
| Tech & Startups | Reddit (r/startups, r/Entrepreneur), Hacker News |
| Health & Wellness | Reddit (r/fitness, r/nutrition), Facebook Groups |
| Beauty & Fashion | Reddit (r/beauty, r/makeupaddiction), Facebook Groups |
| Gaming | Reddit (r/gaming, r/pcgaming), Discord Servers |
| Professional & Industry Specific | LinkedIn Groups, Industry-specific forums (e.g., Stack Overflow for developers) |
Then, when you find the right community, you’ll want to create value-driven posts.
Check out some of these examples to help get your creative wheels spinning:
- Tech & Startups: “5 Common Pitfalls When Launching Your Tech Startup and How to Avoid Them – would love to hear your thoughts and any lessons learned you might have!”
- Health & Wellness: “Compiled a list of nutrient-dense recipes for busy professionals. Tried incorporating [Your Product] in a few and the results were surprising. Feedback?”
- Beauty & Fashion: “Exploring sustainable fashion trends for 2023. Recently tried out a new eco-friendly fabric for our upcoming line – thoughts on sustainability in fashion?”
- Gaming: “Developed a tool that helps optimize gaming setups for better performance. Tested it on [popular game], here’s what I found. Would love your input!”
Before you jump in and start posting in these communities, though, take some time to read the room.
Figure out what other businesses are doing to generate attention.
Don’t directly copy what they do but dissect their strategy to determine what’s working — then replicate their strategy with your own flare.
Collaborate with Non-Competing Businesses
One of THE best ways to nail your product launch is through collaboration.
Large companies collaborate with each other on a regular basis.
For instance, Uber and Spotify collaborated to allow riders to play their Spotify playlists during their uber rides.
This collaboration generated a ton of attention for both brands.
Starbucks and Barnes & Noble also collaborated to allow customers to enjoy Starbucks coffee while browsing through books at Barnes & Noble.
This helps enhance their overall shopping experience while ensuring a large audience for new product launches and future collaborations.
Then brands like Graza collaborate with other food brands and chefs all the time.
These types of collaborations help consolidate audiences, introducing new people to one brand while the other brand drives revenue — and vice versa.
These collaborations work for a few different reasons.
First, they increase your credibility when you’re partnering with a more established brand.
Second, they help you broaden your reach into your target audience.
They’re also incredibly cost-effective as both brands tend to share the costs involved.
Finally, people in the audience get added benefits from both businesses.
To get started using this strategy, you want to spend some time thinking about businesses you would be open to collaborating with, and then figuring out if they’re open to collaborating with you.
The best approach to take is to reach out to businesses that aren’t your direct competition.
For instance, if you’re a life coaching company, you could partner with fitness trainers, nutritionists, or professional development workshops.
If you run a lawn mowing or landscaping company, you could partner with gardening stores, outdoor furniture companies, or home improvement services.
You want to ensure that the businesses you’re partnering with share a similar target audience and have similar brand values to your own.
Then you can reach out with your proposal.
It should clearly outline what’s in it for them, such as access to your customer base, shared marketing efforts, or enhanced service offerings.
Doing the leg work and suggesting creative ideas can help increase your conversion rate on these proposals, too.
This could range from co-hosting a webinar, cross-promoting your services, bundling services for a discount, or creating content together that highlights both services.
Send Your Product as a Gift to Influencers
When Graza first introduced its new line of olive oils, it sent out free gifts to influencers.
This strategy led them to completely sell out within the first 24 hours of their launch.
When Gymshark launched, the founder, Ben Francis, would send his products to YouTube fitness athletes that he admired.
No strings attached.
Just sent the products to them as a goodwill gesture.
Then, as the influencers began receiving the products, they started wearing his apparel in their content and people started taking notice.
This is incredibly common for brands today.
There are so many posts from creators and influencers sharing the gifts they’ve received from brands.
If the influencer is already speaking directly to your target audience, you can consider the costs involved with sending them free gifts as an advertising expense.
Many times, this advertising expense is significantly lower than you would spend trying to generate the same amount of attention.
This strategy works so well because the peer influencer already has access to your target audience.
Their audience watches the content they create and listens to the recommendations they make.
Then, as more and more people see your brand and products, it begins creating FOMO (fear of missing out) among the people who didn’t get the product.
This is especially true if you have a truly limited amount of the product available.
You also get the increased social proof that comes from influencers posting about your product.
To leverage the strategy, you don’t just want to randomly send products to people.
Instead, you want to personalize your gift.
You can include a personalized note explaining why you chose them and how you envision your product fitting into their lifestyle.
You’ll want to highlight what’s unique about your product, emphasizing what makes your product special or innovative to help pique their interest.
Finally, share your story and how the product came to be to help establish a connection with the influencer and make them more likely to share it with their audience.
You can see in the example above, the influencer shared the handwritten note included with their gift.
Making your packaging share-worthy helps increase the chances they’ll post about it, too.
With your message, you’ll also want to express gratitude, no strings attached.
Make sure they know you’re sending the product as a token of appreciation for their content with no strings or obligations attached.
Then provide your contact information.
Include your contact details, encouraging them to reach out if they love the product or want to learn more or collaborate in the future.
Finally, make sure you follow the influencer and then engage with their content.
You want to start building a relationship ideally before you start sending your product but definitely after you send it to them.
Launch on Forums Popular for New Products — PH & Kickstarter
To help your next product launch perform even better, you can crowdsource your growth.
Platforms like ProductHunt and Kickstarter are amazing for helping you get the word out.
ButcherBox ran a campaign on Kickstarter for both funding and to raise awareness.
Native Deodorant launched a campaign on ProductHunt and did 50 sales to test the waters.
When they saw the response from the campaign, they built the confidence to begin manufacturing.
Platforms like ProductHunt aren’t just for tech products, either.
You can see the different categories listed below.
With each of these platforms, though, especially if you’re in pre-production or limited on budget, you can start raising awareness quickly — even before you have a product ready to sell.
People who opt into your campaign will help fund the initial production run.
To make this work, you’ll want to give them exclusive bonuses to help incentivize joining the campaign before you have something ready to send them.
Then, once you hit a specific milestone, you can take the earnings from the campaign and enter into your first production run.
By using the other 5 strategies on this list, you can also promote your Kickstarter or ProductHunt campaigns to raise even more awareness and drive even more sales.
The key here, though, is making sure that you’re getting people onto your own email list at some point.
You want to capture the attention that you’re generating so you can use it to fuel your future launches.
ClickFunnels is a great tool for this and makes it simple for you to get up and running.
If you haven’t already used it in your business, click here to start your free 14-day trial now.
Then, put together a landing page and thank you page using our proven, time-tested, high-converting design templates.
Once you have that in place, make sure you’re following up with people who join your list.
You want to keep their attention while you’re working up to your launch so that when you are ready to launch you already have eager people waiting and ready to buy.
Then, work on promoting your products using each strategy in this guide.
When you do, you’ll crush your marketing and take your product launches from flops to sold out.