🥗 Don't Mess Up The Launch

Hey there,

Welcome back for another bite to chew on.

Take a second and picture this scenario with us.

You created a company or brand that solves a problem you’re extremely passionate about.

Not only that, but you’ve built out an entire team, website, shopify store, etc.

Your product is a killer. It’s going to disrupt the market in the exact way you want it to.

What’s the next course of action? You launch your product.

But how do you make sure the launch is as great as it can be?

We’re going to go over our pre-promotion, launch day, and post-promotion framework on how we handle product launches in less than 5 minutes.

That way, you or your CMO can take this and run with it for your next launch

and not screw it up.

An Honest Confession

Look, we’ve screwed up plenty along the way.

Take this EXACT newsletter for example, we wrote it and felt like it wasn’t up to par.

We’re launching some BIG things soon, and life got hectic.

Instead of pushing out content just for the sake of pushing out content, we stopped, reevaluated, and completely reworked the entire structure of the write-up.

(Our entire group chat went through the content, line by line, to make it better)

So, here we are. Launching a Wednesday newsletter on Friday.

When things don’t go according to plan, stop, and rework them.

Don’t be afraid to completely redo things.

Which leads us to arguably, the most important part of a product launch—pre-promotion.

Fail to Prepare? Prepare to Fail

There are a HUGE number of variables that go into preparing for a product launch.

If you bring up launching a new product, what is everyone’s first reaction?

Hyping it up.

This is a delicate balance.

Don’t start hyping something new when you’re still 30 days out from launching.

Let everyone know something is coming a week or two MAX beforehand.

You want to close the gap between announcement and launch in order to make sure that hype actually turns into launch success.

In order to ensure that success, a lot of factors need to be put into place leading up to that product release.

Here is a pre-promotion content checklist to make sure you have things dialed in before launch day.

Content for Launch Assets

This includes new things like:

• Website homepage banners

• Product images

• Image carousels already build out on the product page

• New email sequences

• SMS campaigns

• Ad creatives

• Social media launch copy

The day before, have your theme ready to go.

This includes main hero updates and messaging and adjusting collections and your product positioning to highlight the everything new.

QC and make sure nothing is broken.

If it can happen to us, it can happen to anyone.

We had one launch where Shopify was just glitching out completely.

Even though the product was available, once you went to checkout, it was shown as out of stock.

No one could figure out why.

Shopify support couldn’t help because it was late in the evening.

Did we give up? Of course not. You have to find a solution.

Ours was duplicating the entire product in the backend, and it started working.

Small glitches like this aren’t a matter of if, they’re a matter of when.

So again, QC everything, test purchases, etc.

Any step the customer will encounter in the buying process you have to make sure is right before launch.

Houston, We Have Liftoff!

We typically launch products at midnight. 

Why? So we can catch errors during a low traffic time.

Next, the theme goes live.

Then, we monitor for sales coming in, again making sure there are no issues.

Since we have our AMAZING Facebook community, we can set up live events on launch day to further engage our community.

At launch time, we have a live event set up for anyone in the community to RSVP.

Everyone in the community gets a notification when the launch event goes live, so it becomes an even bigger layer of messaging to the consumer.

Going live directly to our community of over 80,000 people is a huge asset to Obvi.

We do giveaways, talk directly to them in the live, asking for feedback, answer questions, etc.

Just creating as much hype as possible to go viral within our community and create as big of an impression footprint as possible.

But what if you don’t have a community?

We hear you.

We’re extremely fortunate to have grown the engaging community we have with Obvi.

But it’s not like it grew to 80,000 people off of one launch, right?

You can still go live on whatever platform your audience will best resonate with to start engaging and initiating that community.

It’s all about communicating directly with your followers, and with each product launch, you can continue to grow and grow that community.

The whole mindset is to build hype and “go viral” directly within your customer base.

The trick to success is to create your own unique environment where that becomes a routine and easy to accomplish.

The Work Isn’t Done, It’s Just Beginning

After you’ve prepped to perfection and had one hell of an amazing launch day, your work is just beginning.

What will separate CONTINUOUS success from a one-and-done fizzle out is taking lessons learned and applying them right away.

By all means, celebrate your wins. You’ve worked your asses off to get to this point, and that absolutely needs to be recognized.

Take that high energy success and put it towards making the next win even bigger.

The post-promotional aspect of a product launch requires more energy than the pre and launch aspects combined.

Practical applications of this look like:

• Taking questions asked during your live events to use and explain as future promotional content

• Responding to everything to do with launch live events and social media posts ASAP to feed algorithms to push that promotional content to more potential customers

• Monitoring comments on launch social media posts to use for future ad creatives

• Sending post-purchase emails specifically asking for their experience with the product

Tool of the Week

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The Latest Soundbite

Ezra Firestone really gets it when it comes to the nuts and bolts of thriving in e-commerce.

He talks about the importance of knowing your audience and always staying a step ahead with innovation, which is exactly what you need to know for a product launch.

Let’s make this podcast launch something special.

Go watch and learn how Ezra has fostered an empire of success for decades.

Hungry for More?

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Join us for an evening where gourmet bites and crafted cocktails are just the beginning.

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Thanks for Reading Along

Every launch is a learning experience.

You might not get it right the first time, look at this newsletter as an example.

Treat each launch as a chance to grow closer to your community and meet your customer’s needs more precisely.

As we gear up for a launch of our own (more on that is coming soon), we’re going to put all of these into practice ourselves.

We’re reminded of the excitement and responsibility that comes with each release.

If you can nail a solid product launch, it’s a sure fire way to extreme growth.

We hope all of this was helpful and you can take some actionable ways to improve your next product launch.

All the best,

Ron & Ash