Like a tree falling in the woods, if you plan a product launch without spreading the word — will anyone use it? Will anyone even want it?
Like a tree falling in the woods, if you plan a product launch without spreading the word — will anyone use it? Will anyone even want it?
Probably not. Whether you‘re launching something huge, something small, or you’re updating a current offering, you’ll want to start your preparation well in advance of the launch date with a product launch checklist.
Because there are so many moving parts in this process, bringing your product to market can be intimidating and tricky. To help you, we’ve come up with a step-by-step checklist for a successful product launch and gathered the best product launch tips from a HubSpot Product Marketer.
What is a product launch?
A product launch is the process of introducing a brand new product or service to the world. It involves various marketing and promotional activities aimed at creating buzz and demand around your new offering. The ultimate goal is to get customers excited and eager to buy the new product.
Product launches require a lot of planning. You can’t just drop a new product out of the blue and expect everyone to buy in — well, unless you’re Beyoncé. Luckily, our product launch checklist can help ensure that all your t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted before your official launch date.
1. Learn about your customer.
Whether you call it “market research,” or “customer development” it’s key to learn about what drives your customer. Identifying their goals, motivations, and pain points could lead you to developing and marketing a valuable solution.
You don’t need to perform years of intense research to learn about your customer. In fact, we suggest just talking to 12 to 15 current or prospective customers.
When speaking to them, pay extra attention when they start sentences with “I wish a product did this function…” or “Why can‘t products do this?” When they give these statements, respond with questions that go deeper, like “Can you get more specific about that?” If they don’t bring up any pain points, ask them a few specific questions that will encourage them to give deeper answers.
These conversations will give you a solid idea of what their biggest pain points are and how you can market a solution to them. Once you learn these key details about your customers, you can develop a buyer persona that your team can focus on serving.
2. Write a positioning statement.
When launching a new product, you must be able to clearly explain how it fills a need in the market. That’s where a positioning statement comes in. It helps you communicate the unique value proposition and key benefits that differentiate your product from others.
Write out a statement that can clearly and concisely answer these three questions:
- Who is the product for?
- What does the product do?
- Why is it different from other products out there?
If you’d like to go even deeper, create a statement that answers the following questions:
- What is your target audience?
- What segment of the target audience is most likely to buy the product?
- What brand name will you give your product or service?
- What product or service category does your product lie in?
- How is it different from competitors in the same category?
- What evidence or proof do you have to prove that your product is different?
Still need more guidance on how to write a positioning statement? Check out this template.
3. Pitch your positioning to stakeholders.
Once you’ve established your positioning statement, present it to stakeholders in your company so they are all on the same page.
When doing this, you’ll want to emphasize how your new product aligns with your overall business strategy, customer needs, market trends, and revenue potential. Use concrete examples, stories, or data to make your pitch more persuasive.
You’ll also want to think proactively about potential questions or objections they might have. Prepare thoughtful responses to address concerns around market viability, competition, target audience, or feasibility.
If your employees have a hard time buying into the product, your customers might as well. If your team loves it, that might be a great sign that the product launch will go well.
4. Develop product branding.
Take the information you gathered while conducting your market research and writing your positioning statement and let it inspire you as you craft your product brand identity.
During this step, you’ll develop all the elements needed to create a consistent and memorable brand, including:
- Product name, logo, and tagline
- Color palette, typography, and imagery
- Key brand, communications, and marketing guidelines
- Packaging
Product branding is a little different than company branding because it focuses on creating a distinct identity for a specific product, rather than an entire organization. However, they are both still interconnected and should be aligned.
5. Plan your go-to-market strategy.
This is the strategy that you will use to launch and promote your product. While some businesses prefer to build a funnel strategy, others prefer the flywheel approach.
Regardless of which method you choose, this process contains many moving parts. To create an organized strategy for launching your product, it can be helpful to use a template, like this one.
As you create the strategy, also start considering which type of content you‘ll use to attract a prospective customer’s attention during the awareness, consideration, and purchase decision stage. You’ll need to produce this content in the next step.
6. Set a goal for the launch.
Before you get started on implementing your strategy, make sure you write down your goals for the launch.
Alex Girard, a Product Marketing Manager at HubSpot, says, “Create specific goals for the launch’s success. Keeping these goals in mind will help you focus your efforts on launch tactics that will help you achieve those goals.”
For example, the goals of your product launch could be to effectively establish a new product name, build awareness, or create sales opportunities.
One of the best ways to set goals for your launch team is to write them out like SMART goals. A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Once you have your goals in mind, you can start thinking about what KPIs you want to track, such as:
- Sales revenue
- Units sold
- Customer acquisition
- Conversion rate
- Website traffic and engagement
- Social media engagement
Identifying these metrics ahead of time will make it easier to assess whether or not you met your goals after the product is launched.
7. Create promotional content.
After planning out your go-to-market strategy and writing your SMART goals, start producing content that will support and align with those promotional efforts.
This can include:
- Blog posts related to your product or industry
- Demos and tutorials
- Email campaigns
- Social media posts
- Landing pages
Our go-to-market template will also help you determine which content you should create for each phase of your prospective customer‘s buyer’s journey.
8. Test and gather feedback.
Before you officially launch your new product, it’s important to test it out to ensure your final product is the best it can be.
By testing the product in different scenarios with real users, potential bugs, usability problems, or functional issues can be discovered and resolved early on. Fixing these problems before launching your product ensures a smoother user experience and helps maintain customer satisfaction.
Gathering feedback from users also allows for product improvement. By listening to the opinions, suggestions, and criticisms of users, you can gain insight into what features are working well and which ones need improvement. This feedback-driven approach can help you make informed decisions on enhancing the product’s functionality, usability, and performance.
9. Set up distribution channels.
Before you officially launch, you’ll need to set up your distribution channels. This step is important because it determines how and where customers can purchase your product, be it online platforms, brick-and-mortar stores, or other distribution partners.
Well-planned distribution channels help accelerate the product’s time to market. By proactively setting up channels ahead of the launch, you can quickly distribute the product once it becomes available, minimizing delays and maximizing opportunities to capture early adopters and gain market share.
If you can successfully position your product in prominent retail locations or online marketplaces, it increases visibility and boosts your chances of capturing customer attention and outperforming competitors.
It also provides a foundation for future growth and scalability. As your business expands and introduces new products, you can leverage existing channel relationships and infrastructure to efficiently launch and distribute new offerings.
10. Prepare your team.
Be sure that your company and key stakeholders are ready for you to launch and begin marketing the product.
Before the big launch day, consider doing the following:
- Offer your team early access to the product so they can familiarize themselves with it firsthand.
- Provide training sessions to help your team understand the product inside out.
- Develop sales enablement materials such as presentations, product sheets, FAQs, and objection handling guides.
- Conduct role-playing exercises to simulate real customer scenarios with the product.
During this process, it’s essential that all stakeholders are on the same page. Communicate with the company through internal presentations, Slack, or email to keep your company updated on your launch plan.
11. Launch the product.
Once you’ve completed all the above steps, you can launch the product. Here are some last-minute things to check over on launch day:
- Double-check all the necessary details, materials, and arrangements to ensure that everything is ready and working correctly.
- Conduct a brief team meeting to align everyone and address any last-minute questions or concerns.
- Keep an eye on social media channels to gauge customer reactions, respond to inquiries, and engage with potential customers.
- Ensure that your website and any systems related to the product launch, such as landing pages or checkout processes, are functioning smoothly.
Most importantly, you should take the time to celebrate the launch and the efforts of your team. This can be in the form of a team lunch, virtual celebration, or any other creative way to acknowledge everyone’s hard work.
12. See how well you did in achieving your goals.
After you launch your product, track how the go-to-market strategy is performing. Be prepared to pivot or adjust aspects of your plan if they aren’t going smoothly.
Additionally, don’t forget about the goals you set before the launch. Take the time to review the KPI targets you set ahead of the launch and assess how well you did in achieving those goals.
For instance, did you exceed your sales projections, or did you fall short? If the launch didn’t meet expectations, you can rethink your go-to-market strategy and adjust from there.
The cost of launching a new product varies significantly. For instance, an entrepreneur will see vastly different costs for launching a product on Amazon than an enterprise company might see for launching a product in a million-dollar market.
Let’s consider two examples to explore this more closely.
Entrepreneur Product Launch Example
In the first example, let‘s say you’re an entrepreneur who has invented a design app you’re hoping to sell online. You might conduct market research to determine which marketing strategies work best for your goals, which messaging resonates best with your audience, and which design elements appeal to your desired prospects. If you use a few focus groups to determine these answers, you might expect to spend roughly $5,000.
When you‘re bringing a new app to the market, you’ll need to choose the best go-to marketing strategy for your needs. Regardless of the strategy you choose, they all cost money. For instance, product branding could cost roughly $1,000 if you‘re paying a designer to help you out, and website design could cost anywhere from $500-$3,000 if you’re paying a web designer a one-off fee.
These fees don‘t include the cost you need to pay yourself and any employees if this is a full-time job. It also doesn’t include the costs of hiring an engineer to update the app’s features and ensure the app is running smoothly.
With this simplified example, you’re looking at roughly $8,000. Of course, you can cut some costs if you choose to do any of these tasks yourself, but you might risk creating a subpar customer experience.
Enterprise Product Launch Example
On the other end of the spectrum, let‘s consider a large enterprise company that is launching a new product. Here, you’ll likely pay upwards of $30,000 – $50,000 for market research.
Perhaps you’ll spend $15,000 on brand positioning and the marketing materials necessary to differentiate yourself against competitors, and you might pay upwards of $30,000 for all the product design and brand packaging. Finally, your marketing team could need a budget of roughly $20,000 for SEO, paid advertising, social, content creation, etc.
All said and done, launching a product against other enterprise competitors‘ could cost roughly $125,000. Again, that doesn’t include the costs you’ll pay your marketing, product development, and engineering teams.
How to Launch a Product Online
To launch your product online, you‘ll want to ensure you’ve followed the steps above. However, there are a few additional steps you’ll want to follow to gain traction primarily online.
1. Figure out the story you want to tell regarding your product’s bigger purpose.
What story do you want to tell across social platforms, landing pages, and email? This is similar to your positioning statement but needs to be geared entirely toward your target audience. Ask questions like, Why should they purchase your product? And How will your product or service make their lives better?
Communicating cross-functionally ensures the communication materials you use across various online channels align — which is key when it comes to establishing a new product in the marketplace.
Consider, for instance, how Living Proof announced its new product, Advanced Clean Dry Shampoo, on its Instagram page. The story revolves around a simple nuisance common with most other dry shampoos — How consumers still want that just-washed feeling, even when using a dry shampoo.
By focusing on how the product will benefit consumers through storytelling, and using a new hashtag #NoWastedWashes, Living Proof builds excitement and demand for its new product.
2. Display customer testimonials, case studies, and other social evidence to positively frame your new product.
Consumers want to see that other consumers have already taken the risk and purchased your new product before doing it themselves. This is where social proof comes into play.
In the weeks leading up to a product launch, or shortly after it‘s launch, begin posting customer testimonials, reviews, and case studies to showcase how your new product has already helped other people. Take this a step further and employ influencers to share the word about your product as well, if it’s a good fit for your brand.
Consumers are smart enough to know they shouldn’t trust every advertisement they see — but they can trust fellow consumers. So leverage that trust through social proof methods.
3. Create a social and email campaign.
Create a full, comprehensive social media campaign to increase interest and awareness of your new product.
Use paid advertising to reach new audiences, create full product explainer videos to use across your social channels, and use email to reach existing customers and provide an exclusive, first look at your new product’s features.
Additionally, you might consider hosting a live stream to connect directly with prospects and existing customers and invite experts from your product development team to explain the new features of your product.
It‘s important to note — in this stage, you’ll want to pay attention to how consumers are interacting with the communication materials regarding your new product. Share concerns and feedback with the product development team — it’s important to trust your consumers and use their feedback to strengthen your product.
4. Have a pre-order option.
If a consumer is excited to purchase your new product, don‘t make them wait — provide an option to pre-order the product or service before it’s even available. This helps spread out demand while enabling consumers to purchase the product whenever they’re feeling most inclined to do so.
Product Launch Best Practices by Industry
How to Launch a Digital Product
When launching a digital product, you’ll want to begin building anticipation with a strong content marketing strategy. Use blog posts, email marketing, social media, and other channels of distribution to increase interest and demand for your digital product.
You‘ll also want to ensure you’re leveraging lead generation strategies to reach existing customers and prospects.
For instance, let‘s say you’re launching an online course on SEO. In the weeks leading up to the launch, you might create SEO-related blog content to send to your email subscribers with an option to join the SEO course’s waitlist. This helps you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing materials while reaching an audience that has already demonstrated interest in your brand.
How to Launch a Product on Amazon
Anyone who‘s ever shopped on Amazon knows the importance of a good product listing. In the weeks leading up to launch, take the time to create a strong, high-converting product listing — including taking high-resolution photos of your product, writing a description that outlines your product’s differentiating features, and using keywords to help your product rank on Amazon.
Additionally, product reviews are incredibly important on Amazon, so you‘ll want to ensure you have reviews ready to go before you even launch your product on Amazon. To do this, ensure you’ve either launched your product on your own website first (which gives you time to earn reviews before launching on Amazon), or send your product to a select group of interested buyers ahead of the full launch, and collect reviews from them.
Finally, ensure you’re ready for an Amazon product launch by checking inventory. You never know how quickly your product might gain traction on the eCommerce superstore, so make sure you have enough products to fulfill Amazon orders quickly.
Take a look at HubSpot’s The Ultimate Guide to Selling on Amazon for more information related to Amazon.
How to Launch a SaaS Product
To launch a SaaS product, you‘ll want to start by researching competitors and understanding the marketplace at large. There’s plenty of demand for SaaS products, as the industry is expected to grow by more than 16% by 2026. However, the SaaS industry is also well-saturated, so before launching a SaaS product, you’ll want to determine how your product differs from all the others in the industry.
To create a successful product launch, you’ll want to conduct market research and focus groups to determine the true benefits and differentiators of your product.
Next, you‘ll want to employ a strong content marketing strategy to increase your website’s visibility on search engines and to ensure your business is appearing in search results for topics related to your product.
Since you aren’t launching a physical product, your marketing efforts need to convince businesses that your product can solve their needs. Additionally, you might want to offer free trials or a freemium option for smaller businesses on lower budgets to test out your offerings before committing.
For a full SaaS rundown, take a look at HubSpot’s Ultimate Guide to Software as a Service (SaaS).
How to Launch a Food Product
To launch a food product, you‘ll first need to ensure you’re prepared for the costs required to do so — including how much it costs to package and store the product (including packaging, warehousing, and distribution), and how much it costs to sell the product (including branding and digital marketing).
Next, you’ll want to follow federal and state food regulations. For instance, you need to ensure you’re following health department rules for food preparation surfaces, refrigeration, and sanitation.
You‘ll also need to make sure the labeling you use on your product’s packaging is accurate, which requires you to send your food product to a lab for analysis and check with your state commerce to see what it requires when it comes to nutrition labels.
When launching a food product, you’ll likely want to hire a food broker. A food broker can foster relationships with national or local grocery stores and will create a promotional plan to help increase sales as soon as your food hits the shelves.
Typically, a supermarket will test out your product for a few months before determining if there’s enough consumer interest to keep it stocked — which is why a food broker can be incredibly useful for using business intelligence and industry knowledge to ensure a successful food product launch.
1. Calm
Originating in 2011 as a website called donothingfor2minutes.com, Calm is a mobile app that provides various resources and tools for meditation, sleep, relaxation, and mindfulness. Although Headspace was the leading meditation app at the time of its launch, it didn’t take long for Calm to dominate the market.
Calm found success largely because of its content marketing and SEO strategy. According to Foundation’s research, Calm has attracted over 8 million backlinks and uses blog content and YouTube content to organically attract and engage prospects.
The company also partners with celebrities to create unique content and engaging ad campaigns. Some of Calm’s most famous collaborators include Lebron James, Harry Styles, Matthew McConaughey, and Camila Cabello.
Calm’s celebrity partnerships have given them a leg up compared to their competitors. Not only their celebrity-read Sleep Stories garner millions of views, but they also boost the brand’s visibility and authority.
2. Poppi
Poppi is a “prebiotic soda,” which is a beverage that combines the fizziness and taste of a traditional soda with fruit juice, prebiotics, and apple cider vinegar. It comes in flavors such as Classic Cola, Root Beer, Orange, and Cherry Limeade.
Originally called “Mother Beverage,” Poppi was originally created when co-founder Allison Ellsworth wanted to create a drink that was both healthy and tasted good. Not only does Poppi stand out from other beverages because of its health benefits, it also has a unique and colorful brand personality that attracts customers.
According to Allison, “We had this really fun and vibrant brand and a product that people could relate to. People love it and it was created with ingredients that people knew to be effective and beneficial to their body.”
Poppi was originally slated for a retail launch in March of 2020. However, those plans changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fortunately, they were able to pivot to launch as a DTC product, selling on Amazon and other e-commerce platforms. Additionally, they used this opportunity to invest in social media marketing on Instagram and TikTok, where they gained popularity amongst Gen Z consumers.
3. HubSpot Operations Hub
In 2021, HubSpot launched Operations Hub as part of its CRM platform. The product is designed to help businesses streamline their operational processes, improve data quality and accuracy, and enable cross-team collaboration. This allows businesses to run more smoothly and scale more effectively.
One of the reasons why this launch was successful was because it solved a problem that many customers faced.
According to HubSpot’s research, “over 60% of operations professionals have to do duplicative work because of a lack of alignment between teams.” This happens because operations professionals get hired into separate departments and get siloed and overwhelmed with tasks as their companies scale.
In response, HubSpot introduced Operations Hub so operations employees could work together out of a shared system and remove friction from their day-to-day workflows.
4. Goodles
Goodles is a noodle brand that takes boxed mac-and-cheese to the next level. This product differentiates itself by providing more nutritional value than the standard dry noodles, with 10g of protein and 7g of fiber with prebiotics in every serving.
“The pasta aisle is overflowing with golden, al dente pasta options that provide very little nutrition. There’s also an ‘alt-pasta’ section with green, brown, orange, mushy, foamy noodles that offer more nutrition but little ‘yum’,” co-founder and CEO Jen Zeszut said in a press release. “Why should you have to choose between taste and nutrition?”
Aside from its positioning as a delicious and nutritious alternative to boxed mac-and-cheese, Goodles also stands out with its vibrant and fun branding. While other noodle brands have neutral-colored packaging, Goodles uses a bold color palette, a nostalgic typeface, and cheeky product names, like Shella Good and Here Comes Truffle, to attract consumers in the grocery aisle.
Product Launch Tips
To learn the best practices for a successful product launch, I talked to Alex Girard again.
The HubSpot Product Marketing Manager said he had three main tips for a successful product launch:
- Your product positioning should reflect a shift you’re seeing in the world, and how your product helps your customers take advantage of that shift.
- Create a recurring schedule for you and the core stakeholders for the launch to check in and ensure you’re all on the same page.
- Make sure you keep the product team in the loop on your marketing plans. The product team could have insights that inform your overall marketing campaign.
However, sometimes, external factors might impact your ability to launch a product. When that happens, you might need to delay your launch.
How to Know When to Delay a Product Launch
To understand when, and why, you might hold off on a product launch, Girard told me there are three key reasons why you might want to delay a product launch, including:
- When your product itself isn’t ready and you need to change your timeline to create the best customer experience possible.
- If a situation occurs where your current customers are having a less-than-optimal experience with one of your current products. Before launching and promoting a new product, you should make sure your current customers are satisfied with your existing product offering.
- If something occurs on an international, national, state, or local level that requires your audience to readjust their priorities and shift focus away from your company and its product launch. Make sure that when the time comes to launch, your target audience is ready to learn about your new product.
If you‘re looking for templates to coordinate your team efforts and align your company around your new product’s messaging, download our free product marketing kit below.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
