There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to launching a product. The timing and product launch strategy will often depend on your unique situation, including what you’re offering and your goals.
This post walks through a number of key steps to consider throughout your product launch journey to set the stage for success and help you achieve long-term growth.
What is a product launch?
A product launch is the process of introducing a new offering to customers so they can purchase it. The product might be a physical or digital product—or both, as in the case of selling books available in paperback and ebook formats.
Steps in the process might include:
- Product design, testing, and finalization
- Branding and marketing
- Inventory management and fulfillment
After releasing a product, you might find your attention turning to related tasks like research and development, customer engagement, and optimizing things like inventory and marketing in order to scale and reach more customers.
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Product launch types and timing
Product launches come in different shapes and sizes. You might hear about two basic types: soft and hard.
- Soft launch: Uses targeted promotion to release a product to a limited audience. Can serve as an opportunity to test out an offering, gather feedback, and make adjustments before launching on a larger scale.
- Hard launch: Release a product to all potential customers on a specific, pre-announced date. It can include a publicized event that you announce in advance through a press release. You can also generate anticipation by offering promotions like a wait list, pre-order option, or launch day discounts.
Both big and small launches have the potential to generate momentum for your product. The right type of launch for you could depend on factors like your business type, industry, sales channels, and intended audience. Consider your goals and design your strategy to match.
When should you launch a product?
A number of factors can influence the timing of a product launch—some of them outside your control. For example, you might initially set a launch date, but move it out to accommodate for audience feedback, finetuning features, or something else you didn’t anticipate. Keep an eye on situations that might distract your audience like:
- Market conditions
- The economy
- Trends in your niche
- World events
- Competitor events or launches
If conditions aren’t favorable, it might be a good idea to press pause before attempting to capture your audience’s attention. Making a positive first impression is also key to ensure your product quality, audience fit, and other factors are ready for their big debut. Don’t let the pressure to launch stop you from postponing, if necessary.
There’s no predicting the future, but consider setting a launch date to motivate yourself and your team, and to keep you all on track and accountable. Just be mindful to only announce the date publicly when you’re comfortable committing to it. Create a timeline and check off all the boxes in the leadup so you can go live with confidence.
Product launch checklist: 5 steps for success
1. Do all your prep work
Set a solid foundation by taking the following actions:
- Finalize the product and test it out.
- Share the product with a select audience, gather feedback, and make any necessary tweaks.
- Shape your branding and promotional content based on audience research.
- Prepare inventory and make sure you’ll have enough to meet demand without running the risk of ending up with too much extra stock on hand.
- Have a plan for fulfillment so you’ll be able to package and ship orders to customers efficiently.
Ecommerce fulfillment can also involve the related tasks of processing returns, refunds, and exchanges. Some third-party logistics providers (3PLs) can handle these tasks, along with customer service.
2. Make the product available on all your sales channels
Where will people be able to buy the product? Your options for sales channels could include:
- Physical locations like a brick-and-mortar store
- Your own website
- A presence on one or more social media sites
- An ecommerce storefront on an established selling website like Amazon
You might rely on just one of these channels, or use a combination. Either way, be sure to research best practices for each channel, connecting with experts if possible. Test out a channel to get to know the quirks and spot opportunities to improve engagement. For example, you might want to tailor your messaging for each platform.
3. Test everything in advance
To make sure everything works as expected, put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Review all your landing pages, marketing, and any other relevant materials.
Go so far as to test the checkout process for each of your sales channels, making note of any faulty links or other kinks. Start at the top of your sales funnel and go all the way to the bottom.
If possible, place a sample order. Evaluate delivery time, product and packaging quality, and anything else that could result in a negative customer experience. Take the time you need to fix any defects to ensure an optimal customer experience.
4. Announce and promote the launch
How will customers find out about the product? Think about all the touchpoints where customers can come into contact with the product. How will you draw people to those places so they can learn more and make purchases?
Some marketing methods, like TV, radio, and billboards, might depend on where your audience is located. You could also host an opening day sale or throw live events in-person or online.
With ecommerce marketing, you can reach customers all over the world. To help online audiences connect with a new product, consider the following options:
- Blog or vlog content: Start your own, or land a few guest posts on respected sites with loyal followings.
- Demos or tutorials: Show customers how the product works so they can evaluate whether it’s right for them.
- Social media: Curate your own content, engage influencers, or collaborate with celebrities to amplify your message.
- Digital discounts and coupons: Create a sense of urgency with a limited-time discount, or create a sense of scarcity by offering a select number of special deals.
- Cost-per-click (CPC) ads: You can create digital advertisements to reach your audience where they are online by using specific keywords.
It might be worth investing in experts like graphic designers, marketers, or content creators to ensure the messaging is on point. Compelling copy, high-quality product photography, and other components should work together to help people understand what the product is all about so they can visualize how it might fit into their lives.
While you’re driving all those sales, why not make supplemental income? Look into affiliate marketing programs and ways to earn credit by directing traffic to online listings, like Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus.
5. Measure results and keep the momentum going
Now your product is out in the world, it’s time to take a moment to celebrate. Find a special way to acknowledge this big milestone and ensure everyone who played a role gets the recognition they deserve.
Next, go the extra mile by measuring how the launch went and find opportunities for improvement. Pick a few key performance metrics (KPIs) like:
- Number of customers engaged (this could be the attendees who showed up at an in-person event or the number of online visitors)
- Number of impressions, clicks, cart-adds, and purchases
- Amount of sales
Get a process in place to measure KPIs like these going forward as you continue to track progress and make sure the numbers are headed in the right direction. In the process, you can gain insights into who your audience is and how to move the needle for your business.
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We were both surprised at how helpful Amazon has been. Not just in launching, but after we went live, they helped us along the way.
5 tips for an Amazon product launch
Here’s a working framework for launching a product in the Amazon store, plus expert tips for how to get maximum results.
1. Get set up and prepare for the release
To sell in the Amazon store, the first step is to create a selling account. Sign up for a selling plan and familiarize yourself with the relevant guidelines and policies based on what you want to sell. Learn more in this beginner’s guide to selling on Amazon.
If you have a registered or pending trademark, you can also enroll a brand in Amazon Brand Registry, a free program to help you build and protect your brand that also gives you access to a suite of tools and support.
As you get started, consider how you want to manage inventory and ship products. You can fulfill products yourself or enroll products in Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). FBA is a fulfillment option that allows you to ship products into Amazon’s fulfillment network and outsource the packing, shipping, customer service, and returns. FBA can help you save time, reduce operational costs, and grow your business.
2. Make the product available on Amazon
You can match a product to a listing that’s already live or create a new listing. Learn more about how it works in our guide to product listings.
To give customers a clear understanding of what they can buy, be sure to include high-quality product photography. Help the product look its best and increase conversions by trying these product photography tips.
In addition to product photos, you can enhance your product listings using Amazon’s A+ Content. This tool helps brands enrolled in Brand Registry showcase their products and drive sales by adding video, enhanced images, shoppable product-comparison charts, and more to their product detail pages.
Brands enrolled in Brand Registry also have the option to create their own storefront—a free destination in the Amazon store to help customers explore your products and get to know your brand.
1Amazon internal data, FY2023, US store
3. Attract new customers with advertising
In the Amazon store, you can help more customers connect with your products by making the most of cost-per-click (CPC) ads like Sponsored Products. You can also run Lighting Deals or 7-Day Deals, offer digital coupons, or bundle products to increase your average order size.
Another option is Amazon Live—a virtual destination where you can unveil new products and interact directly with customers.
Learn more about Amazon advertising options
4. Boost conversions and improve your rank
Once the product is attracting views and clicks, pivot to see how you’re ranking and look for ways to increase performance.
One way to see how your efforts are paying off is Amazon’s Best Seller Rank (BSR). This is a number that appears on a product detail page and indicates how a product is selling relative to similar products.
There are a number of ways you can improve BSR. For example, customer reviews can be a form of social proof and go far in earning trust, but they can be hard to get for a new product. So you could focus on collecting customer testimonials and featuring positive reviews in your marketing content.
Before enrolling in Vine, be sure to fully complete product development and thoroughly vet the product. Then enroll it in Vine soon after listing in the Amazon store to improve your chances of getting as many positive reviews as possible.
5. Monitor and optimize performance
Make the most of ecommerce advantages like the ability to track key metrics and delve into different types of data in order to find opportunities to improve your business. Here are a few ways:
- Amazon Brand Analytics: This collection of dashboards allows brands to explore impressions, clicks, audience demographics, and more with aggregated customer search and brand performance data.
- Manage Your Experiments: This Amazon tool allows brands to run A/B tests to find out what content performs best in terms of clicks, conversions, and other criteria.
- Keyword research: Dig into keywords to learn how customers find you. In the process, you can spot opportunities to reach more people using search engine optimization (SEO).
You can also make use of ecommerce automation to simplify tasks and free up your day. For example, Automate Pricing is an Amazon tool that lets you automatically adjust price points based on real-time fluctuations in demand.
We saw four times the click-through rate when our CTA mentioned Amazon versus our website. We also saw conversion rates grow four to five times over what we were seeing on our website.
