A successful product launch PR strategy requires the coordination of various elements. The PR team plays a crucial role in generating the necessary publicity and attention for the product launch. Their efforts are essential in ensuring the success of the launch.
A detailed PR roadmap can result in better coverage for the launch of your new product. Keep in mind that there is lots of work to consider before your new product even gets close to a single store shelf.
Marketing agencies are usually well-prepared to promote product launches. They have what it takes to do market research and generate thorough buyer personas to guide your promotional strategy. They can also establish a positioning statement and craft a winning promotional campaign for you.
Many brands believe that after spending so much time, money, and effort developing a product, this product will sell itself. We understand that after spending thousands of dollars on product development, it makes sense to save money on marketing. Unfortunately, without a bit of effort to promote your product, it might not reach the audience that you’re targeting.
Is hiring a marketing agency too expensive for you? You can consider running your own marketing for your product launch.
Public relations vs. marketing
Public relations and marketing are frequently thought of as the same thing. This is why it is critical to understand how they vary. While both are required for a successful product launch, there are some key differences in the following areas:
1) The target audience
While the audiences for PR and marketing are often thought of as the same, that is not the case. In reality, marketing focuses on directly meeting the demands of the general public. On the other hand, PR concentrates on establishing and maintaining client relationships.
2) Goals
The objectives of public relations and marketing are vastly different. Public relations aims to keep a company’s public image and relationships with clients and stakeholders positive. On the other hand, marketing involves doing market research and developing a strategy to entice customers to purchase a product.
3) Business tactics
Marketing uses promotions and other paid branding to generate a return on investment. On the other hand, public relations allows a company to obtain free media exposure, which improves the organization’s credibility.
4) Tasks
The tasks and operations that are carried out differ dramatically between PR and marketing. Marketing aims to achieve a return through direct sales by promotion, paid advertisements, and direct marketing. In contrast, PR professionals build campaigns to improve an organization’s branding and reputation through positive media coverage.
5) Endurance
The goal of marketing is immediate gratification through sales. Since it focuses on how to sell a product or service to a particular audience right now, marketing is a short-term endeavor. However, public relations focuses on a company’s long-term benefits and takes into consideration the time needed to establish trust and relationships with the public.
Ultimately, it is impossible to do marketing without also doing some form of PR.
After all, people will not invest in your product or service if they do not recognize or connect with your brand. What’s more, if they do not enjoy your product or service, it could harm your brand reputation.
What is the best way to combine PR and marketing?
Public relations is beneficial to any company that wants to boost its reputation and public perception.
Building a media campaign to promote your service or product is part of the PR process in marketing a brand. This could include planning a product launch, developing a social media strategy, and implementing a crisis management strategy.
Public relations can boost a company’s credibility in the public. In the age of fake news, public relations is critical if you want to earn trust by providing accurate and trustworthy information to the public.
Members of the media will not always print a story that is supplied to them, and if they do they will rarely print it word-for-word. For this reason, choosing the correct PR specialist or business to represent your brand is critical. If you want your stories to be shared successfully, you must hire PR professionals with industry experience. They should also have a network of influential contacts within the media environment.
If you don’t have an in-house specialist, you can partner with an agency like Pressfarm that offers quality services for growing and established businesses with packages at startup-friendly rates. Pressfarm’s services cover both content creation and content distribution.
Once you sign up, we write a winning press release as well as some compelling guest posts for you. In addition to that, our skilled designers create a modern, eye-catching media kit for you. With this content, you can create a memorable brand image. Once the content creation is done, the next step is to get this content in front of the right eyes. As part of the Campaign package, our media team distributes all of this content to respected media outlets in your industry.
We also submit your startup to high-ranking startup directories and online professional networks. Furthermore, our account executive reviews your information and builds curated media lists containing journalists in your niche. With these lists, you can continue doing media outreach for your brand long after we are done working on your campaign at Pressfarm. Ultimately, our content distribution strategy is designed to boost your online visibility by helping you to feature in relevant search results across different search engines. Sign up for one of our affordable packages and start generating the publicity your brand deserves.
Public relations (PR) is a form of free, credible advertising that can help a company’s public image. As a result, any business or organization can benefit from public relations.
How to plan your PR campaign
Public relations has a role to play before, during, and after a product launch, using varied methods that apply to distinct facets of the big debut. Let us go through them one by one.
Pre-launch: Building hype
Establish your authority
Ideally, this should be done six months before the product launch.
When you first announce your launch, visitors of all types – including the media – will be crawling all over your brand history, and evaluating your online presence.
You must ensure that they discover a relatively solid history of actions demonstrating that you are a reliable source of industry information and expertise. This includes an informative online newsroom, an engaging blog, active social media profiles, guest appearances on other forums, brand mentions on other sites, and a good overall online footprint.
In order to prepare for launch day, think about your brand from the perspective of the media. What are they supposed to think about a brand that is begging for attention now but has been essentially inactive for the previous six months? Establishing a credible history of engagement shows the media that you’re committed to your brand. It also demonstrates that you know what you’re doing and they can consistently rely on you for expert commentary.
Let us not forget that all of your content should communicate your brand’s value proposition consistently. Someone who knows nothing about you should be able to figure out what you are all about after reading a few blog posts or interviews from you.
Research your target audience
The next step is to specify all of the recipient groups correctly. This will reveal where your target audience can be found, allowing you to select the most effective communication channels for distributing product information.
When conducting such research, keep the following points in mind:
1) Define your target market
If your target audience is too broad, you might not generate the amount of profit that you’re aiming for. After all, it’s challenging to develop an ad campaign that’s “for everyone and their mother”. On the other hand, it will be much easier to develop an effective campaign if you know who your target audience is. It will also be easier to generate promotional materials if you’ve identified where this audience spends time so you know where your company should be present.
2) Analyze what your competition is offering
This is important because you can see what already exists on the market and how you can set yourself apart from your competition.
3) Create a list of media outlets and journalists
It is critical to categorize the media into relevant groups, for example by business and industry. Doing this will make it easier for you to adapt your company message to appeal to all the relevant media professionals on your list.
Ask for reviews
When it comes to launching new products, testing is crucial.
Try sending influencers and friendly journalists a test model of the product sooner and requesting them to publish an announcement article (known as a teaser) without giving away specifics, as far as corporate policy permits. This can boost the campaign’s success while winning over those who get the opportunity to use your product earlier. Who knows – maybe some of them will opt to become brand ambassadors.
Before you send out pitches requesting reviews, remember to conduct your research and see if the editors, sites, and influencers you are approaching even post reviews. Also, do not forget to choose a publication date and a preferred medium for your reviews.
Tell your story
Storytelling is one of the most effective PR and content marketing tools. People are fascinated by personal narratives. They want to know that a person is behind the brand and that the brand reflects their values. What better way to show them this than through brand storytelling?
You can use this type of content to establish a unique atmosphere around a brand’s identity and add value to your content. Inspiring people is easy if you can show them a different side of your brand. Use your brand story to start a conversation. Learn to speak about your past experiences and future plans as if they were exciting adventures. If you can do this, then you will give your audience a reason to get excited about your brand.
Reveal something
Getting clients to want the product before seeing it is a vital (and challenging) element of the whole process. You can build excitement and a desire to learn more through a series of engagements that allows your audience to discover residual details about the product, its features, and fragments of photos.
Keep in mind that doing a product reveal does not necessarily imply that you need to display everything. Always maintain a sense of mystery. Additionally, use any information or imagery you offer to generate additional questions.
Conduct media outreach
Let us imagine you had a terrific concept, it was executed flawlessly, and now you want to have a press conference to tell the world about it. Remember that the most well-known portals and newspaper editors receive hundreds of emails daily. Naturally, each one describes a one-of-a-kind product that will transform the industry.
Your press release, as well as the pitch it contains, must be well-developed if you want a journalist to take your news seriously. Double-check that your contact list includes every relevant media figure in your niche. Create several alternative copies of your press release to send to various media. You might also want to put together a media kit with pertinent press materials at this point. This will make it easy for journalists to cover your story. A branded media kit will also help you to keep control of the story when seeking product publicity.
Increase your visibility
Having a strong media presence is critical, especially when you’re launching a new product (or rebranding), building brand recognition and identification, and launching a social media campaign. You need a good PR strategy for this. Check to see if your earlier PR efforts have yielded any benefits, and keep distributing content to the media, social media, and bloggers with an audience of potential buyers (teasers and viral videos work great here).
If you really want to optimize your online presence, you need a dedicated website. Make sure to give instructions for placing pre-orders. This is also a wonderful place to provide a demo video or visuals, such as a countdown timer for when the product will be available in stores. It’s also a good idea to include a signup form for email marketing. Most customers are prepared to provide brands with their personal information in exchange for a benefit, such as a discount on their first purchase.
Use your data
If you have a database of potential clients’ email addresses, sending them an announcement about the launch is a good idea. You can quickly start a series of emails by just mentioning the new product in the first one. The subsequent emails can focus on different aspects of the product.
Once you’ve launched the product, the final step is to send an email with a “purchase now” call to action and product photographs to help close the sale. Offer discounts or limited-time incentives to create a sense of urgency.
Product launch date
Respect deadlines
When you take a product to market, you become “public,” and time becomes critical. Both customers and the media will be watching your every move. It is vital to make the most of your time in the spotlight. You can partner with many third parties to keep your news front and center. Do not cause them headaches by not adhering to deadlines and schedules. Instead, be ready with the content they need when you say you will be prepared.
Be original
The introduction of a new product is an excellent opportunity to capture media attention. This is also the best time to launch any number of unique activities that will benefit you in the future.
Press conferences provide you the freedom to be creative while presenting your product. They also allow you to interact directly with journalists from your industry and beyond. Since most media professionals have most likely already seen similar presentations from other brands, focus on impressing them and making your offering stand out.
Stay in the spotlight
Always double-check that the communication method you have chosen is acceptable for the topic and audience to which the communications are being delivered. The PR specialist must develop the message to encourage dialogue and involvement, resulting in engaging, entertaining, and unique advertising.
Allowing your audience to contribute to your content is one of the most effective ways to develop lasting customer relationships. Invite them to snap images of their items or themes and tag them with appropriate hashtags. In this way, news about your brand will reach everyone in their networks.
Showcase the product
Before you start the general product sale, you should prepare segmented communication based on the consumer profile you have gathered. Make sure your communication takes into consideration your target audience’s preferences.
If the people in your target audience are interested in technology, demonstrate how technologically advanced your new product is. If the target audience loves beautiful designs, send them content that draws attention to the product’s great looks. On the other hand, if the people you’re trying to appeal to are motivated by price, highlight the benefits that they will receive by purchasing the product.
After launch date
Collect feedback
It’s important to inquire about the thoughts of your clients (especially new clients). It’s critical to seek an opinion early. If the consumer recalls the initial feelings linked with the recent purchase and is willing to share them with others, they will feel like an expert. By asking them to share feedback, you can also create brand advocates – at no additional cost to you. Keep in mind that you are now investing in the product’s future sales.
Say thanks
You have spent months working with media contacts and getting them to cover your product launch. Be sure to reach out to all those involved with gratitude for their help and cooperation. At this point, you need to take every chance to build relationships with those involved. After all, there is a good chance that you will need them again at some point in the future.
Assure customers
The next level of communication comes into play once new product sales are up and running and the base of consumers who have benefited from the offer grows. Now you must convince them that choosing your brand was the best decision they ever made. The way you go about doing this can dramatically influence future consumer interactions and their happiness with their recent purchases.
To do this right, send your clients personalized messages with more information about the new product. The email should have informative material, gorgeous photographs, and a feedback form with customer service contact information. This will help your clients to feel valued and give them the next steps to follow if they have any issues. You can include a video of the product in action, a recent blogger review or a guide that walks current or potential customers through all of the features and secrets of a new product step by step.
You can also demonstrate accessories that complement the new product and complementary solutions that provide more alternatives at this point. This is a good way to boost your sales even more.
Conclusion
Formulating a well-thought-out plan for a product launch can help the brand to establish its place in the market swiftly. In order to capture attention, you must make sure that you’ve built an original and intriguing brand image. Today’s market is characterized by fierce competition and market saturation. A decent product isn’t enough to capture attention and generate sales. It is necessary to construct an engaging narrative for your product – a unique story that future buyers will be able to relate to. Ultimately, your success lies in your ability to plan a creative and exciting PR launch strategy. We cannot overstate the importance of being consistent and responsive to market dynamics. After all, it’s critical to stay active by responding to shifts in client expectations and the inevitable appearance of new competitors.