6 Steps To Social Media Marketing Success: Product Launch For Startups

Social Media Marketing

There has been a striking evolution of your customers in recent years and your new-born startup could be entering into a blooming, buzzing and confusing world of competition. The audience today is ‘super-connected’ and receives its information via content online. They are aware about social media, are willing to try stuff out and maybe even write a review based on their experience with a brand. In an ideal world blog reviews and virality would take care of itself if the product is good.  Our world would be transparent and nothing worth buying stays under the radar.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite happen that way.

A product with great potential may not make it to the market or may barely break even, if not marketed correctly. The traditional ways of marketing cost too much and don’t help you build your brand in the mind of the modern consumer. This is where social media marketing comes in to save the day!

Here is some creative guidance to get your marketing strategy off the ground by defining the product launch in a stepwise manner rather than single event.

Your Product Launch Campaign Starts With Research

The first step of your launch involves researching and spending time learning more about your industry. Before you start developing your ideas, try and gauge what your target audience will actually notice and respond to. Know about the campaigns that have worked in that year by clicking here. A high proportion of product launches fail because of poor planning and inadequate research. Find out what your product has to offer the audience that you are targeting and create a campaign based on market trends which serves the purpose of communicating your product to the public.

Plan a campaign that creates interest

After deciding what you want and how you will do it, it’s time to start things off. Make sure the campaign keeps the interest of your fans high and creates in them a need and desire to participate. Raise participation by keeping things interesting with a daily call to action. For example, reveal a bit of the package for every 100 likes.

Video: Your Most Effective Marketing Tool

It is estimated that by 2017, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic, and video-on-demand traffic alone will have almost trebled.
Create teaser/promotional/corporate videos for your campaign and promote it not only on your Facebook page but also by advertising it (Facebook Ads, Youtube Preroll Ads). Consumers are watching more videos on social media than before, and brands can make the most of this opportunity, especially during a launch.

Influencer Involvement: Why Do It?

Influencers have followers and fans who quickly respond to any endorsements and recommendations. An article published on Forbes.com has stated that 80% of the Internet’s impressions are driven by just 6% of its users. Brand influencers must have the ability to deliver meaningful content that drives brand sentiment within their community upwards.
Read: The Challenges in Running a Successful Influencer Campaign

Celebrate The Revelation

When the campaign ends celebrate it in your own way. Reward fans who participated with a special prize which can be the product itself. The meaning of ‘giveaway’ is different for a B2B and B2C campaign. The immediacy for vouchers and gift coupons drives the fast buy action for a consumer product. The B2B space involves longer and more complex sales cycles and the ‘give’ in this case means educating the user. By granting access to relevant and valuable content a brand can position itself as a thought leader while collecting user data.
By sharing your product you engage with your fans, who talk about it create a big buzz. More giveaways means more user generated posts. Here is a clever Social Media Campaign from Ikea, Sweden.

Don’t Kill The Buzz

  • Case study videos are a great way to keep the buzz, around your campaign, on for a while. The important thing to remember in case study videos is to analyse your results in a creative way.
    Read: 5 Intriguing Twitter Marketing Case Studies

These are simple guidelines that have worked for us. Is there any key point we have missed, that you would like people to know about from a personal product launch experience? Write to us at: marketing@germin8.com