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Monday, November 26, 2012

Your Product Launch - The Killer Actions You Are Not Told About

Setting things up for a product launch is common sense, on the whole, but you're never told about the basics that have to go on in the background to make it operate, never mind work in terms of getting profits. These are not things most people want to know about. They'd prefer the surface glamour of the launch itself but without the long term basics, it won't work.

1. Build your list in every way you can. The fact that you can make offers to them over time, and not just once on a sales page, is extremely important. However, it's also about building links and a network so that a launch has as wide an effect as possible.

2. Develop your skills in understanding your business. This is not just understanding technical skills as much as you can, even though you might not be able to carry them all out personally. It's mainly about knowing what business you're really in, its ethos, branding potential and where it's building to in the future. Such understandings give your launch greater focus and clarity.

3. Content building is essential. This should take place over a lengthy time period, together with building your links. Your content needs to be as valuable as you can make it, without giving away all of your "secrets" which you'll want to sell. So, instead of writing a few articles, create a content map into as many places as possible. This will give your launch depth, connection and more authority.

4. Build relationships to develop joint ventures. Joint venture developments can occur through the growth of trust and working together on other tasks and projects by being on your list. Obviously, there must be benefit for the joint venture partners, usually in terms of financial reward. Whatever the arrangement, having these partnerships greatly increases the immediate audience for your launch.

What Is Kajabi? 5 Website Savvy, Yet Simple Steps to Launch Your Product or Service Infoprenuer Ideas: Little Niche Sites Will Keep You Poor I Have a New Product Now - How Can I Sell It Online?

Designing Your Business to Create Customer Loyalty

During a tough economy, marketing your business the same way you did when the economy was prosperous will not work. Consumers still love to buy and hate to be sold. The difference in this current market is that more consumers are using their money wisely, comparing products and services online before making a decision. Whether it's health insurance, financial advise, pharmaceutical or beauty products, a company's website is key to gaining new customers.

Test Your Own Website

More people use websites to research information on products and services than ever before. Company image and functionality is very important when marketing online. That's why I'm amazed at some of the websites I visit. I still see page links that go nowhere and the notice, "URL Not Found" appears. That's a real turn-off to any prospect. Websites should be designed to communicate clearly what the company does. Every page needs to have an easy-to-navigate link and a way to get back to the Home page. There shouldn't be any dead ends or confusion as to whether or not you are still on the same site. A site, which is poorly designed and developed, gives the appearance that the company is "here today, gone tomorrow" and the level of trust quickly deteriorates. A potential customer will then move on to another site - one belonging to your competition.

What's Your Problem?

Competition is fierce with online marketing so it is important to have competitive pricing and value-added service. If you can't afford to provide a discounted price, then offer some type of additional service or product that won't break your budget. Having a different type of product or service than your competitors can make you stand out from the crowd. Find out what problems exist with your present product or service. It could be that people hate waiting for your service, so improved timing would be key. Perhaps the product leaks after use so the bottle packaging needs improvement. Discovering the problem and making major changes to solve the problem is the first step in giving you the competitive advantage. The next step is letting consumers know about it. If you make improvements or a major change in the way your industry does business - that could launch your business to a whole new level.

If your business involves products, the packaging plays a vital role in attracting consumers. I have purchased several bottles of wine based upon the look and description on the label. Once wine is opened, people rarely return it, so packaging is extremely important in making the initial decision. Keeping the customer depends on how much the customer enjoyed consuming the product and by continuing top-of-mind awareness. Advertising, promotions and offers can keep customers coming back for more. CVS does this well by tracking the customer's purchases, through a customer care card, and providing new savings coupons based upon their purchasing history.

Let Your Customer Work for You

When I design packaging, labels and corresponding promotions I target them to the right market to create loyal customers. It's easy to get a one-time customer with the right product launch, but it's more important to develop customer loyalty. These types of customers can become your best sales force, simply by recommending the product to their friends. The same can work wonders for service industries. A referral from a happy customer is stronger than one from a salesperson. Unfortunately, one bad experience with a customer can adversely affect your business, exponentially, once the customer tells their friends. That's why a program that gets everyone in your company to understand the values and mission of your company is so vital to its longevity and growth. If everyone in the company is informed and empowered, when it involves customer service, complaints would be minimized. We create our customer loyalty programs with the help of an experienced consultant to obtain measurable results.

Replace Cloudy Confusions with Concrete Conclusions

I have spent most of my life helping businesses prosper by developing programs and designs that attract customers. In the present economy, branding your product or service is more important than ever. If your product or service is easily confused with another, you could be losing an important segment of business. If your product or service in not easily remembered or easily associated with your industry, you need to change it by rebranding and relaunching it. No matter how complicated your message is, there is a way to communicate it in a clear, concise and consistent style that is also memorable. Why blend when you can stand out from the crowd?

What Is Kajabi? 5 Website Savvy, Yet Simple Steps to Launch Your Product or Service Infoprenuer Ideas: Little Niche Sites Will Keep You Poor I Have a New Product Now - How Can I Sell It Online? Integrated Product Launching Strategies

Launch a Product Successfully

A lot of people lose a lot of time and money launching a new product because they don't focus their attention on the right things. I've seen a lot of people pull in little to no profit on a product launch, and most of the time, it could have been avoided.

Most small business owners follow the same steps when launching a product. They create their new product, publicize it on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, and maybe mention it to any affiliates they might have. Those things are great, but they're just not enough.

For a product to really succeed, you have to promote it heavily before launch. You need to generate attention and hype for your product before you're ready to send it out the door. Use your social networking accounts to start generating hype for your product weeks, or even months before it launches. Post updates on the progress of your new product on a regular basis, and encourage your audience to give feedback on the progress of the product. If you have a YouTube account, show some video footage of your new product in action. The more you can show off the product before its launch, the better.

If you're running an affiliate program for your business, reach out to your affiliates before your product launches, and make sure they know all about it. Give them any relevant marketing materials they might need to push your product, and make sure they know how to get a hold of you if they have any questions about your product. Having a good network of affiliates can help you to generate hype for your product prelaunch, so remember to keep them in the loop.

Once you've generated some hype for your product, you can launch it the same way detailed above. Be sure to talk to your customers, and make sure the product is being well received. If your customers have any issues with your product, try to resolve it as quickly as possible.

Take the time to properly promote your new product before it launches. If you just send a product out the door without warning, you're sending it to its death. Be sure to keep your target market engaged, and use your affiliate network to get the word out. By taking the time to launch your product the right way, you can ensure more sales down the line.

Product Launch - Not As Difficult As You Think

The thought of having your own product launch may seem like a daunting task. Having your product make its way towards a sale register is far easier than you think. The tasks needed to have a successful launch are also easily accomplished.

To see your own product launching, you obviously need to generate your product. This part is not only easy, it can also be enjoyable. If you have overcome struggles and can give detailed instructions, others may need to hear your story. Don't over think the basics, it really starts that easily!

Advertising and exposure are critical components in your product's successful entry into the online marketplace. When your product is launching on the internet, you have a wide array of buyers you can reach to, but do you fill a need for them? If you had written a diabetes daily guide, for example, you wouldn't necessarily be targeting a high school senior researching a history report. Come up with a list of words that relate to people who deal with your book's topic. They may search items pertaining to insulin or diet, or potentially be looking toward how to lower the effects diabetes has on them. That list you just created gave you the keywords you want in your advertising.

If you are like most people, you might need some time to think about potential purchases in your future. The idea in the previous sentence is people do not buy something right away but could have a genuine interest in doing so. A tool that can help you attain "post viewing" sales for your product launch is a squeeze page to help build a mailing list. The mailing list portion of your product launching could also help you sell future products at a later date. Your mailing list could also entice people to sell your product for you if you give cash incentives.

Being involved in a product launch can be scary, until you realize just how easy it is. We have established you need an idea, which is an obvious fact. Next you need traffic and exposure for sales and also needed is a "grab them" idea, so you can sell to them later if they do not buy immediately.

Launching a New Product? Market Research

Knowing your target market is one of the most important elements to a successful marketing campaign, if not the most important. Marketing to those that are not in your target market is useless and extremely wasteful! But knowing your target market becomes even more critical when you are launching a new product. Why? Because you have even more money, resources and man power on the line. And just knowing who your target audience is is not enough, you need to know all there is to know about them. That is why doing Market Research is completely necessary when launching a new product.

I remember taking Marketing 250 - Market Research in college. Seemed pretty boring to me. But after starting my own business over 10 years ago, I realize now just how incredibly important market research is! It can save a business millions of dollars! And some of it is relatively cheap... at least compared to the price of a failed product launch. There have been so many product flops over the years that could've been avoided if proper market research had been conducted! Here are a few of my favorite product flops:

• Coors Rocky Mountain Spring Water. You'd think one of the most popular beer brands would be able to pull off another refreshing beverage. Unfortunately, they did not realize their customers were not interested in buying a product from Coors that did not contain alcohol!

• Colgate Kitchen Entrees. Sounds gross to me. Colgate tried to extent its brand into food products, but consumers could not associate the toothpaste brand with food.

• Crystal Pepsi. I'm sure you can remember this one! In the late 80s, Pepsi tried to market a clear cola that tasted exactly like regular Pepsi. Clearly, it did not resonate with customers!

You would think that these big brands with even bigger budgets would be able to conduct the research necessary to avoid such failures. The problem is that not enough wholistic market research is done. Many companies will use only a few market research tactics, and will miss out on important information. There are so many different strategies, I could devote an entire post to them.

Delivery Methods for Coaching Services: A Comparison

When you are presenting your coaching services as a teleclass or as group coaching, there are several ways to "deliver the goods" to your clients.

The "traditional" way is through a series of emails with class materials attached. This way would look something like this:

Email 1: Welcome to class and include dates for all calls as well as manual or "homework" for the first class. Email 2: The day before live class send a reminder. Attachment will include written materials for the class (manual/homework etc) Email 3: Day after class. Attachments include recording of class and repeat of written materials sent previously. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 for each class in your series.

The advantages of the "traditional delivery method" are:

Initial costs are low. You probably already have (or should have!) an email delivery system in place.

The dis-advantages of this method are:

It's not "evergreen." Repurposing of your coaching materials is paramount to your services being effective and efficient. "Reinventing the wheel" for each new class or group is not. Each class will require the same energy and time commitment as the first. Emails get lost or (gasp!) sent to the dreaded spam folder. Then each client has to email you to get the course materials and downloads. This often happens at the last minute when YOU are preparing for your live class. Problems with email attachments/downloads. With so many different email delivery programs, there will always be issues with an attachment or download not going through to someone. In the case of your call recordings, the files are too large for most email programs. So they have to be stored on line somewhere for download. While it may seem "old hat" to you and me to download files, some of your clients may not have a clue.

The NEW Trend in coaching delivery services is Membership Portals. You may think of these portals as websites committed specifically to your coaching program. They are membership sites so only your students can access the valuable information and tools you provide.

The Membership Portal delivery method looks something like this:

Set up your Membership Site. This site has your branding. You can load all your materials - manuals, homework etc. in to your site set up much like the chapters in a book. Each "chapter" or "module" can be time released so information is dripped to students as needed. Enroll you students and they have immediate access to read the course materials on line or download to their computer. You can also give them access to any "bonus" material. You can also include a forum where students can interact or ask YOU questions. You will still send reminder emails but they will refer to the site for all downloads.

The advantages of the Membership Portal method are:

It is "evergreen." Starting a new class every 3 months? No problem. Make a few quick edits to your portal and you start enrolling the new class! Repurpose. After your first class, you have the recordings from each of your awesome live presentations. Maybe you want residual income without having to repeat the class live? With everything in the membership portal, you can now sell access to the portal as a "self-guided" coaching program. Convenience for your students. All class dates, materials and recordings are in one convenient place. You students don't have to be searching for that email you sent them last week. They just log on to the portal and read or download at their convenience! No Email issues. Since all materials and recordings are in the portal, there are no worries about attachments to emails and recordings to large to send. Easy FAQ. Students will have questions and, of course, some may not know how to download. Instead of your inbox being flooded with these questions, you have a convenient FAQ forum where they can get specific directions. Students feel valued and part of something special. We all love the exclusivity of "membership."

The dis-advantages of this method are:

Initial Cost. Unless you are a "technical" person and some extra time to set up your own portal, you will have to hire someone to set your portal up for you. Ongoing Cost. We recommend Kajabi for the coaches we work with. This program has a monthly subscription cost starting at $99.

I hope this has answered your questions about the delivery methods available for your coaching program. It is a very important decision that will have lasting impact for your business. If you would like assistance, we would love to help. Please visit our web page.