The Ultimate Pre Launch Checklist for Start-Ups

You’ve carried out market research, refined your business plan, and perfected your product, but in terms of marketing, it’s barely the first step.

In the realm of marketing, your job is never done. From redefining your business plans with better tactics to discovering potential partners and clients that expand your reach, marketing demands your A-game at every step.

As tedious and overwhelming as the process may seem, drafting a strong pre launch marketing schedule can organize the endless clutter back in order. We have shared actionable to-do items that’ll help drive sales and maximize business growth.

What is a Pre-Launch Campaign?

A pre-launch marketing campaign encapsulates the steps undertaken to promote or advertise an upcoming product or service to its respective audience before the official launch. The idea is to develop interest and enthusiasm for the product that further improves brand recognition.

A pre-launch campaign is often misinterpreted with the product launch, highlighting the roadmap or strategy for launching a product at the best appropriate time. The pre-launch campaign, however, starts during product development, addressing the areas of concern for launching that product.

The campaign helps entrepreneurs and marketing managers understand the market dynamics, identify the relevant audience, test out different marketing channels, and pre-plan the business strategy accordingly.

Why is a Pre-Launch Marketing Strategy or Campaign Important?

What makes your newfangled product/service the talk of the town even before its release is the pre launch campaign? Let’s say your product is one of a kind, with its features and benefits outclassing every competitor. Still, without a successful campaign at the back, it may not appeal to the relevant audience.

Pre-launch campaigns magnify your product in front of the target audience, raise awareness about its properties, and create a buzz for the upcoming inauguration. Promoting the product in the development stages offers well-needed feedback, allowing developers to fine-tune it before the official release.

Besides, it helps marketing teams determine the effectiveness of different advertising platforms to finalize the one that generates essential leads. If instated correctly, a pre launch campaign will help you achieve the following objectives:

Establish an SEO-optimized digital footprint (website) along with a strong social media presence and following.

Connect with social media influencers and marketing ambassadors to extend your business outreach.

Identify and engage the relevant audience eager to purchase and recommend your products to additional customers.

Develop a comprehensive marketing plan that focuses on locating your audience, reaching out to them, and implementing strategies to achieve business goals.

Pre-Launch Marketing Checklist

Establishing your brand's presence before the product’s official release is fundamental to generating leads with a higher conversion rate. A pre launch campaign sets your business or product apart from its competitors, promoting higher visibility to the audience.

Nevertheless, aligning everyone in your team to a unified marketing approach that brings favorable results demands a detailed marketing plan. We have identified ten key marketing tasks you must perform as part of your product launch checklist.

1. Identify and Target the Right Audience

Knowing your customers is the first step toward market research. Instead of directing your marketing plan aimlessly, narrow down your audience based on their interests and preferences.

Who will benefit from your product/service more? Who will be more likely to refer your services to others and generate more leads?

Identifying their requirements, preferences, and pain points will also guide you through the product management stages. Adapting to customer needs and desires can help you develop and market consumer-directed solutions.

Prioritize your pre launch campaign to your existing customers based on their prior engagement with your ads. Since these individuals already value your services, they will offer valuable feedback on your upcoming products.

2. Identify Goals

Keep your objectives vivid and milestones realistic. When forming a pre launch marketing strategy for your product, it's crucial to identify your goals before the official release.

Start by asking yourself, where do you see your business in the future? What objectives do you hope to achieve with your upcoming product?

Setting clear objectives will help your team focus on improving inauguration tactics that will help achieve goals. They could also be viewed as success metrics that reveal the success of your future campaigns and whether your customer-directed practices are helpful.

The analytics shall be approved by all departments to ensure a team effort.

3. Establish a Pre-launch Landing Page

A website landing page serves as the facade for your company. Since it’s the first thing, your audience interacts with when purchasing from you, establishing a pre launch website puts you one step closer to your potential customers.

Whether you’re simply building the hype around your upcoming release or allowing customers to pre-order your products, a website will help kickstart your lead generation tactics through content marketing. Make sure to include proper SEO markers to your website so it's well-recieved by the search engines. Most businesses use rewards and referral programs to attract a wider audience.

Building an interactive web page allows marketing managers to collect data on potential customers, enhance lead generation, promote your product, and create buzz for a successful release.

4. Create a Product Launch Strategy

‘Product launch strategy’ is an overarching term that compiles various individual elements, each aimed at developing a standout product that boosts sales. Discover the best practices for a pre-launch campaign:

Identifying customers - Develop an understanding of your potential audience using analytics, metrics, and research.

Determining product USP - Figure out the unique selling points of your product that distinguish it from its peer set.

Drafting a product launch plan - Implement the feedback from your customers to refine your marketing plan.

Advertising the product - Determine what advertising or social channels you will use to promote your upcoming product

Measuring results - Monitor your campaign output after the product release alongside consumer feedback and response regarding your product.

5. Create a Content Calendar for the Campaign

As a marketing professional, you may not be the one creating content for your enterprise but planning your content strategy during the product development phase will smoothen things out. Editorial calendars offer you a way to set marketing objectives and develop an appropriate content strategy ahead of time.

Identifying seasonal trends in your business and how they influence consumer behavior makes it essential to plan your content assets accordingly. If implemented properly, content calendars can help boost sales, generate high traffic, and maximize conversions.

A content calendar highlights when and where new content is and introduces upcoming products and services, making sure they are well-received by the audience. Don't forget, a content schedule could help you optimize your campaigns, redefine objects and yearly milestones, and shape user experience.

6. Send Emails to Your Existing Customers and Subscribers

Instead of spamming inboxes aimlessly, it is only viable to send emails to your existing customers - who really want to hear from you. Build a subscriber list of everyone who purchased from you or visited your website to carry out effective email marketing.

Consider your website an official channel to build and expand your customer list. Add quick-fill forms with strong CTAs to your website, allowing visitors to subscribe to your newsletter. You can also instate advanced AI solutions to segment your customers based on their preferences to send them well-crafted personalized emails.

7. Create a Dedicated Social Media Campaign

In today’s world, social media is the heart and soul of every marketing campaign. The amount of reach you acquire on the platform can make or break your business milestones for a product launch. While it helps you tap the biggest customer pool, a smartly targeted campaign is all you need to create the buzz around your product. Implementing the following techniques and strategies will help you gain visibility on social media:

• Make yourself visible by creating a hashtag.
• Bring promotional deals, giveaways, and discounts for your audience.
• Tell a story about your brand that your audience can connect with.
• Team up with celebrities to host giveaways and increase engagement.
• Publish photo and video teasers about your incoming product to invoke user anticipation.

8. Create an Influencer Marketing Plan for the Campaign

Bringing thought leaders and influencers on board is a perfect way to expand your reach to the masses. Cooperating with influential personalities in your niche will certainly boost your pre-launch campaign.

Send press releases to media outlets and pitch your product to bloggers to diversify your reach to a wider audience and acquire new customers.

While the campaign strategy will allow you to raise brand awareness during developmental stages, these celebrities can also stimulate the audience’s interest after the official release.

9. Create a Content Calendar for the Launch Date

As an entrepreneur, you may not be the one creating content for your enterprise but planning your content strategy during the pre release stage will smoothen things out. Editorial calendars offer you a way to set marketing objectives and develop an appropriate content strategy and a pre launch marketing to-do list ahead of time.

Identifying seasonal trends in your business and how they influence user behavior makes it essential to plan your content assets accordingly. If implemented properly, content calendars can help boost sales, generate high traffic, and maximize conversions.

A content calendar highlights when and where new content is required and introduces upcoming products and services, making sure they're well-received by the audience. It could help you optimize your campaigns, redefine objects and yearly milestones, and shape customer behavior.

10. Setup Your Email Campaign

While some perceive it outdated, Email marketing is an effective tool for engaging with your audience and upkeep customer relationships. Being a cost-effective market channel, startups and SMEs depend on emails to connect with customers, advertise services, and promote their brands.

Most customers receive emails from the subscribed newsletters of their most-shopped brands. Besides promotion messages, businesses offer discount coupons and deals as part of their marketing campaign. Develop an email list focusing on your existing customers, making sure they are the early adopters of your upcoming product.

Regardless of the subject, make sure your emails are conversation, contain follow-up, are personalized to meet customer needs, and contain an optimized CTA to maximize conversions.

11. Measure and Track Campaign Success

Measuring marketing effectiveness is critical when it comes to evaluating the impact and success of a marketing campaign. Even though the primary goal of a campaign is higher ROI, company executives also evaluate the performance of a marketing strategy based on traffic, conversions, and sales output.

There is no go-to-marketing strategy for any business. With the constantly evolving trends and sales dynamics, feel free to pivot from or make adjustments in your marketing strategies that don’t bring favorable results.

CTA - Pre-Launch Campaign Downloadable Checklist

Whether you’re engineering a multi-experience app or have a standalone website as your company’s digital footprint, evaluating it through Prefinery’s pre-launch campaign checklist is vital. Prefinery is well-equipped to steer the pre-launch marketing campaign for your upcoming product and maximize its growth through referral campaigns after launch.

Final Thoughts

Launching a product or service is a very challenging process for every business, regardless of the scale or human resources. Besides carrying out niche research and experiments to perfect the product, companies are expected to conduct marketing campaigns before the product's initial release to raise brand awareness and create anticipation and excitement.

Whether you are running a one-man show with your startup or supervising a large-scale enterprise, a pre-launch checklist will make your future project announcements easier on every front.

Prefinery has covered everything from identifying the audience and setting milestones to finalizing a marketing plan to make your business endeavors a success. Let’s make your tech business earn its well-deserved spot in the market. Sign up with us for a free trial.

FAQs

How to plan an effective pre-launch marketing campaign?

Conducting a campaign prior to the launch of your product requires comprehensive planning, from segmenting the public to carrying promotional campaigns online. The idea is to build hype around your upcoming product in the market that will eventually generate higher sales.

What are the main steps in a pre launch campaign?

The main steps of an pre launch campaign include the following;

• Identifying audience
• Establish landing page
• Devise product release strategy
• Set realistic goals
• Track campaign success

What should you know before releasing a product?

Knowing your audience is crucial before releasing a product. Start by building a landing page for your business to facilitate customer integrations and plan your advertising strategy accordingly.

Set clear and realistic goals for the release and track your performance afterward to ensure the milestones are being achieved.