Deciding where to launch

When I talk about where to launch, I’m referring to both online and physical venues or locations — wherever you choose to make a big splash and generate buzz. Online and physical locations may include one or more of the following:

• One or more pop-up stores (see Chapter 11).

  If you’re launching in a physical location, carefully consider where you’ll get the most foot traffic, especially people who are most likely to be interested in your brand.

• Retail outlets (see Chapter 11).
• Public locations, such as airports and roadsides (billboards).
• Your website, blog, or online store (see Chapter 7).
• A third-party ecommerce platform such as Etsy (https://www.etsy.com). Although you won’t have your own domain, you can create a shop and open it to millions of customers in Etsy’s network.
• Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (see Chapter 13).
• Publications — newspapers, magazines, or professional journals.
• A fundraising website, such as Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com). What does fundraising have to do with branding? If you have a great idea, your fundraising effort can serve as a very effective marketing tool.
• A speakers’ bureau, such as APB (https://www.apbspeakers.com) or social media influencer directory, such as Find My Influencer (https://www.findmyinfluencer.com), if you’re launching a personal brand.

Confirming your key target audiences

Whenever you launch or relaunch your brand or launch any marketing campaign, for that matter, confirm your key target audiences. In Chapter 5, I guide you through the process of defining one or more customer avatars — each a composite of all the people in one of your target markets. Do those avatars still represent the people in your target markets? If they don’t, now is the time to make adjustments. If they do, great; have everyone on your team study them again so you all have a clear idea of who you’re reaching out to.

Your key target audiences may be defined by location, demographics (age, gender, occupation, income level, marital status), psychographics (values, hobbies, lifestyle, personality, attitude, behavior), industries, buying habits, pain points, motivation, and so on.

Creating a to-do list

Launching a brand sounds so easy. After all, it merely involves announcing your brand to the world — or to the small part of the world you’re reaching out to. It starts to get complicated when you ask yourself “How?” What specifically are you going to do to promote your brand during your launch?

The answer to that question depends on several factors, including the brand type (product brand, personal brand, and so on), the product or service you’re selling, your target audiences, and your budget and resources. If you’re launching a personal brand to market yourself as a consultant, you’ll need to build a website and a social media presence, write blog posts and articles, establish media contacts, network with decision-makers, and pursue relevant speaking engagements. If you’re launching a product brand, you’ll need to build an online store, establish a social media presence, write and distribute a press release, send product samples to influencers, and so on.

Make a comprehensive to-do list of specific things you need to do to launch your brand. Here’s a list of ideas to get your creative juices flowing (the good news is that you don’t have to do all of them):

• Create the marketing materials you need, such as advertisements, signs, posters, banners, brochures, postcards, business cards, case studies, sales sheets, testimonials, flyers, loyalty cards, branded shirts, and promotional items (branded pens, mugs, keychains, and so on).

  Give yourself plenty of lead time for designs, edits, approval, and printing (if necessary). See “Creating a launch calendar” later in this chapter for details.

• Create and distribute a press release. See “Tapping the Power of the Press to Launch Your Brand” later in this chapter.
• Go live with your branded website, blog, or online store.
• Post promotional content to your social media accounts — text-based content, discount codes, podcasts, audio, video, white papers, and so on.
• Execute an email marketing campaign (see Chapter 14).
• Launch pay-per-click advertising campaigns.

• Advertise in traditional media — newspapers, magazines, television, and radio.

  You can create local, regional, or national ad campaigns depending on the distribution and availability of your products and services.

• Perform in-store product demonstrations.
• Conduct promotional campaigns that offer discounts, gifts, samples, or free trials.
• Connect and coordinate your launch with influencers. See Chapter 13 for more about teaming up with influencers.
• Get a booth or deliver a presentation at a popular industry event, such as a conference or trade show, that gets a lot of press, such as Comic Con or the Consumer Electronics Show. Those events may be a little ambitious for a small brand, but every industry has events large and small.
• Throw a launch party.
• Do a prelaunch campaign in the days, weeks, or months leading up to your official launch date. A pre-launch campaign is a downscaled version of the official launch designed to generate some buzz and build anticipation for a brand. It may involve creating a “Coming Soon” page, blogging about an upcoming product release, and capturing email addresses so you can execute an email marketing campaign as part of your official brand launch.

Have fun thinking up clever ideas for your brand launch. The more enthusiastic you are about your launch, the more enthusiastic your audience will be about your brand.

Timing your launch for maximum impact

What’s the tenth biggest reasons why startup fail? Poor timing, according to a recent survey conducted by the Small Business Administration. Introduce your product or service too early, when customers aren’t ready for it, and you won’t make a splash. Introduce it too late, and your competitors may beat you to the punch. This statistic applies only to innovative product or service brands, but even so, when you’re launching any brand, timing can dramatically affect your success.

When you’re deciding on a launch date, consider the following factors:

• Readiness: For most brands, the best time to launch is as early as possible — whenever your brand is ready and you’re ready.
• Seasons: Some things are more popular in certain seasons. If you’re launching a new line of kayaks, you probably want to schedule your launch sometime during boat-show season: late fall to early spring. Likewise, launching a self-improvement product near the first of the year, when people are making their New Year’s resolutions, is usually effective.
• Industry cycles and events: Most industries have annual cycles and specific events that drive interest in innovative products and services. In the publishing biz, BookExpo in late May or early June generates a great deal of buzz.
• Your own product cycles: When one product is reaching its peak, and you’ve developed the next new thing, it’s time to relaunch your brand.
• Holidays and observances: Certain days, weeks, and even months provide great brand launch opportunities, and I’m not just talking about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. We also celebrate National Pet Appreciation Day, National Doughnut Day, National Yoga Day, National Coloring Book Day; Termite Awareness Week, Work at Home Moms Week, International Clown Week (no kidding); National Black History Month, National Back to School Month, and Mad for Plaid Month. Here’s a list of holidays just in the first week of January:
  • National Bloody Mary Day (January 1)
  • National Buffet Day (January 2)
  • National Cream Puff Day (January 2)
  • Fruitcake Toss Day (January 3)
  • National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day (January 3)
  • National Spaghetti Day (January 4)
  • National Whipped Cream Day (January 5)
  • Apple Tree Day (January 6)
  • National Bean Day (January 6)
  • National Shortbread Day (January 6)
  • National Tempura Day (January 7)

To find holidays and observances relevant to your brand, search the web for the product/service type that best represents your brand followed by “holidays and observances” or search for “holidays and observances” and browse through the lists that turn up. You can also look up the best season for your product through Google.

When you’re launching on a holiday or observance, be sure to use hashtags to spread the word, such as #TeacherAppreciationWeek. Hashtags extend your reach in increase shareability.

Creating a launch calendar

When you have a comprehensive to-do list and a launch date, you’re ready to schedule launch activities, assign them to the responsible person (or people), and backdate them. Backdating is the practice of setting milestones on dates earlier than the date a project needs to be completed so that time is available to complete the project. If one of your activities is to deliver in-store demonstrations, you set the dates for those demonstrations and then set earlier dates to allow time to prepare for them.

You can use project-planning or collaboration software such as Google Workspace (https://workspace.google.com), an online calendar such as Google Calendar (https://calendar.google.com), a traditional day planner or 12-month calendar, or a table to create your launch calendar. Be sure to include the following details:

• A descriptive name for each activity or project.
• The date on which each project is to be completed or each activity is to be performed, along with any milestones leading up to that date.
• The person or people responsible for each project/activity. Obviously, this detail isn’t necessary if you’re doing everything yourself.

If you have your own marketing team or strategic partnerships with other brands, strongly consider using a cloud-based calendar, project-management, or collaboration software so that everyone on your team has access to the same information.

Preparing incentives for initial customers

A great way to encourage your target audiences to participate in your brand launch is to offer an incentive, such as the following:

• Swag, such as free branded T-shirts, baseball caps, keychains, refrigerator magnets, pens, or water bottles. If you’re opening a new gym, you can offer a free bag with a branded water bottle and gym towel, a protein bar, and a coupon for a free month’s membership.

  Several online businesses specialize in manufacturing and selling branded promotional merchandise, such as Swag.com (https://swag.com) and DiscountMugs (https://www.discountmugs.com). You can also order swag in more general marketplaces, such as Etsy (https://www.etsy.com) and Zazzle (https://www.zazzle.com). Search the site for something along the lines of “promotional items with logo.”

• A product sample or free trial, such as a sample of an all-natural skin rejuvenation cream you developed or a free subscription to a monthly investment newsletter.
• A coupon or a discount card or code that’s available exclusively to a certain number of your first customers. If you’re selling gym memberships online, you could offer a free one-month trial to anyone who enters the code JOESGYMVIP at checkout. All e-commerce sites (including Amazon.com, Shopify, and eBay) include a feature for creating discount codes; search your site’s help system for details.
• Sweepstakes and prizes. You can enter customers into a drawing for a chance to win $100 in free merchandise for making a minimum purchase of $20, for example.
• A bonus product with purchase. You might give a free branded compact mirror with a purchase of $100 worth of beauty products, for example.

Imagine what you would want if you were one of your brand’s customers. What would be valuable enough to you to make an initial purchase and tell all your friends about this great promotional offer?

Choosing metrics for success and establishing your benchmarks

Before launching your brand, identify which metrics to use to measure the success or impact of each activity and your overall brand launch. If you’re relaunching a brand, include prelaunch benchmarks for each metric to compare your brand’s prelaunch status with its postlaunch status. You may even want to compare your postlaunch metrics with your prelaunch benchmarks at certain intervals, such as one week, two weeks, and four weeks after launch.

Here are a few metrics you may want to track:

• Social media impressions: Impressions are the number of times your brand is mentioned on social media. If influencers are participating in your launch, track the social media impressions generated by their posts. Tracking social media impressions is a great way to gauge brand awareness — the degree to which a brand is recognized among a target group.
• Website traffic: Use Google Analytics (https://analytics.withgoogle.com) or a similar website data collection and analysis tool to track the impact of your launch on the number of visits to your website.

• Press coverage: Set up a Google news alert for your brand name to receive email alerts whenever your brand is mentioned in the news. To set up an alert, go to https://www.google.com/alerts, type your brand name in the box near the top of the page, and click the Create Alert button.

  If you reached out to any specific media outlets or journalists, follow up after your launch to see whether they posted anything. If so, get the link to the post so you can share it on your website, blog, and social media accounts. You may also want to take a screen shot of the piece to use in your marketing efforts. See “Tapping the Power of the Press to Launch Your Brand” later in this chapter for more about working with the press.

• Sales: Track the number of products sold, new customers, new memberships or subscriptions, and any other metrics that reflect sales relevant to your brand. To measure online product sales, you can export a report directly from your e-commerce provider; check its help system for details.

These metrics provide a good general indication of your brand launch success. More difficult metrics to track include brand consideration, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. See Chapter 4 for more about monitoring these and other metrics.

Budgeting for your launch

Using the to-do list you created (refer to “Creating a to-do list” earlier in this chapter), create a budget for your brand launch. I recommend using a spreadsheet application or a budget template in the personal or business finance program you use so it can handle the calculations for you.

Here are some of the expenses you may want to include in your budget:

• Assistant compensation: Expense for hiring an assistant or outsourcing some of the work to a virtual assistant
• Marketing materials: Signs, posters, banners, brochures, postcards, business cards, and flyers — mostly printed materials but also their digital equivalents in some instances
• Mass media ads: Advertisements in newspapers and magazines and on TV and radio
• Pay-per-click advertising: Search engine ads, social media ads, promoted posts, and so on
• Content marketing: Video, podcasts, white papers, e-books, case studies, infographics, webinars, blogging and guest blogging, newsletters, and so on
• Public relations: Press releases and media kit
• Email marketing: Email marketing service provider fees, campaigns for capturing email addresses, and design costs
• Promotional items (swag): Branded T-shirts, baseball caps, keychains, refrigerator magnets, pens, water bottles, and other trinkets you plan to give away
• Website/blog development: Expense for any changes for your brand launch if not already accounted for in your overall branding budget
• In-person events: Pop-up store, swag (if not accounted for already), signage, staffing, and venue
• Influencer: Compensation, influencer marketing platform fees, and the cost of shipping to the influencer (in some instances)
• Industry event fees: Booths at trade shows, conferences, and expos

• Launch party: Venue, food, beverages, music, and fun stuff (video, mascot, prize drawing)

  If you’re building partnerships with other brands that have deeper pockets, consider asking them to sponsor your launch party.

Launching your brand internally

Perhaps the most important phase of any brand launch is the internal brand launch, when you reveal your brand to everyone in your organization. A successful internal launch generates the organizationwide buy-in necessary for a successful external launch.

Branding isn’t just about marketing; it goes much deeper. Every customer encounter is an opportunity to promote or demote your brand in the minds of potential customers, so everyone in your organization must embrace your brand’s mission, vision, and values, and follow its policies and procedures.

Your internal launch should be fun and engaging, but it needs to get down to business too. The purpose is to build support and enthusiasm for the brand while overcoming any internal resistance to it. Sometime during the business portion of your internal launch, take the following steps:

1. Make a case for the value of branding (see Chapter 1).
2. Review your brand’s mission, vision, and values (see Chapter 3).

3. Reveal your brand identity.

   Show your logo and slogan, and explain what they represent.

4. Introduce your brand promise.

   Your brand promise reflects what you promise to deliver to customers. It’s why customers will choose your brand over other options (and customers always have other options).

5. Give every member of your team a quality branded gift.

   Gifts may include polo shirts with your brand’s logo, pens, notebooks, and so on. Gifts don’t have to be expensive, but they should be high-quality items reflecting the quality you expect from everyone in your organization.

6. Ask everyone in your organization to embrace the brand and become brand ambassadors.

   Emphasize the importance of not just talking the talk, but also walking the walk. Everything employees do at work and even away from work, everything they say about the brand, and everything they post about it on their social media accounts must reinforce the brand’s identity and promise in a positive way.

After your internal launch, you may want to follow up with a soft launch or soft opening exclusively for VIP customers, strategic partners, and members of the press. Another option is a friends-and-family night for everyone who participated in creating the brand and will support it moving forward.

Deciding whether to hire a PR firm

A PR firm or consultant can be a powerful asset when you’re trying to get press coverage because they have (or at least should have) solid relationships with members of the press and know how to pitch a story. A skilled PR firm or consultant can get you relevant press coverage for your target demographic, assist you in your launch campaign, and save you considerable time.

Unfortunately, they can cost you a considerable amount of money too. As with most things in marketing, you have a choice to make: Do you want to spend the time or the money? If you’re a small-time operation, you probably have no choice but to do the work yourself. If you’re a midsize operation, hiring a PR firm may be the best choice. And if you’re a large firm, you may have the resources to hire a dedicated PR person or team.

If you don’t have any glowing references for a PR firm or consultant to contact, start by researching brands in the same industry as yours, and visit their websites to find out who they use as their press contact.

PR firms traditionally work on a contract for a minimum time before the contract can be terminated. (All contracts can be negotiated, of course.) Just be sure to read the contract thoroughly, understand everything in it, and have the funds available to cover the minimum term. Consult your attorney if anything is unclear.

If you decide to serve as your own PR specialist, keep reading for additional guidance.

Creating a hit list for press and influencers

When you’re acting as your own PR person, your first order of business is creating a list of journalists and influencers you want to reach out to. You want a long list, of course, but limit it to relevant people — those who serve the audiences you’re targeting.

Start your list with journalists and influencers you already have in mind, such as journalists from magazines and blogs you read, and active, influential members of the social media communities you belong to. Then add to the list as you encounter more people who meet your criteria. Searching the web for magazines, blogs, and newsletters that people in your audience are likely to read may also turn up some useful leads.

When you’re preparing to launch your brand, create a hit list for the journalists and influencers you want to contact so you can keep track of your communications (see Figure 10-1).

Creating a brand launch press release

Organizations and people send out press releases to announce anything newsworthy that members of the press may want to write about. A press release is a necessity for any brand launch. You want as much free press as you can get (ideally, mostly positive), and sending out a press release is one of the best ways to get it.

In Chapter 8, I provide some basic guidelines for writing a press release. In this section, I offer additional suggestions specifically for brand launch press releases.