There’s a lot going on in the internet marketing world right now about ‘product launches‘. And for good reason. Smart people have been using a launch strategy to start their business – or launch something new – for ages – probably since business began.
So, let’s get this straight. There is nothing new or revolutionary about launching something new.
There are also quite a few new products on the market right now that can help with launching something online. New websites. New software. New video players. And these tools can definitely help with a launch. But there is a sting in the tail. There is far more to a launch than just a piece of software or a cool new toy.
Product Launch from a beachside Cafe
And this is where I come in. I’ve launched quite a few businesses – both small and local, and international – and I’ve done it offline and online. This is why I know that there is much more to launching something new than having a platform upon which to launch it.
From my perspective, the focus on a ‘launch’ as a business model is too simplistic. The ‘launch’ is just one of the most obvious steps in the puzzle of online business – but it is just one step. In reality, the ‘launch’ is just a great way to get lots of traffic quickly, and that traffic can really only come from one of the five key sources of online traffic:
- Your existing list
- A joint venture partner
- Social Media / Networking
- Search traffic
- Paid advertising
If you are in business, or you want to be in business, and you are considering using a launch strategy, then you’ll want to have a business plan in place for long term success. And that business plan is going to have the same structure and general content as any online business would need. Let’s go through some stuff here.
Market Research
You’re business plan should be based on your market research, or at the very least should include market research as a first step. When I first set up a small business in the Sydney CBD, I wanted to know the numbers. I wanted to know that there was demand. I wanted to know what the competition was like. I wanted to know that the service I was planning to offer was what the market place wanted.
This is the basic stuff that often gets missed with online business – and I think that people might skip this because its so easy and inexpensive to start an online business that it’s easy to rush in without doing your due diligence. With offline business there are usually some significant up-front costs and ongoing overheads – and so you’re probably more likely to do your homework.
Many people start online without doing this first basic step and set themselves up for failure. It doesn’t matter how good the ‘launch’ platform you’re using or the software you’ve got or the website you’ve paid for – none of this can make up for a lack of market research.
Knowledge, experience and mindset
These three factors together are the reason for most successes. Knowledge about your market place. Knowledge about the other people in your market place. Knowledge about your product or service. Knowledge about your competitors. Knowledge about your business – every part of it. Knowledge about yourself. Knowledge about managing a team. Delegation. It’s goes on.
Experience matters – and even more important is successful experience. Very few people rock on up to a new business with no prior experience and make a success of it straight away. And you only get experience by experiencing stuff. Profound I know.
Mindset matters. And what I mean by this is a disciplined way of thinking – not a magical type of thinking. Your mindset – your frame of reference – has to be able to cope with your ambitions, your goals, and your responsibilities. Of course, we all grow into our next stage of evolution and sometimes this can happen very quickly, but nevertheless, if you put someone in a role that is just too out of their depth they can implode. Not everyone who gets thrown in the deep end can swim.
People who want to start an online business – a real online business – either have the requisite knowledge, experience and mindset – or they don’t. And if they don’t, they either have to acquire it themselves and bring on other team members or consultants to help make it happen.
I’ve done it both ways – although more recently I’ve been far more willing to bring in consultants to help me because:
- it saves time, and
- increases my chance of success, and
- increases my knowledge, experience and ‘grows’ my mindset
Traffic
If you’re going to launch something, then you have to know something about getting traffic – because as I wrote above, the whole point of a launch is to use it to get lot’s of traffic in a short period of time.
There are various reasons you might want a whole stack of traffic. You may want to offer them a product or service. You may just want to grow your existing list. You may want to get traffic for market research. But whatever the reason – you need traffic.
If you’ve already got your own relevant list – a database of people who you can send an email to or send snail-mail to – then this is the first source of traffic to your launch. But to do this – and to do it properly – you need a good email management system - one that has high delivery rates, is compliant with spam laws, can send scheduled email, and can provide you with the numbers of people who received your email and opened it. You’re going to need to have an idea about how to write a series of effective emails too, and how to integrate all this with your website – your confirmation pages, thankyou pages, and other pages that you use strategically to walk people through a launch sequence.
Next is joint venture traffic – which is simply gaining access to someone else’s list so that you can get your stuff in front of them. This is a huge opportunity, but one that has to be planned and managed. First and foremost, why would someone give you access to their list? What’s in it for them? Do you know them? What’s in it for their list of followers, customers or clients? Do they trust you?
Joint venture traffic is one of the key ways that I have launched several successful businesses. From speaking, to publishing, health care and education – joint ventures can be your ticket to rapid results. But they don’t just ‘come up’. You have to facilitate these opportunities, and this is done by positioning yourself in the market place. This is a huge topic in itself, but it leads me into the next source of traffic, which is social media.
You might be here, reading this, because of social media. Maybe you came by here through a link on facebook or twitter? A lot is written about social media as a source of traffic, however one of the things I haven’t really read much about is how social media can be used for strategic social networking. Yes, I might be able to get thousands of followers on twitter, but of those thousand, there may be one person who can make a dramatic difference to a launch and therefore my business.
One of my business consultants is social media expert David Bullock – and David described to me how he uses social media for one-to-one marketing; not mass marketing. This is important for launches and joint venture traffic because if you can establish yourself in the market place as an authority in your field – as a player – then you are more likely to create the opportunity for joint ventures.
Of course, social media can still be used to get your message – your launch – in front of many, many people – however I think it’s a great tip to think of social media as a tool for strategic networking as well.
So, how do you do this? Well – it doesn’t matter if your website or launch software comes with inbuilt social media buttons. What matters is that you have a mindset, strategy and tactical know-how to use these buttons to their full potential.
I had to have a word with a client of mine the other day who – despite my warnings – was using social media as a direct selling platform. Every update was a sales pitch to buy something – and that just aint gunna work now is it folks. Social media marketing is not about direct selling. It’s about forming relationships in your market and positioning yourself in your market. And funnily enough – if you do it right – it can be a very real and rewarding experience.
Next on the list is search traffic – with most people being familiar with search engine traffic from google, yahoo, and bing etc. To get on the first page of google requires a bunch of knowledge, experience, tools, resources and time R
Reference: http://ping.fm/kC4yg
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