How to Dominate Your Market With a Product Launch
“Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.” – Charles J. Givens
If you want to give your business instant momentum, the best way to do it is with a major product launch.
I mean, why bother starting off slow if you can start off with “both guns blazing” and big-time cash flow?
And I do mean big-time cash flow. Some of the launches I’ve been doing lately are generating six and even seven figures in a matter of a few days.
Now I know those numbers might sound crazy and just plain unthinkable… but they are quite real.
Of course, this didn’t happen overnight. It took me a long time to develop my formula for product launches. And, initially, they were much more modest. The first one generated about $1,400. But I kept testing and tweaking my process… and the results kept getting better.
I remember the one where it seemed like I had it all figured out. That product launch did $34,762 in one week, and I was walking on cloud nine. But it turned out that was just the beginning. Soon afterward, I had a launch that did about $106,000 in a week. And then I helped a friend down $1.08 million in just 24 hours!
And things have kept rolling from there.
A couple of years ago, I released a home-study course that taught all my product launch techniques… the Product Launch Formula. And the results have been staggering. We are talking about $65 million in product launches… and that number grows almost every day. That qualifies as big-time cash for just about anyone.
Okay, so how do you put together a product launch?
Here are some of the key things you must do:
1. Turn your launch into an event.
People today are bored. They are also busy.
Because of this, it’s difficult to get their attention… and even more difficult to keep their attention.
That’s why you need to turn your marketing into an event. It will set you apart, hook people in, and keep their attention.
I’m talking about making your marketing more like a soap opera or reality TV show that leaves you hanging from episode to episode… where your prospective customers are dying to know what happens next.
Every step of the process should set up the next step. Make them wonder what you are going to do. What’s going to happen. And make them think that even you aren’t sure.
My good friend Rich Schefren did this recently when he launched his Attention Age Doctrine. The pre-launch started months before the actual launch, when he told his subscribers that he was working on a groundbreaking report – the Attention Age Doctrine .
For weeks, Rich talked about the Doctrine and give hints about what it contained. Anticipation grew and grew. Some of his subscribers actually posted videos on YouTube telling Rich how anxious they were to get it.
Excitement is contagious. If you want to create anticipation and buzz for something, show how other people are already excited and buzzing about it. So, of course, Rich pointed out those videos in his marketing.
Finally, as the release day drew closer, Rich gave almost daily updates on his blog. He also sent out e-mails about the upcoming report and the exact schedule for the release. He even posted a timer on his website that ticked down the seconds to the exact moment of the launch.
When the report was finally released, more than 50,000 people downloaded it in just a few days.
The best product launchers do this. They create anticipation and excitement by turning the launch into an event. And when you really do it right, it almost looks like an accident.
2. Think in terms of sequences.
Treat the entire marketing effort like an ongoing story… where each piece builds on the last piece. Don’t expect one e-mail or one sales letter to do the trick. Think in terms of both a pre-launch sequence and a launch sequence.
Your pre-launch sequence can be anywhere from one week long to four weeks long (or even longer). This gives you time to pre-sell your prospects before they even get to your sales letter.
Start off the pre-launch by gathering feedback. I like to do this with a survey. I vaguely define the product, and then I ask my prospective customers to tell me one or two things that they think the product needs to have or do.
A survey like that will give you lots of material to work. It will also raise lots of questions (potential objections) about the product that need to be answered. So the next step of your pre-launch sequence is to answer those questions.
Finally, toward the end of your pre-launch, you will start to define your product and offer.
This way, your prospects will hit your sales letter after you’ve already fielded their objections. Plus, they already have a pretty good idea of what your product is and why they need to have it.
3. Use a variety of methods to reach your prospects.
Different people like to “consume” information in different ways. So mix things up in your pre-launch by using several methods – e-mail, blogs, video, and audio – to reach your prospects.
This also helps create buzz. The more ways people hear from you, the greater their perception that other people are talking about you… and the more likely it is that they’ll want to talk about you too.
These three strategies will help you build anticipation for your new product. In my next article for ETR, I’ll reveal five more techniques you can use to make sure your next product launch creates huge cash flow for your company.
[Ed. Note: Jeff Walker is the creator of the Product Launch Formula . You can get real-life Case Studies (including the amazing story of a guy who went from food stamps to a six-figure income using product launches) at Jeff’s site. Click here now.]