When Is The Right Time To Launch Your Product?
During the last coaching call I did with my members the question of when is the right time to launch your product online came up repeatedly from different people.
The question isn’t about timing in terms of day or night, or what day of the week, or time of the year you should launch, rather what conditions need to be in place to expect a successful opening campaign. Here’s what we’re talking about…
- How many subscribers do you need on your email list?
- How many RSS subscribers on your blog should you have?
- How many unique visitors to your websites do you need?
- How many affiliates do you need?
- How many sales should you expect given certain numbers?
All these questions and many more make up part of the answer to the overall question of when you can consider yourself ready to launch.
It is difficult for me to answer this question with anything concrete because every market is different. However I understand the need for ballpark figures and some sort of reassurance from someone who has launched before, especially if they are your coach and mentor.
What Are The Benchmarks?
Inside Membership Site Mastermind I alluded to the number of around 5,000 subscribers as a good target to aim for before launching, which ideally should be email subscribers if possible.
You can include RSS subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook friends and fans too, but generally these contact points are less responsive and less targeted than email. Email subscribers, especially when they come through from a targeted incentive like a free report or email course, are more qualified, hence more likely to buy.
Another metric you can look at that is relevant is the open and click through rates of the emails you send. While it’s nice to have 10,000 email subscribers, in most cases you are lucky if 25% of them even open the emails you send. If you’re getting 10% or more of them clicking your links, you’re doing very well.
Given that opening an email is easier than clicking a link, which is easier than making a sale, you can see why it’s important you understand the reality behind the numbers you currently get.
If you don’t track the open and click through rates on your emails, you should start. Outside of this data you can look at unique visitors to your blog or website as another estimate of how much traffic you can expose to your offer, but understand knowing how many people read your blog content is difficult to correlate to how many people will buy from you.
What Metrics Should You Analyze?
Will Internet Marketing Product Launches Always Work?
Today Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkin’s StomperNet (aff) was launched and as of writing it appears to be nearly sold out. This was by far the largest ongoing launch I have ever witnessed, both as a prospect and a JV partner. Also launched today, but not quite with as much a build-up as StomperNet, was Scott Boulch’s Click Flipping core group members club.
These two releases were just the latest in a long line of products launched this year and it seems that each and every month sees the release of at least one or two big product pushes in the Internet marketing world. Since the public release of Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula (aff) everyone has had access to the story board formula to successfully release a product online.
I operate in the Internet marketing industry because I am interested in it and have enjoyed some success as an Internet marketer. As expected the industry that is all about Internet marketing make use of the best Internet marketing techniques to market Internet marketing products, and conducting a big product launch has become a standard. Not every product launch is the same, although they all rely on the same tried-and-tested elements. The psychology behind marketing doesn’t change after all, and that’s exactly what a product launch is about – pushing all the right buttons and triggering the appropriate responses from consumers.
Are We Becoming Overexposed To The Product Launch Process?
I have difficulty answering this question. As a person working in Internet marketing I am exposed to a lot of product launches and I can honestly say that most launches appeal to me on some level. I don’t have time to fully absorb everything going into every launch, but at the basic level Internet marketing products appeal because I like Internet marketing. The potential, the opportunity and the education is tempting – and being a person who likes to take action I know that if I really care about it I will put in the work to get results from any product I buy. However that doesn’t mean I actually make a purchase during the launch.
I don’t buy products based on a product launch, I buy them based on how they can impact my business activities or life. I need to be able to action what I learn/buy and have the time available to get to the point where I can take that action. Provided those ingredients are there I will buy Internet marketing products, however most of the time I don’t buy during the launch process, I buy when I need it.
The hype of a product launch certainly gets me excited and I’ve come so close to signing up to all kinds of things over the years during the big push at launch, but each time I pull away before hitting that “buy” button. I have bought into some big products, including Butterfly Marketing (I bought it six months after the launch) and Rich Schefren’s 12 month strategic business coaching club (this I bought at launch because that was the only time you could buy it and be in the core group with Rich and because I was ready to be coached in this area).
The usual marketing triggers work on me – testimonials, credibility enforcing recommendations from people I respect, samples, detailed description of the product benefits – are the key elements that influence my decision making process. The problem with a product launch is that during this process other elements such as perceived (or real) scarcity, hype and over the top copy is used to elicit a “frenzied” buyer reaction to ensure maximum sales based more on emotion than common sense. I don’t like these elements because I don’t trust them. Yes sure, a good product launch should be genuine and back up the hype and claims, but I’ve yet to see one that does. It just makes me tired and distracts me from finding the real information about the product that I want to know. Of course from the marketer’s point of view it works so hey, if Yaro doesn’t buy it’s no big deal, many other people will and marketing is about maximizing sales.
I can say, and I know a lot of you concur with me, is that I am tired of Internet marketing product launches. I think there are too many, I think they are losing their appeal because there are so many and as a result each launch has to be bigger than the previous in order to have impact, creating even more clutter in the market – there is just so much free information out there that comes along with each product launch you could spend a lifetime just absorbing the free stuff. However I believe this only applies to product launches in the Internet marketing arena. I think conducting a product launch in almost every other industry is a huge opportunity because it’s rarely, if ever, done well.
Product Launching A Non-Internet Marketing Product
The product launch process is over-done in the Internet marketing industry for obvious reasons, but in other industries I don’t see nearly as many launches and as a result I suspect the consumers in other industries would react positively to them. Even launches not executed that well would bring in reasonable results since the saturation point is far off – these are “virgin markets” for the product launch process. I don’t diligently follow every industry, that would be impossible, so I could be wrong, perhaps there are many product launches going on online in other industries on a regular basis, but besides the dating product marketplace I’ve never personally seen one outside of Internet marketing.
A consumer is a consumer and marketing psychology works in all industries because everyone sells to the same thing – human beings. There is a golden opportunity for a good Internet marketer (or several) who have experience with product launch (just owning and then following the steps to execute Product Launch Formula should be enough) to either consult or run their own product launches on products outside of Internet marketing. I’m sure there are experienced Internet marketers doing just that now and get paid very well for their expertize.
Will Product Launches Always Work?
Always is a strong word and I doubt anything will always work without constant change and reinvention, however based on current results the product launch formula works, even in the saturated Internet marketing world, and will no doubt continue to. Whether that’s because we are all suckers for emotional marketing triggers, or people like me, who are over-exposed to product launches, are in the minority, is another question. I don’t know exactly why, but I do know as long as the launch process continues to work there won’t be a good reason not to do a product launch, even if a small group of people grumble about how many product launches there are, and how they won’t be “suckered” by the hype. Ultimately these people are probably just not the right target prospect for the product in the first place – that’s always been the easiest way to dismiss people who grumble about anything in Internet marketing. As long as those grumblers don’t become the majority, everything will be fine.
Yaro Starak
Conducting a product launch and grumbling about them too…
