What you need to do before you release your MVP

By Robin Anderson

You have been working for months, and maybe years to build your MVP. Based on the results of that release, you’ll rework and refine your product prior to officially launching it into the marketplace. There is just one problem. If you haven’t been engaging with your audience BEFORE your MVP is ready, how do you know if you have included the features that are the most important to them?

If you don’t enlist the help and support of your audience, you may spend WAY too much time building something that no one truly wants - or focus on features that have minimal interest. As you start building a basic framework for your product, use this time to also start building your community. Doing so ensures you are building what they want, and allows you to have a customer base at the time of your MVP release. It takes time to build your community, so don’t delay.

What is Pre-Launch Marketing?

Pre-launch marketing is the marketing you do before your new product (or service) becomes officially available. It helps you create awareness of your product, build some anticipation and buzz around your upcoming launch and generate valuable leads.

The benefits of pre-launch marketing include:

Finding the platforms where your customers have a presence and learning which ones are the most effective for reach.
Growing your online presence on social media to gain followers.
Building interest and excitement. Begin building your community. Interact and engage to learn what is important to your followers to improve your product prior to launch.
Testing different messages to find what resonates with your followers. You can then use this as a means to attract and capture leads for future email campaigns.
Beginning to connect with influencers in your industry.

All the effort you put into your plan will help to build momentum which in turn will help you obtain positive press coverage at the time of your product launch. You’ll have an audience to speak to with enthusiastic followers that will give you the ability to grab attention of the press AND you’ll know what to say based on your messaging tests.

Now that you know you need to start planning for a pre-launch - what do you actually do?

How to create a Prelaunch Marketing Plan

In addition to the valuable feedback you will get regarding your product, the purpose of creating a prelaunch marketing plan is to test messaging, gain feedback, and determine the best place to promote your product. As you begin to generate leads you will drive brand awareness which creates buzz, and begins building your brand presence.

Location, location, location

Start with determining where to focus your efforts. There are a variety of places where your audience is hanging out, from social media platforms to other communications platforms such as Slack and Discord. Which one do you choose? The industry and market for your product will help you determine the best place for reach. Locating an audience to market a consumer product such as socks, is very different from marketing an enterprise product such as SaaS to manage hiring. Spend some time learning where your target spends their time.

Get followers

Create accounts in one or two of social media platforms and begin posting. Use this to test messaging and learn what is important to your audience. They may surprise you.

For younger audiences, many use social media to conduct research over searching for information via a search engine.

In fact, 54% of Social Browsers use social media to research products.

From simply following a brand, sharing a post, asking a question, to clicking through to a site for an offer, having a social media presence is critical.

There are so many social media channels, how do I pick the right one? Pick one or two. Look for common areas of interest to see where they intersect. Create an account and begin posting. Start testing messaging. Create an editorial calendar to track what you post and when. Refer to analytics to track responses and usage to learn what resonates along with the times that had the greatest response.

Build your community

Once you start capturing followers on social media, start asking questions. Engage with them. Provide them with exclusive offers to share. Let them know how much you value their feedback so much so that you are incorporating that into your product development process. Give them early access to test your product. Interacting and engaging with this audience is how you begin to build your community.

Getting your messaging right helps to get the right customers

Consumers love to interact with brands. They especially love to get special offers for products, such as 20% off, BOGO (buy one, get one free). How do you capitalize on this for lead generation? Provide them with an offer that they will find useful. Enable visitors to get the information they are looking for, in turn, capture their contact information through a lead generation pop-up window or landing page on your website. For example, think of websites you visit - when you land on the home page, a pop-up window appears asking for your email address in exchange for a 20% off your first purchase. This is one way to capture leads while also providing a deal for your customers.

For business products, consider an offer such as Case Studies (which leads to why they need your product), Infographics, Webinar, e-books or even videos. This gives you a chance to further share information about your product (educate your audience) to entice them as well as learn what media type is preferred.

One note on lead generation - when building a landing page or pop-up window on your website to capture customer information, use only one CTA, and capture only the minimal amount of customer info that you really need. No one wants to spend time filling out a form, or sharing too much of their personal information on something new that is not proven to them.

Connect with Influencers

Word of Mouth marketing impression results in 5x more sales than a paid media impression and people are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend.

Influencers provide an instant level of credibility to their followers. Look for influencers whose followers match those that are likely to be interested in what you have to sell. The right influencer may not have a particularly large audience - they may be a micro-influencer. The effectiveness of their reach in terms of time, money, and effort will be greater. Think quality over quantity.

A common thread with each element of your plan is the need to create content - the need for a content strategy. From messaging to offers, turn your interactions with your community and followers into a useful product improvement strategy. Next, create your messaging, figure out what you want to communicate, then go out and test. Having this will make developing a communications plan for PR opportunities much easier. After testing and confirming your messaging, create a press kit for your launch and upcoming promotional opportunities. A press kit will provide journalists with all the information they need to write about your company. The community you build during your pre-launch will validate the importance of your product to everyone.

Creating a pre-launch marketing plan is important. It helps you to finalize your messaging so that it resonates with your audience. Connect and engage with them to get feedback on your product. Build those features into your product, making it a product they can’t resist. And build your community so that at the time of launch, you already have an audience.

Need help creating your Pre-launch Marketing Plan? Contact Us for a free 30-minute consultation.

FunFact Friday

Shopify’s main goal with their pre-launch marketing plan was to generate buzz on social, grow the wait list of high-interest users, then convert into paying customers. They started with generating buzz on social linking to a simple opt-in page to join their list for early beta release. Using email, they offered their leads a discount for the lifetime pricing option for their app from which they earned almost $20,000. Then at launch they retargeted those that did not purchase earlier which resulted in greater participation, including another $18,500 in revenue. Their three-phased approach to pre-launch marketing earned them a total of $38,458.

Pre-Launch Marketing Plan