Go East has experience with both business-to-business and business-to-consumer product launches. While many of the product launches we have worked on have been successful, some of them have been painful from a planning standpoint and in attempting to meet much-too-early deadlines. Often by the time an agency is brought in to work on a launch strategy and creative execution, it is too late to back out of already committed deliverables and to-market deadlines. The graphic below is a good representation of the steps a product launch needs to complete in order to be successful. Many people believe that once the product is launched, the process is over and success is immediate. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

FOUR PILLARS FOR A SUCCESSFUL PRODUCT LAUNCH

1. Assign dedicated resources
2. Avoid overcommitment
3. Implement scientific process
4. Leverage collaboration tools

Ramping Up
In many cases, product launch strategy development begins too early. Sometimes R&D and marketing are working on product claims, key features and benefits while product names are still under development and packaging is incomplete. It’s the cart-before-the-horse scenario. Of course, unforeseen exceptions can creep up but, for the most part, all of these situations should be completed to allow enough time for the strategic and creative processes to successfully drive deliverables, meet timelines and ensure a successful launch.

Once the details are worked out, it’s important to assign dedicated resources to those who can deliver a consistent, integrated plan of attack – resources that have the brainpower to carry the product launch into the marketplace. You want to grow your business by communicating the product’s value proposition, which will also reflect on internal and external partners and your bottom line.

Strategy and Planning Development
Working with dedicated resources who have the knowledge and expertise needed is a huge gain for you, as well as your product’s success. Make sure your resources work together to deliver consistent, integrated messaging and imagery.

In today’s marketing strategy development, your resources should be able to deliver on multiple touchpoints and strategies, whether it be interactive, advertising, public relations, social media, etc. All touchpoints should be considered from the start and chosen or eliminated based on your audience. Try not to over-deliver, but look at the big picture and hone in from there.

Go in for the Kill
At launch, deliver with a splash, a pop and a bang! Make it well-known that this product is at the top of its game and, depending on whether it’s a business-to-business or business-to-consumer launch, hit your audience hard by being on brand, on message and on time with deliverables.

Keep in mind you need to be communicating to internal and external resources, keeping them in the know on what is happening and when and how it is happening. This will be appreciated by those involved.

Evaluate, Evaluate, Evaluate
So, once you launch the product it’s all said and done. Or is it? Have you measured results? What key points can you take away from the launch? What have you learned, both pro and con, which should or shouldn’t be implemented in the next product launch? Have you debriefed all involved, both internally and externally, to regroup and share experiences? These are key factors in delivering a successful launch.

Source: “Four Pillars for Product Launch, Best Practices from World-Class Companies,” by Rick Sklarin and Ling Gee, Crimson Consulting Group.

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Social media marketing (SMM) can and should play a significant role in any product launch. Say you’ve created a Facebook page for your product but all you hear are crickets instead of cash registers. Well, SMM isn’t about selling, it’s about engaging your audience, getting them talking about you and your product and hoping sales will follow.

An excellent example of a company that successfully used SMM to boost sales is BlendTec, makers of commercial food blenders. They had a great product but few had heard of them. In 2006, they launched the “Will it blend?” viral video campaign, starring CEO Tom Dickson. Dressed in a white lab coat and safety glasses, Mr. Dickson asks the question, “Will it Blend?” and tosses various non-food items such as cell phones, toilet plungers and tiki torches in BlendTec blenders. (My favorite is the iPhone video.) The videos were intended to increase the company’s brand awareness by showcasing their product’s toughness. The content was so compelling it got consumers watching. Within five days of posting their videos on YouTube and on their own Web site, the videos had generated six million YouTube views. They even got their audience involved by asking them to submit their own “blending” ideas for future videos. Ultimately, BlendTec saw their sales jump by 700 percent.

BlendTec did everything right. Their campaign aligned their brand personality and key messages into an entertaining and engaging series of videos.

Now I’m thinking I need one of these blenders for my own entertainment purposes: summer slushy drinks!

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It seems every time I turn around I’m reading or hearing something about how “everything” is going online or mobile. It appears that if your brand is not online or mobile – in an engaging way – you’re losing out. Well, this may have some truth to it, but that doesn’t mean print solutions aren’t still valid.

Consider this:

• 70% of companies have renewed a relationship with a customer using direct mail
• Consumers receiving a printed catalog are two times more likely to purchase online than those who don’t receive a catalog
• 75% of consumers say they’ve made a purchase as a result of direct mail
• Worried about seeming wasteful? In 2007, 45.2 million tons of paper were recovered from recycling – that’s 57% of all paper and paperboard products

At Go East when we’re working on a project – to be distributed online or  via “old-fashioned” paper – we work hard to balance print and interactive strategies. Campaigns need to be integrated, but not redundant. They need to be impactful and they need to be targeted.

Don’t abandon one for the other or you won’t be able to capitalize on the biggest opportunities!

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Q: How can you race a new product to the market and ensure successful sales?

A: You can’t.

Was that painful to hear? Think about this: You might be successful, but you can’t ensure that you’ll be successful. Racing a new product to market ensures only one thing – and that’s missed opportunity.

Well, let me qualify that. You can race a new product to the market and ensure successful sales if you have a clear strategy. The problem with racing is that often teams get so focused on the final launch date, the strategy gets left behind – or worse – never developed.

A good launch strategy considers not only business objectives, but communication objectives for all of the audiences. What you say to the sales rep is different than what you say to the buyer, which is different than what you say to the consumer. Or at least it should be. (And, yes, you should be talking to all of those audiences.) If it’s not – you’re missing opportunities. Big time.

At Go East, we collaborate with our clients to create the communications strategy for new product launches. After all, how can we ensure success without this information? When you are working with a solid strategy, everyone can feel better about the accelerated timeline – including your team and the agency’s team.

So, think about this the next time you’re asked to participate in a product launch: How are you going to ensure success? Answer: Define the strategy and keep it close as you race to launch your product.

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Last year during the holidays, social media sites like Facebook experienced huge bumps in traffic. People are off work, away from home, and are — sometimes — bored. So they head to social networks. According to Mashable, last year during Christmas, social networking sites saw huge surges in traffic. On Christmas Day 2008, Twitter saw 35 tweets per minute, You Tube saw 600,000 videos tagged “Christmas,” and (according to Google) over 60,000,000 blog posts mentioned Christmas.

So what’s a good social media plan to get in front of all those eyeballs? At Go East, we are looking at the three most obvious places to make your mark this holiday.

Social Media Holiday Plan, 2009

1. Get your hashtags ready and tweet this holiday season. It will be important to get your brand out there by offering holiday specials or expressions of good will. Twitter is great for trending what people will want for Christmas, as well as seeing who is already out there tweeting about their holiday offerings.

2. People will connect on Facebook over the holidays. That’s just a fact. Long-distance family and friends will go there first to find out who did what and who got what over Christmas break. It makes sense for brands to be there. How can brands successfully integrate on FB? Right now, it is up for grabs. A quick search shows 500 Christmas applications on FB, none of which are all that compelling. However, Coca Cola already has over 58,000 fans on its Christmas advert page. That’s a wide open field of opportunities for the next “elf yourself,” and FB is the place for people to have fun with your brand this holiday.

3. Flickr now offers sponsored groups. Some, like Kodak’s “What’s our story?” group, make an obvious photography connection. Others, like the “Western Union Yes!”, start to meld social sharing and cause marketing. Now things are starting to get interesting! Imagine the possibilities for images and brands that visually bring the holidays to life. Asking group members to show how they use a product during the holidays, with the most “favorited” photo winning, is an obvious way to connect with Flickr’s users.

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Here’s how you do it people. This is an excellent example of giving your brand a packaging design refresh while maintaining your classic brand identity. Makes me hungry for french fries just looking at it.

Photo courtesy of thedieline.com

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What do GE, Disney, HP and Microsoft have in common? They were all start-ups during steep declines in the U.S. economy.

As our country flirts with terms like recession or even depression, I can’t help but think of all the grand stories that my grandmother would tell me about “those days.” From what I’ve been told, my grandfather August Tews had numerous jobs: chauffeur, handy man, barber, aviation hydraulic-jack foreman, college campus custodian and cane furniture construction. His hard work and diligence saw him through some tough times. He raised two great kids in a cracker box house — kids who later became a successful nurse and a school guidance counselor.  

So, as I read more about past recessions, I learn that some of our countries greatest innovations came from businesses that turned inward and created new ideas, needs, and desires for consumers.

(more…)

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Ripped jeans. Tattered. Torn. Faded. Frayed. Your mother might say they look like they came from a garage-sale free box. They should be less expensive than crisp, denim bright blue jeans, right?

WRONG. Take this example of a pair of Colette Selvedge Abercrombie and Fitch brand jeans.

These fashionably distressed jeans cost $198 off the rack.

Brand managers are thinking about how they should position or reposition their brands and products in this down economy. What stores are consumers shopping at these days? How are people viewing value versus cost? What do consumers think about the design of the package or product in terms of what they are willing to pay for? Some are designing up to make their brand or product stand out. Others are designing down to make their brand or product look not quite so expensive.

(more…)

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