The walls of your office building can barely contain your team’s excitement: it’s almost time for launch! The product has been perfected, the website is ready to go at midnight – everything seems like it’s in place.
Unfortunately, your team has made one glaring error. You’ve forgotten to think about and plan your public relations campaign. Suddenly, you realize just how in danger your business is of closing its doors. And so soon after you got started!
Luckily, there’s no cut-off point where you can’t work on a PR campaign anymore, the option to get started is available 24/7/365! If you really want to take advantage of your potential, though, your product launch needs to coincide with a targeted PR strike to get the word out.
Focus
First and foremost the thing you must decide on is the “focus” of the campaign. Many companies think that they can just put out a few press releases and do some social media and be totally covered. But that’s not usually the case.
Why does this not work? Because when you don’t have a focus, you can lose your way. Part of finding your campaign’s focus involves discovering who your core customer base is. And while you think you may know, you’re probably off a few degrees.
For instance, your company’s product launch involves Star Trek coffee mugs. You figure marketing to the geek crowd will get you all the customers you’ll ever need. So you go to a major geek convention and stumble into…a Star Wars panel.
Oops! Any proper nerd would know Star Trek and Star Wars don’t mix. This is what I mean about understanding your core audience and who you’re really selling to. You didn’t just need “geeks,” you needed the right geeks.
Bone Up on New…and Old…Strategies
Just like your audience, no two product strategies will be the same. Just because sending out 10,000 press releases worked with your last product launch doesn’t mean it will work this time!
Instead of trying to cram a square peg into a round hole, keep your entire team up on new strategies. Also, remember that sometimes the old ways are the best ways, and you may find that an old strategy works best for your product launch.
If you’ve done your research and are fully prepared upon launch, then you’ll be able to adapt to whatever happens. Hey, sometimes it happens that the teenage boys you thought would lovey our product hate it, while mom bloggers adopt it in droves. So when one public relations strategy doesn’t work so well, you can switch it up and do something that works.
For that is one of the most important things to remember when preparing for your new product’s new campaign. PR that evolves with the times and the “feel” of your customers is PR that survives. Anything less and you may get left in the dust!
How can you better prepare your PR campaign for a product launch?
This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases (https://www.ereleases.com), the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download a free copy of the PR Checklist – a 24 point list of Press Release Dos and Don’ts here: https://www.ereleases.com/free-offer/pr-checklist/