Did you know that around 30,000 new products are launched every year? Unfortunately, it’s also estimated that around 95 percent of those products fail.
If you’re getting ready to launch a product, it’s crucial to have a solid marketing strategy in place to help push your product towards success. Part of that marketing strategy could be a product launch event.
If your brand is getting ready to launch the next big thing, keep reading to learn about how to throw a product launch party.
What Is a Product Launch Event?
A product launch event gives you the opportunity to showcase your newest product to investors and potential customers. A successful product launch event can help create hype around your new product.
When potential customers attend your party, they’ll have the opportunity to test your product and see how it can benefit them, and ask questions. They will have the chance to touch, feel, and experience it.
This kind of event is experiential and helps create word-of-mouth buzz in social media.
Word of mouth marketing is huge considering the fact that 92 percent of consumers trust product recommendations from friends.
How Do You Plan a Product Launch Event?
When it’s time to plan your product launch event, you’ll want to take the time to do so in a way that helps make your product the star of the show. You’ll need creative product launch event ideas; however, you’ll also need the ability to execute on those ideas through the steps we’ll give you.
Choose a Date
When are you launching your product? The key to choosing a product launch event is not holding it too soon.
For example, if you hold the event and a month later launch your product, most of the buzz created will have disappeared. You can hold your launch event a few days before or even the day of your launch event.
However, if you’re holding your launch event and the launch is two weeks or more away, you’ll quickly lose the buzz that was created during your event.
Choose a Venue
When it comes down to choosing your venue, there are various factors to consider. You want a venue that is memorable enough to attract people to attend.
However, you don’t want your venue to outshine your product. The best thing to do is to select a venue that will complement your product or can get associated with your product.
For example, if you’re launching an outdoorsy product, find a more rustic venue.
In addition, if you’re marketing your product towards a certain geographic area, make sure your event is in that area. You don’t want your attendees to have to travel long distances to attend the party.
As you consider your location think about your values. Align your venue with those values.
Choose a Theme
What kind of product launch event ideas do you have for your theme?
Your venue and your theme need to get considered together. For example, you wouldn’t want to do a night under the stars during brunch at a hotel.
However, if you’re doing an outdoor event in the evening, that could be the perfect theme. Your theme needs to be relevant to either your product or the time of the year.
For example, if you’re launching around Valentine’s day, you could gear your theme to that. However, if your product isn’t complimented well by that theme, steer away from it. You want your party to feel authentic.
Authenticity is becoming increasingly important to younger consumers, with 84 percent of Gen Z skipping over video ads for authentic information from influencers.
Consider Staffing and Catering
What kind of staffing will you need at your event? Will you be serving a meal or just hors d’oeuvres and drinks? These are all questions you’ll need to answer in time to hire the appropriate people for your event.
Make Your Launch Event Exclusive
Who is going to attend your party? It’s vital that you get invitations out and generate interest from potential attendees.
As you launch your product, you really want to focus in on two groups of people. First, your current customers and followers. These individuals are already loyal to you, and you should be loyal to them as well.
Give them the opportunity to test your new product firsthand and begin creating word-of-mouth buzz with the customer base you already have.
The second group of people are influencers or other people that can help promote your product, like the media or experts in the industry. This can begin to create the social media buzz you need for your product to take off.
Before the event, send influencers an invite and maybe goodies to get them interested beforehand. But, don’t leave your customers out; you can also give them some type of swag beforehand or during the party.
Entertain and Educate
When you launch your product, you want to educate your customers. How will the product benefit them? How do they use it?
However, your event shouldn’t feel like a boring lecture. Educate your customers in a way that is entertaining.
For example, let’s say that you’re launching a new set of knives for the kitchen. You can educate through chopping up various items or through preparing a meal that requires a lot of chopping right there.
Give your customers a chance to try out the product as well. If we stick with the same example, you can have staff set up with fruits and veggies and the knives to let the customers give it a try.
Plan for Post Event
How do you plan to keep the hype going after the event? After the event, you should plan to continue your social media marketing.
If you created a hashtag for your event, keep using it. In addition, send out newsletters and other materials to keep your audience engaged.
You want to keep the buzz going as your product hits the market.
Start Planning Your Product Launch Event
Are you ready to launch your product? Follow these steps, and you’ll be able to plan the perfect product launch party.
Auctus Agency is here to help your brand with engagement. We want to help you connect to your customers so that your product can be successful.Contact us today to find out what we can do for your brand.
