August 23, 2024Comment

How to Create a Marketing Plan for a New Product Launch

Coach Herman Edwards once said, “A dream without a plan is a wish.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Without a clear plan, success is a gamble. We’re not saying it’s impossible to succeed without a plan — surely some have. But it’s pure chance. You may get there or you may not based on sheer happenstance.

You may be content to leave achieving your dream to chance, but here at Metacake, we aren’t.

There’s a better way.

A Vision for an Ideal Product Launch Marketing Plan

Whether you’re growing your brand or simply being productive for the week, you need a plan with clear and actionable items.

Some of us at Metacake have been using the Productivity Planner from Intelligent Change for this. It teaches you how to have clear action items, not arbitrary or ambiguous tasks.

The goal is that with your plan, you should be able to sit down and get to work without putting any brain power into what to do next. Your plan should already tell you what to be working on so you can get to work straightaway.

For example, “improve SEO on site” isn’t a good action item for a marketing plan for a product launch. It leaves too many questions unanswered. How will you do this, and why? What’s the goal? You can’t start executing on this when you sit down at your desk without putting significant brain power into where to start.

So put this brainpower in on the front end and build out a truly actionable plan in order to reach success.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

So now that we’ve agreed that clear planning is necessary, how do you go about creating a killer marketing plan for a new product launch?

7 Steps to a Successful Product Launch Marketing Plan

1. Start at the End

Yes, you heard that right.

Start at the end, and then work backward. The key to any strong product launch marketing plan is to have a clear goal or target that’s quantifiable. Without this, it’s impossible to begin planning to reach your goal.

This might seem elementary, but it’s not where most people start when approaching a marketing plan. Most pick channels they think are interesting and start working on campaigns without targeting a clear overall goal for their marketing beyond “growth” or “getting your name out there” (whatever that means).

For example, instead of a goal like “increase revenue,” choose a goal like “increase sales by 50% over the next six months.” This may seem like a subtle change, but in your product launch marketing plan, it makes all the difference.

2. Establish a Baseline

In order to determine how successful your marketing campaign is in the end, you’ll need to have an accurate baseline of where you are today. This is the quantitative part.

Ask yourself: What’s your customer acquisition cost? Your current conversion rate? Your current average order value? And don’t forget to factor in seasonality.

But there is a qualitative part — which leads us to Step 3.

3. Analyze Current Drivers

Not only do you need to have a baseline in terms of quantifiable performance, but you also need to understand what marketing channels are currently driving your business.

Where are your sales coming from (SEO, PPC, referrals, etc.)? What campaigns are working? What customer segment is converting most?

You want to build on these in your marketing plan for a new product launch as well as test and try new channels and campaigns. Don’t just scrap everything and start fresh. Use the data and knowledge that you have to identify what’s working and the areas of opportunity and growth.

4. Create a Strategy

Don’t forget to factor in the effort required to implement your plan based on your baseline and current drivers.

Your strategy will be a combination of many different channels and campaigns. For instance, you may launch a marketing plan that includes increasing the PPC budget for performing campaigns, performing A/B testing and optimization to increase conversion rate, and writing higher-quality content for your audience in order to improve rankings in search engines.

In the end, your strategy should practically be a formula for success.

Remember algebra? You know where you want to get (your end goal), you know how much time you have to get there, and you know your current business drivers. You just need to find “X” in order to solve the equation.

Maybe it’s not quite mathematical, but approaching your marketing plan in a logical way will make it much more likely that you’ll reach your intended goal and have a successful product launch.

5. Aim Higher

That being said, if you really want to achieve “X” in six months, don’t aim for X. Follow Grant Cardone’s process and use the 10X rule.

Certainly, everything isn’t going to work as well as you expect it to. Perhaps some things will work better, and some things won’t work at all. But if you assume that you’ll achieve just 10% of your projection and aim for 10 times as much, then in the end, you’ll still reach “X.”

6. Execute

Now it’s time to get to work. Break your tasks into manageable pieces so you can celebrate small wins over time. This’ll help you gain momentum in your campaigns. And make sure to optimize along the way.

Like we’ve said over and over again in this post, clear planning is vitally important, but so is flexibility. Along the way, see what’s working and what’s not, and don’t be afraid to deviate from the plan to invest more in areas of success.

7. Be Patient

No matter what your plan, there’s no silver bullet in your marketing, so don’t expect one. A truly effective ROI-focused marketing strategy is going to be a healthy combination of a variety of activities that are tailored to your brand and your audience. There’s no one campaign or channel that’s the magic ticket. So be patient, keep working smart, and build over time.