How to Drive Sales with a Virtual Product Launch Strategy

There’s a new movie from The Hunger Games saga premiering in November 2023. We know about this because, in September 2022, the producers revealed that Viola Davis was cast in the film. Then, we discovered one or two more names and got to see posters and trailers.

The teasing campaign will probably continue until November. The actors will appear on TV talk shows and then the producers will invite celebrities, actors, and influencers to an early premiere. By the time the tickets are up for sale, the saga fans will be waiting in a queue to be the first ones to see the movie.

And how is this relevant to you? Well, your product launch strategy should build a similar hype within your audience. To help you achieve that, we’ve compiled a list of steps to follow so you can come up with a killer strategy for your virtual launch—including expert tips from Melissa Keller, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Livestorm.

Create your pre-launch marketing strategy

The success of a launch depends on how well you tease your audience and get them interested in your new product. At this stage, you should start sharing targeted updates about the launch. Here are six tactics you can implement as part of your pre-launch marketing plan:

1. Create your launch roadmap
2. Give your audience what they’re looking for
3. Craft purposeful messaging
4. Use partnerships to promote the event
5. Tease your audience
6. Give them the option to pre-order

1. Create your launch roadmap

The first thing you should do is define all the different marketing touchpoints and determine when you’ll implement each one. Your roadmap should look like a timeline or a Gantt chart of all the different phases of your marketing strategy. It should include the communication channels, the intent of each message, and the expected reach at each touch point. Use this document as a product launch checklist.

Melissa Keller, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Livestorm, believes that when organizing a virtual product launch, you have to pay close attention to the planning and preparation. “Start by defining your goals and creating a detailed timeline to ensure everything runs smoothly,” explains Melissa. “Use a variety of marketing channels to promote your launch event, including social media, email marketing, and paid advertising.”

2. Give your audience what they’re looking for

It’s crucial that you get to know your audience so you can give them exactly what they want. A good way to know who you’re speaking to is by building personas and identifying their demographics, pain points, motivators, and expectations.

Another way to know who’s joining your session is by creating a personalized event registration page on Livestorm. You can add custom fields to collect more information about their background.

3. Craft purposeful messaging

Your product launch will generate as much noise and excitement the more you talk about it in an engaging way. A good way to do this is by writing impactful messaging that communicates tangible user benefits.

Let’s say your product is a social media content scheduler tool. Your team finds out through market research that users are going to Chat-GPT to write their content. So, you decide to build and launch an AI-powered content generator. Now users can write the content and schedule it directly from the app. (You’re giving them what they want).

Get the product managers to share the message so you can focus on the benefits for the user, not the features. This means saying “Users reduced their workload by 40% using our AI content generator vs 25% with ChatGPT” instead of “This AI content generator uses Dialogflow and is built on Python for faster responses.”

Once you’ve chosen the right message, align your marketing team so everyone refers to the product and communicates its benefits in the same way.

4. Use partnerships to promote the event

All successful marketing strategies involve external people advocating for the brand so it’s not just you talking about how great your product is. Product launches are no exception.

Reach out to influencers, vendors, industry experts, referral partners, and most loyal users to get them excited about your launch and help you promote the event. You can even get some of them to test the beta version of your product as part of the go-to-market strategy.

Make a press release and share it with blogs and online news portals. Gather customer feedback and make changes as part of your product development iterations. Invite them to talk about their experience at your event. Or, book industry experts to host the event or talk for 10 minutes about the industry gap your product is trying to fill. You’ll generate more noise and interest in your target market if you partner with relevant thought leaders.

“Consider inviting industry influencers or thought leaders who can help spread the word about your launch. Including beta testers as speakers is also an excellent way to add credibility to your product and highlight its value to potential customers.” - Melissa Keller, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Livestorm

5. Tease your audience

Another way to get your audience excited about the launch is by offering them a gift, a trial account, or a discount, or by hosting a giveaway. The whole spirit of the pre-launch strategy is to get your audience to feel the fear of missing out (FOMO). You want them to desire your product before it’s live so they talk about it with others, pre-order, and attend your event.

People tend to believe that they need millions of dollars to promote their products properly, and while having a large budget helps, you can also leverage the resources you have. Get to know your users and network - you might discover you know someone with a tech blog, newsletter, or YouTube channel with a good following. Offer them a discount rate for a mention.

If you’re using Livestorm, you can “use the email cadence feature to create a series of personalized emails to keep attendees informed and engaged leading up to the event,” says Melissa. That way, you can continue to tease your audience until the day of the event.

6. Allow people to pre-order

Many businesses sabotage their own powerful launch campaigns by failing to set up pre-orders. If they can’t click that button right away, even highly engaged attendees will lose interest after your event and end up not converting. You need to capture those leads, and keep them captured.

Plus, virtual launches “build buzz around your product and generate interest from your target audience,” says Melissa. So, even if the majority of your target audience doesn’t turn up, just “by creating excitement around your product launch, you can position your brand as an industry leader and generate positive word-of-mouth” says Melissa. Enabling pre-orders will help gauge how much attention you’re getting from early adopters, so you can adjust your strategy accordingly and sell products online.

Host a powerful new product launch event

You’ve got people’s attention. Now, how do you engage them during the virtual product launch? Here are four ways to do it:

7. Tell inspiring stories

People love stories, these allow them to connect with your brand and speakers in a more personal way. On launch day, get your facilitators to tell stories about how your product holds an important role in their lives.

If you’re using software like Livestorm to host virtual selling events like a product launch, you can ask the speaker to share videos and pictures on the screen as they go through the content. You can also invite the attendees to participate through emoji reactions, polls, or by commenting in the chat panel.

8. Pay attention to the set up

Launching a product virtually doesn’t necessarily mean you should do it from a noisy cafe. It also doesn’t mean that you need to spend thousands of dollars renting out a space and getting decorations. The beauty of virtual events is their versatility. A good tip is to try to match the event with your product’s pricing tier.

If you’re launching a software license for enterprises that costs $30,000 per site per year, your event needs to be worth that price line. That means you should rent a location and hire producers, audio technicians, videographers, moderators, operators, and even an art director. But you don’t have to do it all for marketing a more accessible product. Despite the investment, the setup should be clean, clear, and high quality. Plus, the speakers should embody your brand’s image.

With Livestorm, you can come up with an elegant and branded look and feel without breaking the bank. “Use custom branding to create an immersive experience and engage your audience with the live chat and emoji reaction features to create a real sense of interaction between your speakers and the participants,” explains Melissa “Consider using the recording feature to create a video of the event that you can share afterward with those who couldn't attend live.”

9. Incorporate a product demo

Make sure your product launch shows how the product works, but don’t make this the majority of the event. Attendees don’t necessarily want to see a 45-minute-long product demo. Instead, they want to be inspired to buy or subscribe to your product.

To inspire your audience, put on a compelling event with plenty of dynamic elements like video, Q&A, or fireside talks. Then, take a few minutes to show how your product actually works with a mini live product demo. Keep it brief, but allow your audience to see if the user experience (UX) seems simple, the loading times are fast, and your product does what they actually need it to do. To keep building your case, make sure the features you choose to showcase speak directly to the audience and to your overall messaging.

The buying process at this stage is similar to when a friend recommends you a product. Let’s say you’re looking for a customer relationships management (CRM) with good email campaign capabilities. Your friend that works in marketing at a different company says they use Salesforce, they’ve used multiple alternatives in the past, and this one is their favorite because they get to keep a history of every interaction.

If you’ve already researched other CRMs and Salesforce was on your shortlist, you’re probably going to request a demo or pay closer attention to it now that you’ve got a recommendation. The same thing happens with product launch events, if your speakers are compelling enough to build trust, once you get to the demonstration, the prospect is almost sold. So you need to make sure to speak directly to their needs so you can close the deal.

10. Keep it short

Product launches should last from 25 to 35 minutes. Anything longer will make it steep for people to sign up and attend. And, it will be harder for you to keep their attention and excitement virtually for a longer period.

Try following a similar agenda:

• Brand presentation/company mission (5 minutes)
• Product introduction - what it will do for the user (6 minutes)
• Beta user testimonial (7 minutes)
• Product demo (5 minutes)
• Wrap up (5 minutes)
• Call to action (2 minutes)

Following up after a successful product launch

Some attendees may convert right away, but that’s likely not the case for the majority of them. Even if they think you’re a suitable option, they may not be the decision-makers or they may still be looking at other options. They might even need to save money for a few months before they can pay for your product. You need to keep nurturing those leads after the event so you can close the deals in the future. Here’s how to do it:

11. Use event analytics to tailor your follow-up strategy

Depending on the platform you’re using to host your virtual event you’ll get access to different metrics. If you’re using a virtual event platform like Livestorm, you can access all attendees’ information related to engagement levels, questions asked, chat conversations, and their contact information after the session. You can also reach out to the most engaged attendees directly from Livestorm or through our CRM integrations like Husbpot, Pipedrive, Marketo, and Microsoft Dynamics to name a few.

If you made a limited time offer during the launch, reach out to the most engaged users to extend the offer. That way, you give them an additional chance to sign up for your product at a lower rate.

12. Share the recording

Record the event and share the video with your attendees as soon as it ends. Doing so, engaged attendees can rewatch it or share it with decision makers or colleagues. If you’re using Livestorm, the recording of your event starts automatically (unless you say otherwise) and users get instant access to the video as soon as the session ends. Also, you can embed the recording on your website and gate it with a registration page so you can capture the contact information of anyone who accesses it in the future.

Key takeaways: How to plan a successful product launch

Virtual launches are a great way to introduce new features and products to your users or target market. These kinds of marketing efforts involve team members from all the different departments. So, make sure you involve all crucial stakeholders in the planning process.

Once you’ve got that covered and have reached an alignment with the product and sales team, think of your launch in three parts

• Pre-launch: Everything that happens before the set launch date. You need to generate FOMO and get everyone in the industry to talk about this event
• Launch day: Get engaging speakers to share stories, use video and images, brand the room, and show how your product works
• Post-launch: Analyze your data and reach out to prospects to get them to convert

To host an engaging and highly interactive virtual event on a platform with top-notch performance, consider Livestorm. This tool will help you create custom registration pages, host up to 2,000 attendees, analyze the metrics, and reach out to prospects using the same app.

Frequently asked questions about product launch strategies

What are product launch strategies?

Product launch strategies are a mix of plans and tactics that allow marketers, salespersons, and product managers to launch a new product successfully. These include activities before, during, and after the launch.

What is the goal of a product launch strategy?

The goal of a product launch strategy is to build brand awareness, generate buzz about the new product, get people to know what it does, and drive sales.