Product Launch Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide (2021)

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Ajay Ohri
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Introduction 

The successful introduction of new products launch into the market is important for the growth and survival of companies. However, many new products fail, and the failure rate is 50% at launch. The type of launch strategy employed is one of the key determinants of new product success. A new product could be highly innovative, incorporating advanced technology, superior to a competitive product, but still fails due to poor launch. Another reason for the product’s failure is they go wrong in educating to market about newly launch product.

In this article let us look at:

  1. The standard product launch strategy is holding you back?
  2. Reason Why Products gets Fail
  3. Product Launch Strategy in 5 steps

1. The standard product launch strategy is holding you back?

We have to use network effects concept for launching a new product. The term network effect refers to the phenomenon of the value of a product that increases as more user adapts the product. The guideline to success in network effect context is maximizing installed capacity based rather than skimming marginal profit. Once the product becomes dominant, the process is exceedingly difficult reserve due to a high switching cost that deters the consumer from adapting to new alternatives even if they are a superior product.

You kill your most valuable and important channel.

Your customers become your best marketers. They advertise the product by making mouth publicity. We have to take customer feedback and what features requirements to them for products so we can design products accordingly.

Word-of-Mouth publicity is the best term to describe the product without any cost. It’s informal conversations from potential and current customers talk about products and services. These conversations and recommendations have a vast effect on sales. Due to their trustability, For example, In USA consumer-goods 66% of sales are based on WOM according to a McKinsey & Co.

People talk about restaurants, food, music, electronics, fashion, investments,  movies,  health with friends, family members  This information  are highly credible, because its come from highly trusted and unbiased sources (. “people like us”)

2. Reason why products gets Fail

  • Improper Market Evaluation

A new product launch should be given to Market Evaluation at first. Proper funding and efforts should be taken at this step. Most companies give little importance to this area and release their products. Without proper funding for market research, a product cannot achieve maximum success. For example, Blackberry is a well-known company in the mobile market. When it released its first touch screen mobile in the market, it failed due to the fact that no market analysis was done. 

  • Wrong Timing

Another important reason is its timing of the release, and if it is not executed efficiently, it is a loss for the company. Timing of the release of new products influences the customers,  and when it is not done effectively, it does not impact the customers. For example, Renault’s Kwid car is an example of the wrong release timing of a product. Renault already had other cars in the same category when Kwid was released. It could not compete in the market due to its corresponding products’ competition given in the market. 

  • Improper pricing 

The price of a product plays an important role in the success of a product in the market. Most products may have fabulous features, but the product’s price affects its success, as it is compared to other similar products in the market for its pricing.

  • Limited Promotion

Often, a product’s success is based on its promotion, a product may have the great features to consider, but the promotion method may not give the proper idea about the product to its needy consumers. To avoid this company should prepare a proper report of unique features that product can give its potential customers and differentiate from others. 

3. Product Launch Strategy in 5 steps

It’s too often people focus on getting the product done and little time on launching in the market. Product launch is as important as developing the product itself. 

  • Market analysis: Market analysis is a must to know your target market, is still valid.  As a general rule, we should monitor the market during product development.
  • Competitor offering: Detailed analysis of competitor is required. If anyone has released something similar to your product, then finding out their launching strategies and troubleshooting their failures can definitely lead to a successful product launch. 
  • Target customer: Understand your customers need first and build a product to answer them. Always cultivate your target customer. If you make the product per your target customer’s requirements, it can definitely become a hit in the market.
  • Beta customer: Your first few customers will be critical to your success. Make sure that their experience is the best. If your beta customer’s experience is good, they will make mouth publicity of a product, and it is critical for a successful product launch.
  • Measurable success matrix: Make sure you have several measurable matrices that track your progress, check them often. It includes Customer inquiries, Sales, Return, Customer support call and feedbacks.
  • Press plan: Coordinating the press will assist you in the overall launch and promotion effort. A proper press plan will be benefited in term of free publicity. For instance, In 2007,” The market of smartphones was around 65 million, during that time competition among smartphones were mainly based on email, messaging, performance, the life of battery,  memory, and application. In 2008, the iPhone was launched by apple with lots of new features that really solved customers’ needs, which others couldn’t. 

If you want your product to become successful, you should emphasise value creation for the customer. Some of the questions like, how will you reduce product costs, how will your product increase customer benefits, need to be answered. If we reduce costs, we can either get more margins on the product or sell at lower prices to the customers, and the cost can be cut by manufacturing more product and making sure the standard deviation in the product can be less. You should create a separate page that talks about emerging issues and ideas.

These pre-launch ideas and issues can be continuously tracked to improve the product accordingly. Companies should give high-quality customer experience and coordinate with the sales team, and internal stakeholders ensure a smooth customer experience at all levels.

Conclusion

The development of a product is essential for a company’s growth. Any company that fails to release new products into the market is at risk of many factors like changing customer requirements, increasing competition, new technologies, government policies and short product lifetime. Even though the product launch strategy is essential, there are risks associated with developing the product.

Companies should spend a sufficient amount of time on developing the product so that they do not face a risk of failure. If the factors discussed above are taken care of while the product is in the development stage, most of the risks can be avoided. Any company aims to achieve the highest efficiency, and it is possible only when there are a proper relation and trust between the consumers and the company.

Interested to learn all about Product Management from the best minds in the industry? Check out our Product Management Course. This 6-month-long program takes place online through live instructor-led sessions. It is the only program in India that offers the ‘Bring Your Own Product (BYOP)’ feature so that learners can build their product idea into a full-blown product, and go through an entire Product Development lifecycle. Not only this, but this is the only program in India with a curriculum that conforms to the 5i Framework. Post completion, learners receive a joint certification from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, and Jigsaw Academy. 

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