Reinvent the Launch: How to Keep Up Product Launch Momentum

Inspired by Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover’s recent interview on “the launch” not being a “one time thing”  – I wanted to share a few of my favorite content strategies to build awareness and engagement for your product after the initial launch. By all means, pop the champagne and celebrating nailing the launch, but realize your work isn’t done yet.

The team behind Away – a suitcase brand founded by two women from Warby Parker – always seem to find a way to “reinvent the launch” with new promotions and partnerships. They offered an exclusive monogram of their suitcases which they extended to influencers, employing local designers to hand-monogram their pieces. This landed them a coveted story in the NYTimes style magazine. (According to the founders, it was so successful, they still do it). They’ve also been great on high quality, if unlikely partnerships. When the Minions “Despicable Me” movie came out last year, they featured a suitcase in the trademark canary yellow – and it flew off the shelves. Each new moment allowed them to reinvent the launch of their product – without doing anything to change the product itself.

For the B2B space,  launch momentum can also be accomplished in a number of ways. I’m a fan of creating a couple of core content pieces – a whitepaper with new research, or a stump deck with messaging you love – and finding different ways to  slice and dice it. This enables you to give the content more “legs” and have more mini, targeted moments to promote to your customer base.  Here are some of the best ways I’ve executed on to keep a product in the conversation post-launch: 

• Research whitepaper – Custom or compiled research with great/ shareable stats. Bonus points if you can do this with a great partner for added leverage.
  Video – Try an animated video with Moovly or test out out Facebook livestream – showcasing clients, employees, or the product at a specific time each week

• Customer events – Do you have super-users who would love to hear more about your product? Invite them for a day at your office, or plan a bigger event. Film the activities for more content to promote.

• Case studies – It’s great to have case studies – but it’s in the promotion that really keeps up the momentum. A customer speaking on your behalf on a webinar, at a conference, or on a podcast is a great way to keep this going. 

• Infographic – Use the same stats as a research paper – just in a more visual form 
  Webinar series – Go top of the funnel to explore challenges or explain the product in more detail. You get more legs on this if you can find a great partner to pair with. 

• Direct mail- Sounds crazy, but for those of you that have bigger clients you are targeting, this can be a great channel. Don’t just a postcard though, this needs to be something compelling that someone would actually want (cupcakes during a non-holiday time have been a hit!). This is also best paired with an email or larger account based-strategy to this group.

• Digital marketing – All of the above can be promoted with ads – ads + great content make for a winning digital marketing strategy.

What are your top ways to keep the launch momentum up?