How to Launch & Sell
How To Launch & Sell
From the day you decide to launch a product-based business you shouldn’t just be fixated on the launch but on how you’re going to sell your product.
Preparation is everything when it comes to sales. You should never assume that the product will just sell itself. If you plan and project manage your launch you will see positive sales performance from day 1 through to the end of its product lifecycle.
In this post, I will highlight 7 areas for you to focus on to ensure you successfully launch & sell your product. You can see this as a launch & sell checklist.
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Is your stock on-time?
A successful collection launch comes from launching on time, launching on the exact date that you planned for.
Why?
Because there’s a reason you chose your launch date, it will no doubt be because it timed with back to school and you sell children’s accessories, or you chose to launch on Black Friday at a really special price intentionally to drive sales with the end goal of gaining customer testimonials.
An on-time launch equals a higher likelihood of selling more units, hence why this should be one of your no.1 priority.
Tips:
- Add buffer to your timelines both logistics and production.
- Consider creating a contingency plan ie a 2nd launch date.
- Is 100% of your stock late? No well then launch in part 1 and 2. Get creating and don’t delay it all.
- Is 50% of your stock ready, you’re just waiting on the balance to be made? If so launch on time with half the stock, it’s a great way to test the product and see if you need the balance amount.
- If your stock is REALLY late, ask to keep the materials as greige and either turn the design into something else or sit on the stock until it is needed. The critical factor is to not continue with the design if it’s missed its selling period.
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Have you built up your email database?
I highly recommend that you launch with an eager audience waiting for your product launch because if you dont have an audience who are you even launching for?!
An email database will help you to make sales on day 1, week 1, month 1 & so on, therefore pre-launch aim to have at least 200 emails in your database.
Ways to gain emails:
- Run competitions or giveaways via IG or FB.
- Create a lead magnet giveaway free tips and advice
- Incentivise them ie sign up now and get VIP access to our newest collection + 10% off
As soon as you gain a new email ensure you welcome them via a welcome series, ensure that you send weekly content educating them about your brand, your values, your community but make sure this exciting content. The aim of the gain is to keep them engaged and excited ahead of a product launch. You want them eagerly waiting with their wallets out ready to transact!
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Have you taken professional images?
Photography is everything, an image will either make or break the sale, not necessarily the product nor price.
Consumers are lead by the imagery you show them, as an image suggests who your target audience is by your model choices ie their age, gender, size etc. The stage you also choose to take your imagery on ie studio or on location can also be really suggestive, as this tells your story, your collection mood which again will either resonate or not with your target audience.
I strongly recommend that your model choices, your outfit choices, your ‘styled with’ choices and your location/set choices are well thought out, by mainly that the decisions are made with your audience in mind. Will they relate to it, more importantly, does it speak to their hopes and desires.
An obvious example is a petite brand, you wouldn’t use models that weren’t petite right? Also, you may have isolated a nationality that tends to be more on the petite size ie Asian countries, therefore you may choose to use 50% Asian models as they will relate to your key audience.
In summary, invest in making the sale and invest in talking professional images that speak to your target audience.
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“Photography is everything, an image will either make or break the sale, not necessarily the product nor price.”
Unzipped
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Have you listed your products online?
A customer will use both your product copy and imagery to decide whether or not they want to make the purchase. Therefore investing in writing good product copy is as important as using professional photography.
Ensure you don’t rush this stage and ensure you get a 3rd person to review it before going like.
You want your product copy to be both factual and ‘salesy’. Don’t just state the obvious ie black dress with stretch, give them more ie This LBD (little black dress) will hug you in all the right places, complementing any women’s curves. Wear it with a denim jacket and sneakers on the weekend or with a blazer and heels for the work drink. It’s versatile and sexy, plus with every purchase, we will donate $ to X charity.
A final tip when listing your products is to play around with the layout and again test this with strangers or friends and family to see what they think about the UX of your product pages, did they find it easy or hard to navigate?
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Have you launched your pre-launch campaign?
A pre-launch campaign should start a minimum of 2 weeks before your launch date, but this does depend on what type of launch campaign you are planning.
Again don’t plan to just launch and rely on your email database or worst launch and expect people to find you, you need to market your brand in the lead up to launch, by interacting, educating and enticing them to buy and exchange details.
Like with any marketing campaign focus on ROI (return on investment) methods, that focus on your target audience and the channels they are present on.
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Is your customer service and logitic team ready?
If you’re lucky enough to make a sale, you don’t want to fall at simple hurdles like poor customer service or sloppy packaging.
Every customer you gain you want to WOW and delight them throughout their whole journey with you, so that means that as soon as they leave your website after purchase, they are kept informed about their order by fun and informative EDM’s, as well as receive a creatively packaged parcel ie handwritten notes, a free gift etc.
If you make this journey seamless they are far more likely to a) leave you a good review b) recommend you to a friend c) purchase from you again.
So before launching, ensure you have tested both your CS and logistics team and if this is you, can you get a friend to trial run purchasing from your website and therefore all the subsequent actions.
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Have you dummy run placing an order?
This may sound like an obvious last check, but trust me this is critical to your launch & sale success.
Don’t dummy run placing an order by yourself, test this with approx 5-8 people and ask them to feedback on critical factors like:
- Ease of page navigation
- Ease of payment
- Speed
- Overall easy navigation, journey across your pages including adding to basket, purchase and order confirmation
- Order EDMS
- Speed of delivery
- Satisfaction of delivery. Did you deliver the wow factor of just their order?
Just imagine if you didn’t complete this step and you launched and you had 100’s of people visit your site and you lost every single sale because you simply didn’t test if everything was working. You’d be devastated and potentially lost that customer for every, so be business smart and test place an order before launching your product.
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You should also read …
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Marketing strategies for fashion startups. An interview with Jesse Mullins.
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How to launch a profitable fashion brand online with minimal investment.
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7 ways to ensure your product is profitable.
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How to create a competitive & profitable pricing strategy.
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