New product releases are an exciting time for your eCommerce website. New products mean new potential customers, more sales, and most importantly, growth. However, what happens if you finally drop the new release and nobody even knows it’s there?
Advertising is crucial to the success of your online store, and product launches are no exception. If you want sales and new customers, you need to give them a reason to visit the store by getting the word out. Is your new product going to be revolutionary, save them tons of money, or be the next big trend? Let them know!
You’ve seen people stand outside for days to get their hands on a new iPhone that hasn’t even been released yet. Why? The hype behind it has grown so much that everyone wants a part of it thanks to effective pre-release marketing efforts.
If you want to make your next product release a success, you need to build hype that leaves people begging for more. Below are just a few ways to drum up the anticipation (and start racking up those sales).
Tease It Slowly Over Time
Slow and steady wins the race, and when it comes to building hype, you don’t want to put everything out there right away. If you do, people are going to form their opinions right away – before they can even buy it – which takes away the mystery of the release and removes and fear of missing out (FOMO) you could have taken advantage of. After all, there’s a reason that movies have trailer releases – you want to give a taste, but if they want more, they have to wait or pay!
Social media is your best friend when it comes to teasing new releases. The shareability means that a teaser can be spread around for free, and you can promote a hashtag based on your product to garner even more interest. When people see your promoted hashtag on Twitter or in a featured post on Facebook, they’re going to be tempted to check it out. Bonus points if you create a contest out of your hashtag for even more shareability and a fun way to get people excited.
Offer Waiting List Registration
People like to feel important. As a business, your goal is to make every customer feel special with exceptional service. In the same way that special discounts and promotions can make customers feel more valued, providing access to “exclusive” information and products can help build a customer’s loyalty.
Exclusivity is a great way to build hype because everyone wants to be part of the “inner circle”. By creating a waiting list for your product (perhaps even with a limited number of spots), you’re increasing the magnitude of your release because people are willing to get in line to see what it’s about. If it wasn’t a big deal, people wouldn’t be signing up just for a chance to get their hands on one, right?
If you want to make the waiting list an even better marketing tool, consider offering incentives for referrals that move people up based on how many people they recruited. For example, the top 1000 users get it the day before release while the others have to wait another day. It encourages sharing, creates a small competition, and overall increases your exposure.
Team Up with Influencers for a Sneak Peek
One of the most important aspects of building hype is getting the word out about the product. Unless you’re already a household name (or at the very least, a leader in your niche), more visibility is always a good thing.
Influencers within your industry are your direct connection to people who are interested in what you’re releasing, providing cost-effective targeted advertising without much research needed. You also gain the benefit of their loyal fans trusting their recommendations, leading to a high conversion rate on sponsorship deals with social media stars.
When partnering with these influencers, consider a teaser post that introduces the idea to the potential customers first. This way once you announce a date to build hype, those same people will come back to see what the big reveal is.
Cashing In On The Hype
You’ve set the foundation for your new release – you’ve got a comprehensive marketing strategy involving previews on social media, influencers teasing their followers, and a wait list of hundreds or thousands of excited potential customers. The day has come for your release and despite the huge spike in traffic, you’re seeing abandoned carts left and right. What gives?
No matter how much interest you’ve drummed up, website views don’t pay the bills – sales do. If your website isn’t setup to convert visitors to customers, you’re wasting a lot of time and effort on building up hype just to let your customers down.
One of the most important steps of the sales process is checkout. With 69% of customers abandoning their carts at checkout, you need to make it fast and easy for them to pay you so that their FOMO can kick in before they have time to reconsider. To accomplish this, you need an effective checkout system.
Handsome Checkout is a WordPress plugin that gives you utmost control over WooCommerce checkout process. Offering templates for one-step checkout pages, customizable checkout fields, and embeddable forms to place on your site, there’s no easier or more cost-effective plugin out there to help you convert your new customers to make the product launch a success.
Wrap Up
How you approach hyping up your new release can be the difference between a major success and a serious disappointment. Be sure to form a comprehensive marketing strategy that includes our recommendations to see the best results on launch day, and use Handsome Checkout to ensure those visitors convert to customers.
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