Post Launch Campaign vs. Pre-launch Campaign: Differences

Bringing a product from concept to reality is challenging, but the process seems frivolous compared to the challenges marketers face when releasing it to market. Imagining the initial sales, a spike in revenue, and rising popularity may compel you to act prematurely, missing the most crucial details.

Of the 30,000 products launched every year, 90% fail due to a lack of planning and unified team effort. In today’s robust startup space, launching a new product, propelling it to success, and building a brand out of it demand a more structured approach to marketing – pre-launch and post-launch campaigns.

Whether you’re a multi-national conglomerate or a startup yet to launch, no product can win over customers without a pre-launch marketing campaign dictating its path. While the pre-launch campaigns set the stage and build the initial hype, post-launch marketing extends the logistics and customer support needed to maintain an uphill revenue stream.

For entrepreneurs and marketers looking for a breakthrough and to dominate their competitors, instate post- and pre-launch campaigns as part of your product launch plan.

Pre-launch Campaign: Preparing the Groundwork

Showing up unannounced always puts you in a bad light or leaves you unattended. As an entrepreneur, the consequences can be even more devastating. No matter how remarkable your product is, without a hyped audience willing to purchase, the launch is doomed to fail.

A pre-launch marketing campaign is a company's deliberate effort to build hype and anticipation in the audience before launching a new product. While building support for the product and attracting attention in the market, the pre-launch campaign lays the groundwork for a successful product release.

The pre-launch stage is often the most busiest and impactful in the overall lifecycle of the product. Executed right, businesses can create anticipation, capture valuable leads, and establish a strong market presence ahead of the official release. Poorly planned or rushed in execution, and your product development efforts may end up in smoke.

Mark Your Objectives

Not all businesses view marketing campaigns with the same lens. For startups, a pre-launch campaign improves brand awareness and creates a buzz whereas, for established businesses, it can be an effective way of reaching new prospects before launch.

Whether you want to increase brand recognition or build email lists of your prospects, figure out what you want to achieve through pre-launch promotion. Experts suggest integrating a pre-launch campaign checklist for seamless collaboration between departments while keeping the marketing process transparent.

Setting objectives in advance provides clarity and ensures that everyone involved in the pre-launch campaign understands the desired outcome. Companies with clear milestones and goals, can allocate budgets, assign tasks, and utilize resources more efficiently to support their product launch.

Create a Product Landing Page

Before you set your pre-launch campaign in motion, develop an online base (website or landing page) to capture leads and mark them as prospective buyers. A landing page is the first port of call in your marketing - a destination where interested audiences can tune in to learn more about your product, subscribe for free trials, and sign up as prospects.

By featuring sneak peeks and teasers of your upcoming product, landing pages spark curiosity and excitement among visitors, motivating them to stay engaged until the official release. An effective landing page includes:

• Compelling Headline
• Engaging visuals
• Concise product description
• Call-to-action (CTA) button
• Lead capture or Signup form
• Customer testimonials

Besides offering a basic introduction to your product, the landing page must propose product USPs and value propositions that compel visitors to leave their email addresses.

Pick Suitable Marketing Channels

Even with SEO engineering and compelling copywriting, your landing page needs a little push from adverts. Instead of sharing your company profile with every advertising outlet and increasing social media handles, identify and leverage the mediums that your target audience prefers the most.

Some channels offer better opportunities for interaction and engagement with the target audience. Leverage social media and email marketing campaigns to tap into your niche segments and increase customer acquisition rates.

When launching a SaaS business or introducing a newer version of the product, prefer channels that ensure two-way communication with customers. It enables businesses to form meaningful connections with prospects, gather feedback on the first look, and hopefully incentivize them to refer new leads.

Publish a Press Kit for PR

If you have existing relationships with popular news media outlets, magazines, and online publications, leverage them to promote your upcoming product. But as an upcoming startup, it’s better to start laying foundations during the pre-launch stage.

Direct your support staff and marketing officials to develop a press release to expand your media outreach. A press release serves as a valuable resource that provides journalists, media outlets, and influencers with information about the upcoming product and compels them to propagate your story to their respective audiences.

Getting influential journalists and media houses on board to cover your launch story builds your reputation and credibility as a brand. Customers that channel in through trusted media sources tend to stick longer.

Set Up a Content Timeline

Time is money - a bit more so, in a product launch. Keeping up with the schedule and ensuring all marketing activities are taken care of before the launch requires a comprehensive content timeline.

A structured product launch timeline outlines when and how various pieces of content will be created, published, and distributed to engage the target audience. All concerned stakeholders e.g., writers, designers, and marketers can seamlessly review the content calendar and perform their responsibilities according to set deadlines.

Consequently, businesses can keep a coherent and consistent approach to brand messaging throughout the pre-launch phase. Make sure your content timeline is in line with the pre-set milestones and launch objectives.

Post Launch Campaign: From Launchpad to Liftoff

While the success of your launch largely depends on your pre-launch homework, it doesn’t mean you should stop putting in the effort once it goes live. A post-launch campaign sustains or builds on the momentum set into motion during the launch whether it’s multiplying sales, increasing revenue growth, or improving brand loyalty.

In the post-launch stage, marketers have but one fundamental objective; convert the interest and awareness generated during the pre-launch phase into actual sales. The focus shifts towards driving revenue and capturing a larger share of the market.

Instead of looking for leads, marketers prioritize retaining existing ones. By facilitating positive brand interactions, building relationships, and fostering brand loyalty in customers, businesses can capitalize on their word-of-mouth by instating dedicated customer referral programs.

It’s the perfect time, to review your marketing efforts, track relevant KPIs, and reiterate your product launch plan for better impact.

Invoke a Solid Customer Retention Strategy

Your connection with the target audience doesn’t end once they purchase, rather it only grows stronger from the moment. As the competition gets fiercer in the innovation department, businesses must provide a brand experience to keep new customers from drifting off.

Integrate a dedicated support team into your sales funnel that resolves customer queries, addresses their concerns, and nurtures positive relationships.

Equip them with advanced technologies like customer relationship management (CRM) software, ticketing systems, and live chat platforms for a personalized experience. Businesses often;

• Conduct customer-facing webinars to show detailed tutorials of your product.
• Send personalized emails to registered users as a follow-up and provide in-depth demonstrations.
• Encourage customers to follow your social media handles to catch live updates and news about your products.

Communicate with Brand Ambassadors

Whether you partner up with leading influencers in your niche or turn advocates out of your existing customers, keeping in contact with your brand ambassadors is crucial during post-launch.

On one side it helps companies gauge the public’s sentiment about the product and how new users interact with it. Whereas, in hindsight, businesses can leverage the connection to promote their latest offerings and future updates, and learn first-hand experience before launch.

Referrers and brand advocates can generate a steady stream of high-quality referrals. Effective communication allows you to incentivize and encourage these advocates to refer their friends, family, or colleagues to your business, expanding your customer base.

Set Up Promotional Offers and Discounts

While the pre-launch hype and social influence drive most of the sales on the launch day, the strategy may not work long term. Promotional offers and discounts are powerful incentives that motivate customers to keep purchasing even if the initial buzz has diminished.

Promotional offers create a perception of added value, making the purchase decision more appealing and encouraging customers to act quickly. When competing against rivals with similar products, special discounts will give you a competitive edge in the eyes of a prospect.

Know your audience to provide incentives that drive them. Learn their preferences, purchasing behaviors, and price sensitivity and devise promotional discounts for maximum impact.

Conduct Post-Mortem Analysis and Reiterate

Once your product takes off in the market, channel your resources into analyzing the results of your marketing and reiterate your strategy based on the derived conclusions. Think of it as taking a pit stop to fine-tune your race car before pacing toward the next lap.

A post-mortem analysis of your launch campaign helps you identify what worked well and what didn’t. Weigh your performance by analyzing product launch KPIs such as sales figures, customer acquisition costs, conversion rates, and customer feedback.

Compare the results with the actual forecast and milestones you set at the beginning of your campaign and ask;

• What milestones did you achieve?
• Which objectives were left unfinished?
• What were the shortcomings?

A quantitative evaluation of your campaign lets you capitalize on your strengths, replicate successful strategies, and address areas for improvement in future campaigns.

Share Key Insights with Concerned Stakeholders

No matter what your findings might be, never keep the results to yourself. The failures and mistakes aren’t just yours to carry through just like the success aren’t yours to celebrate.

Share key insights from your campaign with the concerned departments including sales, marketing, product development, and customer support teams. Let everyone know their share of the mistakes, derive plausible solutions, and reiterate for better outreach. The post-launch phase typically outlines:

• Measuring results by tracking KPIs
• Gathering valuable feedback from customers
• Refining the product based on consumer insights
• Promoting the product after reiteration for better outreach

Whether you’re upgrading your product to boost performance or refining the marketing strategy for better outreach, building on the feedback keeps you from going stagnate or outdated.

Post-Launch Campaigns vs. Pre-launch Campaigns: Outlining Differences

Introducing a new product to the market requires a two-faceted marketing approach - one that lays the initial groundwork while the other steers its growth once it goes public. While both campaigns are crucial for the launch’s success, they serve different purposes and employ distinct strategies.

Varying Goals and Objectives

With different purposes to serve in a product’s launch cycle, pre- and post-launch campaigns are driven by contrasting objectives. Since a pre-launch strategy builds the hype and warms up the audience before a product’s release, the campaign is largely built on building anticipation, creating awareness, and collecting leads ahead of the launch.

Post-launch campaigns, on the other hand, deal with the aftermath. As the initial sales roll in and more customers get on board, marketers direct their attention to improving revenue, expanding the user base, and fostering customer loyalty. It’s important to mark out the post-launch goals to stay ahead of the competition.

Not All Promotional Campaigns Are Same

Like their end goals, marketers take to different channels and employ contrasting marketing techniques to advertise the campaign. Pre-launch campaigns rely on sneak peeks and short video teasers to fuel the audience’s curiosity. Not revealing too much at the beginning keeps prospects on their toes for the launch event.

In the events following the launch, marketers introduce consumer-driven promotional material to maximize their interest and keep them invested in your product. Businesses host giveaways, run referral campaigns, and promote user-generated content that converts their enthusiasm into sales.

Time Matters in Different Dimensions

As the term implies, pre-launch campaigns initiate months or weeks before the actual launch. With the launch date in sight, marketers develop content timelines and publish calendars, carefully orchestrating every step to ensure the campaign concludes well ahead of the launch event.

Contrastingly, post-launch campaigns aren’t as time-strained. Instead of prepping up for a deadline, these campaigns adopt a more iterative approach. Marketers adjust their tactics and optimize strategies based on real-time feedback and long-term customer relationships.

Track Metrics that Steer Success

While marketers in both scenarios measure campaign results in real-time to assess their performance and reiterate accordingly, the metrics are inherently different. During pre-launch, professionals are mostly concerned with tracking website traffic, social media engagement, and lead generation to assess the audience’s enthusiasm.

In post-launch campaigns, marketing teams measure more tangible metrics like sales, customer retention, and online reviews. Professionals employ both qualitative (surveys and interviews) and quantitative (advanced tracking software) methods to receive real-time data about the campaign.

Closing Note

New product launches are elemental for a business’s continued success. Even though the majority of your product launch activities are executed in the pre-launch phase, one cannot discount the value post-launch marketing brings in propelling your product toward continued success.

Pre-launch campaigns entice and intrigue while post-launch strategies cash audience interest with brand recognition and tangible growth. When competing against the goliaths in your industry, you must integrate both strategies into your launch plan for steady and long-lasting growth.

Let the leading marketers at Prefinery.com tackle your pre- and post-launch campaigns, while you develop a product that’s hard to beat.

FAQs

What are pre-launch and post-launch campaign activities?

Pre-launch campaign activities involve building anticipation and awareness before a product launch. The process includes releasing teasers, engaging in social media campaigns, and collaborating with influencers to build the hype. Post-launch campaigns focus on retaining customers and scaling the company’s growth after the launch.

How long should a pre-launch campaign typically last?

Although the duration of a pre-launch campaign depends on the product and target market, it usually lasts from a few weeks to several months. The main objective is to build anticipation and engage the target audience leading up to the product launch.