What is the most important part of launching a new product? Is it the product itself? Is it having enough stock? How about an incredibly slick and well-designed product page?

No. the most important thing when launching a new product is that you’ve got a fully functioning and well-thought-out lead generation strategy ready to go. You can have the best product in the world, beautifully displayed in the universe’s most well-designed product page, but if you haven’t got a way to get people to the product, you just aren’t going to do as well as you want to.

People in the marketing biz talk a lot about lead generation, and they should – but if you’re a small business owner just launching a new line or you’re only just entering the field, it can be hard to understand what they’re actually talking about. So, what is lead generation, and what are the best lead generation strategies for newly launched products?

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is just that, generating leads. It’s getting consumers to take an interest in your product or service and leading them to make a purchase or enquiry as a result. When a product becomes well established, the lead generation settles into itself and gets helped along by other customers’ reviews and recommendations – but with a new product, it takes thought and planning to make sure the right people are seeing your products at the right time.

What are some lead generation techniques?

Some of the most basic lead generation techniques are things you probably have heard of but perhaps didn’t realized they’re part of lead generation. For example, marketers talk a lot about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, which improves your ranking on Google and therefore gets more customers’ eyes on your site. Other techniques include effective use of social media, blogging, and online marketing videos.

Which techniques are best for newly launched products?

Creating a compelling landing page

We may have made fun of the well-designed website at the expense of all else earlier – but having a well-designed website is essential for lead generation, especially when launching a new product. The mistake many people make is focusing on aesthetics rather than function. While visual design is certainly important and helps to establish your brand, what you need to focus on is designing a website that leads your customer from the information to the product to the checkout screen smoothly. A poor user experience is a huge barrier to people actually completing a purchase or enquiry.

The best way to combat this is to create a compelling landing page, rather than a pretty one. Creating a landing page that makes people want to click that next button and move forward with this product is the best lead generation you’re going to get. Luckily this isn’t something you have to spend thousands of dollars on with a pro designer – there are so many tools out there nowadays, you can happily use a landing page creator when building your website and avoid spending the big bucks.

Utilize your existing base

Remember all the work you put into gathering a base of customer email addresses? And remember those weekly email blasts you send out with news about the company, to those who have subscribed? This is where it all pays off.

This is the perfect platform to use to get your new product out there. These is a list of people who are already interested in you and what you have to offer – they are almost infinitely more likely to actually engage with a new product release than a brand new customer. While most of your energy should go towards generating new leads and attracting new customers to your brand, you would be smart to utilize your existing loyal customers when it comes to lead generation for a newly launched product.

Show off your research

Having a white paper written on the background, context, or efficacy of your product is a surprisingly great way to generate leads. Although it’s not the most sparkly method of marketing a product, many new products have to wait months for enough good reviews to build up that it gives them a good reputation – have a well written and well-researched white paper showing how and why your product is useful and relevant establishes that authority right out of the gate, so even right at the beginning customers can feel assured of the quality of the product without reviews.

So to recap, there are a huge number of ways to generate leads, from indirect lead generation that comes from blogging and SEO to more direct lead generation that comes from email marketing and well-designed landing pages. For newly launched products, what gets people interested is obviously quality, authority, and a good user experience. So, for a new product launch make sure you have designed a compelling landing page that generates sales, that you make use of your existing customer base, and that you have the research and value of your new product right in the customer’s line of sight

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