For B2B companies, launching a new product or service is no small feat. It’s important to take the time to plan out the launch of your new offering one step at a time. That being said, the hard part is over—your new product or service is officially finalized—and the fun is just beginning.
Before we get into the complete guide to launching a new B2B product or service, let’s take a step back to see what goes into the most successful product launches:
Essentially, if you’re working together, doing your research, and sticking to an organized strategy, you’re bound to come out on top.
Ready to dive in? Here’s how to position your business for success when launching a new B2B product or service.
Here’s the beauty of launching a new product: You’re opening up potential business opportunities to a wealth of new customers. Time to meet your next big buyer.
The strongest campaigns are fueled by deliberate, data-driven strategies—especially when launching a new product—and the most important part of said strategy is knowing who you’re aiming for.
So, how can you get a greater understanding of your target audience? The best way to get to know your new potential clients is by developing buyer personas.
Depending on your industry, you’ll want to determine which factors are important to your customer’s decision-making process. Based on your experience with current customers, and on who you’d like to target, here are a few pieces of information that will help you discover their needs and who they are:
Now that you have an idea of who potential new customers are, what about your current clients?
New products mean new upsell opportunities. Now’s the time to start identifying who among your current clients shares the goals, challenges, or needs of your target buyers. When you introduce your new product to the world, you don’t want your customers to miss out on the fun.
Here’s the downside of launching a new product: You’re opening up your business to a slew of new competitors. That’s okay—who doesn’t love a little healthy competition?
In order to face them, it’s important to know exactly who you’re up against.
Start with a list of all of your current competitors. You may be launching a new product, but you’re likely still operating in the same industry.
Chances are you have this list tucked somewhere in your file system (or brain space), but when’s the last time you updated it?
There are countless tools you can use to conduct comprehensive market research. With a brand new B2B product on the table, now’s the time to re-evaluate the marketplace. You want to be able to enter the ring swinging.
Here’s what you need to know about your competitors:
The list can vary according to your industry, so you may find you need additional details for your particular competitors.
Our advice? When it comes to competitive analysis, less is never more.
Identifying your target buyers is only half the battle. Now that you know who they are, you need to know where they are.
Consider the idiom “He could sell wood to a forest.” Chances are, if you’re marketing wood to a forest, you haven’t done enough market research to see who needs your product—let alone where they operate.
Here at Hudson Fusion, we talk about “industry watering holes” a lot—a lot. You’d think our clients were all operating in the Sahara. However, watering holes are more than desert oases.
“Industry watering hole” is marketing slang for “where your customers look for information.”
To find where your right-fit customers are, you’ll need to answer the following questions:
Determining where, when, and how potential customers would stumble across your product is important. Understanding their purchasing behavior is a fundamental part of the launch process.
Now that you know exactly who you’re selling to—and where to find them—you need to nail down exactly why they should want to go with you in lieu of a competitor.
So, what makes you stand out from the competition?
There may be dozens—if not hundreds—of competitors offering comparable products in your niche, but it’s impossible for two businesses to offer exactly the same service experience.
You need to be able to sum up your Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) in succinct, compelling messaging to help give your product launch that extra oomph. Here’s how to nail down your “it” factor:
This may be the most difficult stage of the entire launch process. There’s a reason why a lot of SMBs turn to a marketing agency to help them establish these all-important brand assets: The experts know what they’re doing.
Now that you know who you’re speaking to, where they operate, and the message you want to convey, you’re ready to start working on the building blocks of your launch strategy: your marketing collateral.
There are countless forms of collateral you can use for an effective product launch, but before you figure out which digital and printed assets you need, you have to establish where exactly you’re planning to reach your audience.
You’ve already determined the industry watering holes you’ll be targeting. From there, figure out what types of collateral will best serve each of those areas.
For example, if you’re announcing the launch of your new service at an upcoming tradeshow, you may want the following:
That being said, we can’t emphasize enough that there are countless forms of collateral your marketing can take. This is just a sample set for a specific situation, but the list of potential assets is infinite depending on how creative your marketing team can be.
You’ve set the stage for a successful launch, and now, all you have to do is execute it.
Unlike product launches, you’re in much more control of your go-to-market date when you’re launching a new service. Once you’ve solidified what your service entails, developed the tools/tactics your business needs to provide it, and finalized the fine print in your service agreements, all you need to do is determine how—and when—you’ll introduce it to the world.
Here’s a starting timeline to help you get started:
If there’s any advice we can give you before you get started, it’s not to rush. Too many B2B launch campaigns fall flat due to poor planning, and there’s no way you can promise successful execution if you don’t put in the foundational work.
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