7 Tips For a Successful Brand Launch

Getting prepared for a brand launch can be both exciting and nerve-wracking. How you choose to introduce your brand to the public takes careful consideration. The first impression your brand gives off will set the tone with the relationship with your audience.

A successful launch is as important as introducing your significant other to your parents. Think about it this way. You adore your partner and want your family to feel the same about them. Now, imagine your loving partner making the horrifying mistake during dinner at your parents’ house, saying that the roast is a little bit dry. Your mother throws them the death stare, and just like that, you are in for a lifetime of awkward family dinners.

Undoubtedly, making a good first impression with your desired audience is crucial to your brand’s success. Having an effective brand launch is, therefore, essential. Following is a list of helpful tips to avoid bad impressions or “awkward dinners” with your public.

1. Set a Brand Launch Day

Having an exact date set up for your launch day is vital for all the pre-planning it involves. Having a precise date will help to prepare your team and everyone involved in the launch accordingly.

Once you have chosen your launch date, you should do everything in your power to stick to it. People will be anticipating your brand launch, and delays mean disappointed customers.

Another critical element to think about is the actual launch date. According to PPAI Media, you should consider these points:

• Avoid holidays and weekends.
• Look at your website traffic analytics and determine what 48-hour period on your website includes the historic highest average traffic.
• Consider aligning your launch date with an event, conference, or promotion to increase awareness and traffic on your brand launch for a faster brand shift.

2. Focus On Your Key Audience

Whether your brand is new or old, it should always focus on your customers. Therefore, you need to think about how to reposition your brand best to connect with these customers.

Your company wouldn’t have a purpose if it wasn’t for your buyers. So any successful brand launch campaign should always start here. - David Houston, Delta Marketing

Also, not only does the launch have to impact the market, it needs to be strategic as well. For this, it’s necessary to think about who else besides your customers will be affected by the launch. These can be employees, investors, strategic partners, the media, and so on. Remember to keep them in mind while strategizing your launch.

3. Build a Schedule

Without a doubt, structure is critical in having a successful launch. Creating a schedule ahead of time is a great way to give your team a comprehensive map of all the tasks that must be implemented.

From your Launch Day, reverse engineer all of the steps you will need to take for a full and exhaustive brand launch. Identify all of the areas where your brand is visible, and plan when and how you will update them. - Theresa Keller, PPAI Media

Here is a list sample, though yours will undoubtedly be much longer. The schedule will fill up for your marketing team for the two months before launch.

4. Make a List of Goals

Before your Launch Day, it’s highly recommended you make a list of goals to inform your launch performance metrics. To set a traffic goal for your brand launch, use your existing reach and audience and add 20%. Delta Marketing suggests taking a look at these metrics:

• Average website page views or visitors per day
• Followers on each social media platform
• Industry benchmarks for click-thru-rate and cost-per-click for ads platforms
• Average social post engagements

For example, you can take your number of views and set a goal for impressions to reach 20% more than your existing average. It’s necessary to know your current audience size and engagement rate to determine if you have reached more people during your rebrand.

5. Create Brand Anticipation

A huge benefit of knowing your audience well is creating a feeling of anticipation for them. It’s a strategic idea to generate buzz around your brand launch.

One way to create anticipation could be through social media. Drop hints that something exciting is nearing, and you want them to be part of it. Audiences love to feel involved and don’t want to miss out on something important.

Creating anticipation will get people talking about your brand and help to ensure a successful brand launch.

6. Internal Brand Launch First

An effective launch starts from within the company itself. The employees must understand the meaning behind the new brand since they are the brand’s storytellers.

Introducing employees to new core messaging like the brands’ purpose, mission, vision, and values is the best way to articulate the framework and direction of the new brand. - Brian Lischer, Ignyte

Take advantage of this time to come across with important core messaging and release your guidelines. A document containing all the guidelines for employees and vendors would prove to be extra helpful as well.

7. The Big Reveal: External Brand Launch

Finally, we come to the exciting conclusion: Launch Day. After all the careful planning and team effort, it comes down to this big day.

The day-of external brand launch includes the execution of all the final items on your brand migration list: making your new website live, updating social media channels, sending out announcement emails, and distributing press releases. - Brian Lischer, Ignyte

The last step is to gauge the audience’s response and to respond accordingly. Remember that it’s impossible to please everyone, so don’t feel disheartened with adverse reactions. Change is uncomfortable, and not everyone will be on board. Monitor feedback and be prepared to give timely responses to any customer concerns.

Launching a Lasting Impression

Above all, remember that an effective brand launch is your opportunity to create a lasting impression on your audience. However, you have to try your best to make this a positive impression. Make your brand stand out, and you will become memorable.

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