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Successfully Launching a Consumer Product or Business

Guest post by: Georgina Dunkley

Article Overview: Over the past decade I have been lucky enough, in my career, to experience a broad range of product launches and business openings all with different budgets, timeframes and objectives, that have helped shaped the way that I now operate as a PR consultant.

Successfully Launching a Consumer Product or Business

Over the past decade I have been lucky enough, in my career, to experience a broad range of product launches and business openings all with different budgets, timeframes and objectives, that have helped shaped the way that I now operate as a PR consultant. Launching a business or product can be a costly experience, particularly for a start-up that can\'t really afford to pay the fees of a PR agency, so below I have provided a few quick tips on how to do it yourself.

Don\'t launch too soon - when it comes to launching a product or opening a business it is essential that everything is already working to plan. The company needs to be effectively operating without any hiccups and the product needs to be completely ‘de-bugged\'. Launching before this will only highlight the things that are wrong and when you are speaking to the media and potential customers you don\'t want negative associations being the thing they remember about your brand.

Timings - think about when you want to announce to the world that you are ready and what implications this could have on your potential customers and the media. If you own a bar for example, the best idea would be to have an opening party on an evening, preferably in the working week, with a list of VIPs on the guest list which includes influential stakeholders and the media. A Sunday afternoon would clearly be a disastrous time. Equally if you are pitching a news story to the media regarding your launch, consider the timings - on Fridays most people already have one foot out of the door ready for the weekend and if you call too late in the day on any other week day, they may already be on deadline.

The physical launch - the recession has had a massive impact on the media and as such, in addition to a lot of papers folding, a lot of positions have been streamlined with many journalists covering more than one desk. This has had a subsequent impact on PR launches with fewer and fewer media able to make it out of the office and along to a physical launch event. This doesn\'t mean however that you shouldn\'t have a launch, but ensure that photographs are taken from it and provided, post-event along with a press release to your target media.

Target media - whenever I talk to a new business they always cite the target media they want to be featured in and more times than not, they discuss the nationals. Of course, as a PR person it is fantastic getting some coverage in the Guardian, but realistically what impact is that piece likely to have on the company if in fact they are targeting a purely local market, who read the local newspapers and listen to the local radio stations. It is of paramount importance to be realistic about which media you should be targeting and their readers and listeners - the impact on your bottom line has to be your biggest consideration, not vanity.

Supporting collateral - before launching anything you need to ensure that you have the whole story ready to share with the media and your potential customers through the development of press releases, any supporting marketing materials such as handouts which could be essential in explaining a more technical product and supporting photography. For a business launch you should also create biographies for the senior management team, in case the media what to create a larger article on the background of the corporation.

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Article Tags: launch, PR agency, social media



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