Startups

New Product Launches for Startups Requires Market Testing

George · January 7, 2019 ·

New Product Launches for Startups Takes Planning and Great tactical execution of the plan.

Executing market tests during your company’s product development stage, and before and during its startup’s new product launch, gives you the opportunity to test your sales copy and marketing methods before you commit big dollars to a full-scale marketing program.

The new product launches for startups can be overwhelming. There is so much to know and do. You ask yourself, can I get it all done? Do I know how to do everything?

The response from a market test almost always improves the quality and effectiveness of the early stages of your marketing plan. Sometimes leads to radical changes in the direction of the entire marketing plan. It’s critical to get it right for a successful launch and long-term success.

For example, the shift in your marketing strategy from display advertising to more targeted direct email programs, a change in your marketing focus to reach new or different prospects, or more radical changes, such as abandoning one market for another.

Or could be due to changing your product’s original distribution strategy for an entirely new distribution method.

Market Testing and Market Research

The Value of Testing

Market testing is the marketing manager and most important function during the new venture’s early development stages. If well-executed, a market task and saving new venture thousands of dollars of expenses that otherwise would have been squandered on poorly conceived ad placements, landing pages, emailing, or other unsuccessful new product launches.

The feedback received from the market task and dramatically change of startups marketing direction, its product pricing, or its sales and distribution channel. These critical changes in marketing tactics and strategies can mean the difference between success or failure in a startup’s first critical year of operation.

It’s easy to gather market feedback if you have a lot of money to spend. If you don’t test, you can buy into the illusion of branding, and spend your company’s entire marketing budget on press releases and online advertising, rolling a product out first without testing, and failing.

Just like the dot-coms did during the internet bubble. Or, you can do it the smart way. Spend a little money upfront to run a small market test and learn a lot, and then incorporate the lessons into your next, larger marketing effort.

Failing to Test Leads to Failure

The sad fact is that most startups don’t market test their products. Instead, they rely on an outside ad agency to develop creative ideas to promote the product just before the product launch, usually involving the placement of many full-page ads in trade and business publications, Facebook Ads or email campaigns too many splashy direct email templates to a few, thoughtlessly chosen rented email list.

When the ads in the emails don’t pull, the startup fires the agency. Then hires a new man in the white horse, and repeat the process until you run out of money, or pulls back to take a more pragmatic approach.

Occasionally startup will succeed despite a poor marketing program, if it gets lucky, it is acquired, clenches a big distribution deal with a large corporation outside its normal marketing channels. It can truly be said that marketing budgets for most startups are often simply capital transfers from venture investors into the pockets of ad agencies, PR firms, and trade publications.

For companies who don’t have bottomless marketing budgets—and this includes every startup. The market testing options described in this section can be executed at a low cost, do not require extensive or specialized knowledge of market research techniques. These testing methods also work for new products or market launches in established companies.

They don’t require the use of focus groups or, no special test methodologies, or the other academic trappings of the marketing research field that distracts a company’s marketing team from the salesmanship required to sell its product.

Test Your Copy, Your Sales Message, in Deliverables

In market researchers speak, these testing and techniques are qualitative rather than quantitative, relying mostly upon anecdotal results.

Mixed test results happen most of the time: The final response to the most market task is usually neither a runaway success nor a dismal failure. Usually, some aspects of a test better than others. If you can listen to what potential customers in your market tell you about your tasks, you can ramp up the parts of market tests that were successful. Which will help you open new sales opportunities and your startup, well you continue to develop and refine your marketing program?
Testing is a continuous process: In a start-up or new product launch, there is no such thing as failure, only failure to test. An exploitative sales opportunity exists and can be found, and many market tests, but the sales rewards from this opportunity can only be realized by testing again, on a larger scale. And, even at these aspects of your testing program start to show promising sales results, and your marketing program begins to generate a good response. You must always test new ways of selling your startup’s product or service on a continuous basis. You must continue your market testing until you are confident you have found the marketing tools, methods, and media that you believe can be scaled up to build sales of your startup’s product or service.

They require you, not an outside market-research consultant, to be involved in their execution, and to form impressions based on the responses you receive.

Most of the time, results gathered from these techniques or require you to take corrective action to change and adapt your marketing program to meet the needs of your prospects and the realities of your marketplace.

These techniques have been proven in actual use, and can help you answer the most critical marketing questions of your startup or new product launch:

Are your product sales copy benefits persuasive to the prospects in your market, and will your product’s story be well received by the most likely prospects in your target marketing?
Are the other aspects of your product and its marketing messages, such as its price, product features, benefits, and applications, compelling to the prospects in your market?
Are the marketing media you are using—display advertising, social media, direct email campaigns, direct sales, trade shows, or sales development reps—the best, least expensive ways for you to sell to these prospects?
What is the approximate cost-per-sale for the advertising media year you are using?
Have other prospects, markets, applications, or targets of opportunity for your company’s product been uncovered by your test?

Two Stages to the Testing Process for Startups and New Product Launches

The market test process has two stages:

The initial, informal testing stage, where the sales copy points, positioning, and other key aspects of your marketing program and its sales message are broadly established
The formal testing stage implemented as a separate, limited market test prior to the launch of your company’s product or service. This stage can also be implemented as the first stage in your company’s product launch, depending on your startup’s timing requirements, budget constraints, and your confidence in your company’s marketing program. These formal tasks can be repeated as often as necessary, with the more successful aspect of each task being incorporated into the expanded marketing launch for startups, and or in a subsequent market test.

The First Principles: There Is No Such Thing as Failure, Only Failure to Test

Here are two important points to keep in mind:

Mixed test results happen most of the time: The final response to the most market task is usually neither a runaway success nor a dismal failure. Usually, some aspects of a test better than others. If you can listen to what potential customers in your market tell you about your tasks, you can ramp up the parts of market tests that were successful. Which will help you open new sales opportunities and your startup, well you continue to develop and refine your marketing program?
Testing is a continuous process: In a start-up or new product launch, there is no such thing as failure, only failure to test. An exploitative sales opportunity exists and can be found, and many market tests, but the sales rewards from this opportunity can only be realized by testing again, on a larger scale. And, even at these aspects of your testing program start to show promising sales results, and your marketing program begins to generate a good response. You must always test new ways of selling your startup’s product or service on a continuous basis. You must continue your market testing until you are confident you have found the marketing tools, methods, and media that you believe can be scaled up to build sales of your startup’s product or service.

Wrap-up for new product launches startups

New product launches for startups can be highly successful or flop.

The first marketing testing step for a start-up, the informal market test, put your startup sales copy–the story of your product or service–in front of a handful of actual prospects. The kinds of people you are will eventually be persuaded to buy your company’s product.

The informal market test relies upon your verbal presentation and personal questioning of the individuals who receive your marketing deliverables. You will draw out the constructive comments in response is necessary to put your startup’s sales message into sharper focus.

Informal testing can also be used in an established company launching new products in a new market, in advance of the actual product launch.

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General FAQ’s about new product launches startups

What is a product launch?

A product launch is when a company decides to launch a new product in the target market. Product launch involves various steps that require understanding customer needs, product design, testing of the product, marketing & advertising, and ensuring that the product reaches out to all its audience.

What is the purpose of a product launch?

Purpose. The primary purpose of a product launch is business growth. Businesses must understand the concept and process of a product launch to enable growth by successfully introducing new products into the market. Product launches build sales and revenue through the expansion of the customer base.

What a product launch for a startup?

Your product launch is the inflection point. It’s the point to which everything before it leads up, and everything that comes after comes out of. And a successful product launch starts with a successful product launch strategy.

Why launching a new product is important?

Effective timing of a product launch is vital for attracting customers and gaining momentum with your product in the market. Launch your product during a window of time with the most opportunity.

How Marketing for Startups is Not What You Think

George · December 20, 2018 ·

Marketing for startups requires that the marketing leader is bolder and more adaptable to rapid change than their counterparts in larger companies.

Marketing for startups must work under limited resources.

As a startup marketer in a new venture, or in an established company launching a new product or entering a new market, this quick tempo forces you to respond, instantaneously. The twists and turns occurring every day in startups and new product launches.

Startup marketing is different than marketing inside a global organization with tons of resources.

When you market a startup you have limited resources yet all the best marketing practices still apply. But to get it all done it is for you!

If you are a marketing director in a new startup, or an established company launching a new product, you’ll be using all the marketing strategies covered in my next two posts.

You may be developing and executing online advertising campaigns, content marketing, direct email programs, sales force support, SEO, and website development. But you’ll be using them at a much faster pace, under greater time pressure, and with a greater risk of failure.

The unique marketing environment found in startups is also found a new product launch in established companies.

And in the introduction of existing products into new markets. Because of this, the use of the term startup also applies to new product launches and new market introductions for established companies.

Startup marketing requires testing and scaling

So be ready!

Many startups or product launches that eventually succeed will do so using new and unexpected growth hacking and other marketing techniques. And often in markets that end up being completely different from the market the company originally targeted.

A startup or new product launch that succeeds despite early adversity is a tribute to the quick thinking, fast-moving founders of these companies. But also to the marketing managers who play critical roles and their success.

But those companies are the lucky ones. The business media is full of stories of well-founded startups spending lavishly on high-profile advertising strategies.

Or you will be unable to detect the early warning signs of their failing marketing campaigns in time to make the necessary changes. And sometimes radically changes that might have dramatically changed the outcome of the venture.

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Startup Marketing Strategy and New Product Launch Means Continuous Testing

The three most important things any marketing manager in a startup or a new product launch must do are:

Research, evaluate, and assess the startup’s markets, and the opportunities in these markets
Test the market response of the startup’s product or service
Correct the problems uncovered by the test, retest if necessary, and launch the product

Market testing presents the needless expenditure of precious startup capital on bad marketing decisions.

Testing identifies problems in the startup’s product positioning, it sales copy, its product, its marketing channel, or any combination of these factors that can be fatal to the startup as it continues to move forward, and as more money is poured into the venture.

Testing for any startup or new product launch is, in most cases, not a onetime occurrence, but rather a process of continuous testing. Typically, the first test yields mixed results.

Some aspects of the test look very promising, others don’t, and the rest falls somewhere in between. Sometimes the results of the initial market test are even worse than expected.

When this happens, experience marketing managers know better than to panic in the face of poor initial test results. They know that a poor test result doesn’t mean the startup or the new product won’t sell.

They understand that most of the time this only means that the marketing manager and his or her team just haven’t found the best way to market the product.

Every failure carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. quote by Napoleon Hill

The skilled marketing leader carefully examines the results of a test, especially the lessons learned from talking to potential customers in the company’s market, and then test again.

The next time, with improved sales copy and marketing deliverables (email, sales support material, advertising, or website), and sometimes by targeting new prospects or new markets. All based on the lessons learned in the first half.

The next test usually generates better results. And certain parts that do well such a successful test email link to a list, or a positive response from an ad placed paid media on Google AdWords. These results are expanded immediately to exploit the opportunities open by the test.

More lessons are learned, sales copy continues to be modified, and the marketing leader and his or her team continues to test new marketing methods.

As they execute the expansion of the successful marketing programs revealed by the previous test. In effect, the startup or new product launch is testing continuously as it ramps up its marketing launch program.

If you and your team carefully examine and thoughtfully reflect upon your test results. Then continue to aggressively execute each new marketing move with vigor and enthusiasm.

Most of the time you’ll find the marketing opportunities that do exist for your product or service. And you’ll be able to successfully exploit those opportunities to generate sales for your startup our new product launch.

The ultimate success or failure of a startup is not depending on events. But upon your response to these events, and your ability to act decisively and to execute well in the face of adversity. This is the difference between success and failure in a start-up, or in any new product launch.

The important thing is to know what you don’t know within your startup marketing programs.

When you join a startup as a marketing leader or become involved in a new product or new market launch, there’s often more than you don’t know about your market.

For example, what motivates prospects in this market, and the best way to reach these prospects. For the smart startup marketer, knowing what you don’t know is the first step toward developing a successful marketing plan.

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Initial Marketing Assessment

The next step is learning what questions need to be asked. These are three steps involved in the process of developing your startup’s initial marketing program:

Market gap analysis
General market assessment
Marketers analysis and action plan

A three-step process helps you develop your startup’s initial marketing plan, which is then executed as a 1-2 marketing punch. One or more small, quick, informal market tasks, followed by a more formalized, live market test, executed before, or incorporated into, your startup’s final launch.

Marketing Action Plan

Once you completed once you completed this three-step process of researching your market, you will then have to consider the marketing tools needed to execute your marketing plan:

Digital advertising
Email marketing
Salesforce support
Distribution network
Trade shows
Media and analyst relations
Video and interactive media
Website
Content marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Social media marketing and social media networks

You can take a major step towards solving any problem by asking the right questions.

Finding the answers to the questions posed by this three-step process will move your startup’s marketing plan to the testing stage. This is where you can then ask the one question only your market can answer. Will they buy our product?

Marketing Assumptions Used for Startups Financial Projections

At the early point in the life of your startup, financial projections will have to be made. And incorporated into these financial projections are generalized marketing response assumptions. These are the marketing and sales goals set forth in your startup’s financial projection. It’s the most important measure of any startup.

Because all products, businesses, and industries are different from each other, it’s always a very risky business to make broad market response generalizations.

For example, our email will generate a 3% response. Or if we just keep writing more content, our website traffic is bound to go up by 30%.

It’s a fool’s game to attempt to predict these responses. We can attempt to predict how many inquiries a digital advertising campaign will generate for your startup.

Since your company doesn’t have any prior track record and its market you must use assumptions as benchmarks.

The best way to determine market responses is to test. This is why most of the decisions of marketing for startups and new product launches for our startup clients center on market testing.

In a perfect world, the truly enlightened venture capitalist would not make all-or-nothing decisions to find startups. Instead, they would stage their funding to a new venture or product launch, with a relatively modest upfront investment.

This is done to find an initial market test used to measure the market response to the product. In some cases, this market testing can be done, in a limited way, even before the product is developed, using product mock-ups in direct mailings.

The response to a market test can yield valuable measures of a product’s appeal. Positive test results can dramatically strengthen the confidence of investors and management teams alike. A negative result can save millions of dollars for investors.

Even “grey area” results. A test that generates some positive response. This teaches important marketing lessons that can lead to eventual success. As a startup founder changes their product, its price, or its marketing approach in response to the lessons learned from the initial test results. Usually, the next market test yields better results.

Estimating Market Response Before Market Testing Your Product

Many startups don’t have the opportunity to market test their products when they draft their first business plans.

At some point, the startup’s management team is asked to produce a business plan, along with 5-year financial projections incorporating critical market response assumptions. The startup’s business plan is then used by investors as the basis for its funding decision.

In addition to influencing the initial decision to fund the startup, the plan becomes the benchmark used to evaluate the early performance of the startup’s management team. But without the benefit of market testing, the startup’s management team must essentially make its best guess on the market response.

Here are some key “plug numbers” often used as market response assumptions and financial projections for a new venture and product launch business plans:

Email marketing response: what percentage of individuals who receive our email blast will contact your company?

Rule of thumb: Emails design to generating marketing capture leads will produce response rates ranging from 2% to 10%, depending on the email list use. Generally, a highly targeted self-compiled list generates results closer to the high end of this range.

Advertising response: What percentage of a digital ad’s total impressions will respond to our advertising by contacting our company to inquire about our products?

Rule of thumb: a good benchmark is about 1% of the impressions will respond to your ad, each time the ad is run.

Sales conversions: what percentage of the inquiries generated by a landing page and CTA can be converted into sales by your startup’s salesforce?

Rule of thumb: In a successful marketing program, the start-up sales force can close 5 to 10% of the inquiries generated by its marketing efforts. This conversion rate is often higher for lower price products.

Average unit purchase: What is the average unit purchase made by a customer as a result of our startup’s marketing and sales efforts?

Rule of thumb: Here, you’ll have to make your own best assumptions, based on the pricing of your own startup’s product or service.

These rules of thumb are highly subjective, and may or may not apply to your startup or product launch. In fact, any untested assumption is probably wrong. But they are a starting point from where you can more thoughtfully develop your own initial market response assumptions and, hopefully, Test them as soon as possible.

Step 1: Market Gap analysis

To be successful, any product or service developed by a startup must fill a market gap. Market gap analysis is the process of uncovering the problems and brainstorming product or service ideas that solve these problems.

A market gap is a key problem that is solved by your company’s product or service. The resulting solution represented by this product or service is your company’s reason for being in business.

The Market Gap Examples

It’s likely that you and your startup’s management team have already analyzed your startup’s market gaps. After all, discovering or identifying market gaps is what entrepreneurs do.

Startups that successfully identify and solve the problems related to a market gap will generate sales. Startups that fail to identify market gaps will also fail to develop coherent and successful marketing plans.

Leaving them in the hands of ad agencies, marketing consultants, or other outsiders who may not have the know-how to identify or exploit profitable market gaps.

The market gap must also meet your company’s objectives

Market gaps addressed by your startup must also meet other business criteria already agreed upon by your founder’s team.

These include:

The market gap must be addressable by the desired type of product or service to be developed and sold by your startup
The price of the product sold must meet a price to cost ratio sufficient to allow the startup to operate profitably
The market serve must be of significant size and depth to assure continued sales growth
The available sales channels and production requirements of the industry must be compatible with the founder’s skills, knowledge, and experience
The market gap must be attractive enough in the current investment environment, so the startup can obtain sufficient, timely, financing.

Market Gap Variations

These can be different kinds of marketing gaps. For example, customer gaps can pinpoint opportunities to solve problems by addressing the needs of customers and certain demographic groups, by age, income, consumer preference, or lifestyle.

Distribution gaps can uncover opportunities to market and deliver existing products in new ways, such as Amazon’s use of the internet as a new distribution channel for selling products online.

Step 2: General Market Assessment Checklist

Once you and your startup’s management team have identified the market gaps to be addressed by your company.

The general market assessment checklist helps you gather the general marketing and sales information you need, to focus on the markets your plan will address. And to fill in the more specific characteristics of these markets, such as size, competition, sales copy benefits, marketing methods, and sales distribution channels.

This general assessment asks questions that help you define the general shape, characteristics, and approach to the markets being addressed by your startup’s marketing plan.

These questions are also designed to spur your thoughtful consideration of other aspects of marketing that are important to your startup’s success. Such as your company’s strategic positioning relative to its competitors. Also in the ways, your company can meet the needs of prospects better than the way is your competition is currently serving this market.

Wrap-Up

Let’s face it, there is no template or proven sales funnel that is pre-configured for a startup. Sorry, the product and/or service is too new. However, there are proven methods and techniques that can be applied to the startup’s marketing programs.

Marketing in startups takes different talents and strategies than larger enterprises. A startup’s marketing strategy must be tested and scaled.

But in order for the startup marketing plan to be successful, assumptions and metrics must be established.

Once this is complete the chief marketing officer can now begin to execute the preliminary testing programs. And once the test results are in marketing programs can be modified while other elements are eliminated.

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General FAQ’s

What is marketing for startups?

Startup marketing is a unique challenge often because of the limited resources, whether it’s time, money, or talent. You have to be sure every effort, no matter how small, is well-planned and flawlessly executed. Startup marketing is a whole different science.

Why is marketing for startups important?

Startups Need Customers — Fast
It’s simple: Without marketing, no startup can acquire new customers or clients at a rate that will allow them to grow into a mature company.

How can startups market effectively?

Create a Marketing Plan for Your Startup
– Define your end goal.
– Maintain a consistent brand and message.
– Determine your target audience.
– Find the social channel for your startup.
– Build a referral network.
– Develop relationships with influencers.
– Create ads that appeal to people’s emotions.
– Assemble the right team.

How much should a startup spend on marketing?

While there is no set rule to set your marketing budget, the founder and CEO of Matrix Marketing Group, George Schildge, recommends that startups set their initial budget to 10 to 18 percent of projected revenue.

Startup Marketing: Product Launch Tips for Startups

Ashley Andersson · May 8, 2018 ·

How to Turn an Idea into a Steady Revenue Stream for Startups

Whether you’re new to the startup world or you’re a veteran entrepreneur, you know startup marketing and launching a new product can be difficult. With a high risk of failure (70 percent of product launches fail in the first year), there’s a lot to do to ensure your product launch succeeds.

Our CEO and Managing Director, George Schildge, has been a part of the startup world for over 30 years.

From selling groundbreaking products like the first pulse oximeter, the first check-reader, the first digital security surveillance system to consulting with some of the top startups in the Boulder and Denver, Colorado startup community to all over the United States – he’s been around the block a time or two and has a lot of great insights to share.

But first a little more about George. George’s career all started when he landed in Boulder, Colorado in 1982. While working at a little startup called BTI, later sold to British Oxygen Company (BOC), is where he caught the startup bug.

After that, he worked for other startups like Soricon, Loronix, CoCreate Software, Baan Business Systems, and most recently Matrix Marketing Group.

During these affiliations, he gained experience in developing, launching, and managing both products and businesses. George has been involved with Startup Grind, TechStars, TiE Rockies, Rockies Venture Club, and many other organizations.

During his tenure in the startup community, he has been a conduit for startups looking to secure funding or broaden their market reach.

He’s worked with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Soundview Technology Group, Credit Suisse First Boston, Robertson Stephens, Deutsche Banc, Lehman brother, Merrill Lynch, Bear, Stearns, Goldman Sachs, SG Cowen, J.P. Morgan, UBS Warburg, Dain Rauscher Wessels, and many other angels and venture capital firms.

So, I sat down with George Schildge to soak up some of the knowledge he’s gained throughout the years as it relates to bringing new products to market. In today’s post, I’ll share some of my greatest takeaways from our conversation along with some tips on how your startup can ensure a successful product launch.

One thing that caught my attention from George was what he said to me about startups. “The way a startup makes money is betting on a market segment that starts out small,” stated George. He continued, “And once the startup gets going with a proven product or service and market acceptance it ends up really big.”

The problem with your typical startup is that they miss the market, poor marketing, or they run out of money. So they often turn to Venture Capital or Angel money.

The capital market often uses a model he called a ‘paint by number analysis.’ If it doesn’t fit their model with market size, often in the billions of dollars, they walk away.

So let’s dive in and learn about how to make sure your startup has the marketing horsepower to be successful.

The Planning Stages for a Product Launch

First, we will talk about planning. One of my favorite quotes (ask my colleagues) is “An hour of planning can save you 10 hours of doing,” because I believe in its message.

If you’ve already begun your startup journey, you’re well aware this won’t be a journey of constant upward growth. Instead, the journey to your startup’s success will feel like a roller coaster ride, with many ups and many downs. Take the time to plan for your future before diving into the action phase to ensure your preparation for the crazy ride ahead.

Ideas vs. Opportunities

If you’re at the beginning stages of your product launch (i.e., you have a great idea, but you don’t know where to go from here), this section is for you. Throughout, I’ll reference what we like to call “the startup bible” in our office. Its real title is New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship in the 1990s by Jeffry A. Timmons.

Don’t let the title fool you. The book was written a while ago but still contains staple knowledge that can help any entrepreneur succeed in today’s competitive business environment.

The most important part of this stage is recognizing that all ideas are not great opportunities. According to Timmons, not only is an opportunity timely, attractive, and durable for its users, but it must also provide value for its users. Not exactly rocket science, but it is important to realize. Without opportunity, your product launch is at high risk of failure.

In his book, Timmons also posed the following four criteria for an opportunity to be timely, attractive, durable, valuable, etc. He said:

“The “window of opportunity” must be opening rather than closing, and remain open long enough.
Entry into a market with the right characteristics is feasible (and the management team can achieve it).
The venture has or can achieve a competitive advantage (i.e., to achieve leverage).
Finally, the economics of the venture are rewarding and forgiving and allow significant profit and growth potential.

So, if you are still in these beginning stages, make sure you not only have a great idea but a promising opportunity. Because without that opening “window of opportunity,” your product could be short-lived and offer little room for growth in the future.

If you’ve identified an opportunity and you’ve begun to create your startup, keep in mind that the general timeline of the stages of a startup is:

Research and Development Stage (0-3 years)
Early-Growth Stage (4-10 years)
Maturity Stage (10-15 years)
Stability Stage (15+ years) – Yay! No longer just trying to survive, but instead the goal is to maintain, steady profitable growth.

This timeline may be an approximation – some stages may last longer, and others may be cut short. But, it’s important that you not get discouraged during your early years of development.

If you’ve truly found an opportunity in the market and remain diligent through each stage, you can move forward to the stability stage and experience predictable revenue growth.

Market Research for Startups

As we just discussed, it’s one thing to have an idea, it’s another thing to have an opportunity. So how do you know you’ve got something more?

Market research will help you determine the gap in the marketplace (and help you to determine if your idea is just an idea or an incredible opportunity). Start by creating some fundamental requirements documents – an MRD and a PRD.

Market Requirements Document

First, you’ll start with a market requirements document (MRD). An MRD will help you pinpoint the customer’s need for your products so you can define your target market and create buyer profiles. This document will also help you identify the competitors in your industry.

Overall, the MRD will help you build a business case for your product that you can then begin to share with potential investors.

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Product Requirements Document

After you’ve proven there is a strong market for your product, it’s time to develop a product requirements document (PRD).

While the term PRD is often used interchangeably with the term MRD, they are actually pretty different.

The market requirement document should define whether or not there is a business opportunity for your product, while the PRD is an exhaustive document that outlines the ins and outs of the actual product. Check out this article for an explanation of MRD vs. PRD.

The PRD is written from the user’s point of view and reviews the product’s capabilities and features that will help meet the market needs (outlined in the MRD). Your product team will use this document to build and test product prototypes, so it should be detailed enough to enable them to construct the product.

Testing Your Product

Once your product developers have created a product, testing it with beta testers and focus groups will give you an idea of how customers are going to react to your product.

When you have test results, you’ll have a better idea of who is going to connect with your product (and you can use testers’ quotes in customer testimonials if needed!)

It’s important to remember that your product doesn’t have to be perfect before releasing it to beta testers. Give them a prototype with basic features and obtain regular feedback from your users.

This will help you identify what matters most to your consumers so you can spend most of your time developing the important features that will help to grow your products’ popularity.

Build Your Product Team

Research and Development Stage

If you’ve confirmed that you have an incredible opportunity, then you should move forward by building a team that will support your launch through to success. At startups, your team is incredibly important.

In fact, if selling your company (or idea) is a future goal, developing your management team may play a bigger role than you realize. In fact, George informed me that VCs and investors are often more interested in buying products because of the team behind them – not the product itself.

It’s your creativity, hard work, and dedication that are often viewed as most valuable, so as you build your team, ensure that you’re looking for employees that will bring high value to the table and continually push your startup to better places. In other words, don’t take this task lightly.

During your beginning stages, your startup team will consist of a small group of people. Typically there’s a CEO, one to two product engineers, and maybe a VP of marketing or a CMO. At this time, everyone on the team is a “doer,” has creative freedom, and makes all or most of the key decisions.

Pro Tip: One factor that can cause friction during this stage is confusion over the roles and responsibilities of the founding group. To avoid conflict, make sure everyone on your team has a defined role both during the startup and early stages of growth. Clarify what team members have authority over which areas of the business to reduce chaos during the product launch.

Early Growth Stage in a Startup

When your company begins to grow, and it’s time to add team members, you should remain diligent about what type of employees you hope to have within your company. Below, I’ve included a few steps to follow when building your startup team.

Hire team members that can have full utilization and that fill in the gaps.

I’m sure you know startups don’t typically have a large budget to work with, so be strategic when putting your team together. It can be difficult for startups to hire a lot of full-time staff during this early stage.

Focus on hiring team members that can fill in your talent gaps within the organization. If you have a lot of skills overlapping among employees, you may not be fully utilizing your team. Identify the key positions you’ll need full-time and find candidates that fill each spot. After that, you can begin outsourcing.

Outsource your marketing.

It’s important to build a marketing team that’s going to help publicize your product. After all, what good is it to have an incredible product that no one knows about?

While you’ll likely have a CMO or VP of marketing in your group of co-founders, bootstrapped startups often don’t have the budget to build a full-service marketing team.

So, they often turn to outsourcing to get a full team of experienced marketers – often at the price of one in-house employee’s salary. Some outsourcing options include:

Hire Freelancers.
Hire multiple agencies with various specialties (public relations, marketing, graphic design, etc.).
Hire a full-service agency to handle all marketing, design, and PR needs.

*Be warned with options one and two. It can be overwhelming to manage all these moving parts while balancing day-to-day duties – so make sure your team is up for the challenge.

If you’d like more information on outsourcing, check out our resource on it here.

Look for diagonal thinkers.

Because startups often have fewer resources, employees strongly rely on each other to ensure tasks are completed on time and to the highest degree. To identify high-quality job candidates, we recommend testing your prospective employees for “diagonal thinking.”

Diagonal thinkers can combine both linear (analytical) thinking and lateral (creative) thinking – hence diagonal. By identifying diagonal thinkers during the hiring process, you can recognize who will bring the most breadth and depth to your team.

It also helps to fill talent gaps and refresh the way you approach problem-solving. You can find a free diagonal thinking self-assessment here.

Look for these 5 traits when building your sales team.

Your sales team can make or break the success of your product, so when it comes time to hire, it’s important to take a strategic approach. Our CEO, George always looks for these five traits:

Coachability
Prior success
Work ethic
Curiosity
Intelligence

You’ll notice that, for the most part, these are soft skills. Your salespeople should have the drive and the personality to aptly explain how your product will improve your customers’ lives to a variety of people.

Curiosity, intelligence, and work ethic will help them succeed, but they aren’t traits you can teach. Finally, if they’re coachable, a mentor can help fill in their skills gap to make them unstoppable.

These five traits will help you find people that have the potential and drive to bring your startup to new levels. If you’re trying to sharpen your sales skills, check out this article for tips on becoming a modern sales professional.

Align Your Marketing and Sales Teams

When building your team, make sure your marketers and sales professionals are willing to collaborate in their day-to-day lives. To create a seamless experience for your customers during your product launch, your sales team should be fully aware and involved with whatever your marketing team is planning.

Before launch, determine what is considered a qualified lead and how you’ll notify sales when these leads occur.

You don’t want to attract a lot of hot leads to your website if your sales team is ill-prepared to follow through with nurturing. For more tips on marketing and sales alignment check out these articles:

Take the time to do some strategic planning for your future.

Startups go through multiple stages and each stage requires different employee involvement and different management skills.

It’s best to be clear about what your startup will need and how your team members will adapt to ensure the business is equipped to move forward into each stage.

Plan for Rapid Growth

Your product launch will take a lot of planning, not just for the product but for the company as well.

Before the launch, it’s important to create a business growth strategy that will prepare you for sudden rapid growth.

While growth is typically thought of as a positive aspect of a business, it can also have a negative side. This occurs when the business isn’t prepared for the product launch to go exceedingly well and for customers to flow in at alarming rates.

So, you’ll want to have a plan so that you’re not scrambling if and when things take off. Consider what issues come with unexpected or rapid growth. How will your business prepare? Do you have the infrastructure in place for growth?

When creating your business’ growth strategy, it’s best to start with three angles – your finances, your operations, and your staffing.

Keep a Close Eye on Your Finances

Maintain your cash flow.

As you grow, it will become more and more difficult to track all the money that is coming into and leaving your business. From the beginning, keep a cash flow statement and update it regularly. Don’t let yourself get behind only to find you’re deep in the red.

Watch Your Profit Margins.

It’s easy to assume that if your revenue is increasing, so are your profits, but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. As your business grows, so will your expenses. Things like employee salaries, administrative costs, rent, etc. can add up quickly, so be prepared to review profit margins and make adjustments where necessary.

Don’t let your taxes surprise you.

With rapid growth, your company’s taxes will undoubtedly skyrocket as you become more profitable. Make sure you’re prepared if you jump into the next tax bracket.

Create a scalable operational process.

If your business takes off, you need to be able to meet customer demands and provide a seamless customer experience. If your customers are unsatisfied in a world where most buyers rely on customer reviews before purchasing, your company can go downhill fast.

So, take the time to make sure you have a scalable process to ensure you can deliver on quality and customer service, whether you’re dealing with 500 customers or 5,000 customers.

Address staffing needs.

We addressed staffing in the previous section, but the tips in this section are more about creating a human resources plan. If your business takes off, who will be in charge of hiring? How will you determine who is a good addition to your team?

It’s a good idea to document your HR processes before the product launch. What kind of culture do you want to develop at your company? What kind of employees are you hoping to hire?

Create a booklet that outlines your company standards in the HR department. This will help provide direction during the growing stages, so you don’t end up settling while trying to meet the demands of your growing business.

Set Goals for Startups

The final subject I want to discuss in the “planning” section of this article is the importance of setting S.M.A.R.T. goals for your product launch. Goals will help you determine your benchmarks for success.

It’s best to establish these in the beginning so that you can monitor, analyze, and adjust your tactics as your launch moves forward for your greatest chance of success.

What are S.M.A.R.T. goals?

Specific – Don’t be broad, instead make them specific to one area of your launch
Measurable – Quantify your goals – think percentages or sales numbers
Attainable – It’s okay to dream big, but don’t set impossible goals. If it isn’t achievable with your current staff, budget, etc., then lower your standards. You can always aim higher next time.
Relevant – Is your goal worthwhile? If it’s not a building block toward larger successes, it’s irrelevant.
Timebound – Set deadlines. Do you want to achieve this goal in a week, in a quarter, by the end of the year?

To get you started, here are some areas where you can set goals to focus on during your product launch:

Awareness: Do you want to reach a certain amount of social media followers, do you want to secure a certain amount of media mentions, features, etc.? If so, by when?
Website traffic: Do you want to attract a certain amount of visitors to your website before your product is on sale?
Funding: If you’re fundraising before the product is available to the mass market, do you have a funding goal? How much do you need to secure and when?

SMART GOAL EXAMPLE:

We will gain 1,000 Instagram followers by the end of the quarter.

This goal is specific (Instagram), measurable (1,000), attainable (this is possible if using strategic Instagram tactics), relevant (a large social media following will help you build product awareness), and time-bound (achieve it by the end of the quarter).

To help you keep track of your goals, create a launch calendar that outlines your activities throughout the pre-launch, launch, and post-launch phases. This will help you map out what needs to be done to meet your time-bound goals.

When creating your calendar, here are a few questions that can guide you:

What is your product launch date?
When will testing begin?
When will the testing end?
When are you going to go live with your social media?
When will your content production begin?

You can’t be too specific in your launch calendar – get down to the nitty-gritty here so that you always have an ongoing to-do list to help you stay organized and on track.

The Action Stages of a Product Launch

Okay, now to the fun part. Here, we’ll talk about all the marketing steps you should put into action to make the most of your product launch.

Rev-Up Your Marketing Tactics

One question that we get a lot is, “When should I start implementing my marketing strategy?” If you Google this question or look it up on Quora, you’ll also find there’s a lot of discussion about it. But, our answer is: right away!

Don’t just use marketing to write a press release. Marketing should be involved from the get-go to ensure you are fully prepared when your launch date arrives.

Use these startup marketing tips and watch your growth begin to take off.

Always Start with Marketing Research

Technically, while you were completing your market requirements document (discussed in an earlier section), you simply were just in the marketing research stage of your business.

You need to know who you’re marketing to. In the digital age, your interactions with your customers can make or break you. And, it can be hard to have genuine interactions with your target consumers if you don’t know anything about them.

So, get your marketers involved early and have them conduct market research before starting any tactics. Your consumer preferences should dictate where you have an online presence and how you interact with your community.

Create Your Marketing Foundation

Build a Brand

Before you begin building your online presence, you should have a clear idea of what you want your brand identity to be. Your brand identity will determine how you present your company online. Are you a bold, brash brand? Are you socially conscious?

Don’t forget to use your findings from your market research to shape your brand. If something is highly important to your supporters, consider how it can become a part of your brand.

Check out our blog on the key steps to building a brand identity to start constructing the foundation of your brand.

Develop Your Messaging

What makes your product different? Keep your product messaging simply before and during the product launch. It should be clear what your product does and what makes it valuable.

Your messaging might be the most important startup marketing activity that needs to happen very early on.

Before the launch, you may not have the attention of your audience yet, so you don’t want to bore them with lists of product features. Instead, keep it short, simple and interesting.

Catch their attention and draw them to your website. You can always lead them to company blog posts or articles that delve into different features at a later time.

Create Your Product’s Website

Before you start flushing out your online presence with social media and content, make sure you have a strong website in place first.

Your website will likely be the first place that potential customers interact with your product, so make sure you create an incredible user experience. Things like navigation, a welcoming home page, and clear CTAs (call to actions) can play a big role in how well people perceive your brand.

If you’re looking for more information about this, check out our blog series on website design.

Once you have a great website built and live, it’s time to start developing your online presence to share your messaging and begin building a community.

Before the Launch: Building a Community

In your market requirement document (discussed above) you’ve already outlined your ideal customer profiles, so now it’s time to determine which marketing tactics will best allow you to communicate with your target audience to build up buzz and excitement around your product.

When you start building your online strategy, make sure to consider your customer journey. How will you garner people’s attention? How does the audience in your space typically go about purchasing products? Do they do online research? Do they check out customer reviews? Are they active on social media? Consider how your target audience uses the internet and then customize your marketing strategy to suit their needs.

Luckily, the internet allows you to share the word with your audience cheaply and in highly targeted ways. Below, we’ve included some of our favorite digital marketing tactics to promote your product launch.

Social Media

Use these social media tips for your startup marketing.

Social media marketing can start up as soon as you have your product solidified. At this stage, you can begin posting content like blogs, videos, and relevant news articles to build up hype and start developing a supportive community. These tips will help you make the most of your social media.

1. Choose the Right Platform

It’s important to note that social media isn’t an area where you need to be on all platforms for it to work. This will boil down to your market research and your resources. Where is your audience active? How much time do you have to dedicate to posting on social media? These factors will help you decide where you should be active.

If you are low on time or budgeting in this area, it’s okay to start with one platform and slowly add them on as your community grows. Social media content is more of a time commitment than many people may presume.

2. Engage with Your Audience.

Not only do you have to publish strategic, frequent posts, but you also need to engage with your audience. If your followers are tagging you in comments and sharing your posts, make sure to interact with them by responding to their interactions – this will only help build your community.

3. Post Frequently.

Consistency is key when trying to build a social following, so don’t overwhelm yourself by choosing outlets that don’t fit. For a frame of reference, I’ve included some frequency recommendations for the major platforms to increase your chances of your content being seen.

Linkedin: 1x per day
Facebook: 5x per day
Twitter: 15x per day
Pinterest: 11x per day
Instagram: 1-2x per day

That’s a lot to commit to, so pick your platforms wisely (see tip #1). For more information, check out this blog from CoSchedule.

4. Stay organized.

When you’re planning out your content, put it on a calendar. Check out our social media content calendar template here. It’s best to be organized because the last thing you want on your mind is whether or not you posted on Twitter this morning.

If you want to make it extra easy on yourself, use a social media planning software, like Buffer, Sprout Social, or Hootsuite so that you can schedule your content ahead of time. These will also allow you to analyze the activity on your social media accounts and see what is and isn’t working (see more about this further down in the Monitor and Analyze Section).

5. Keep Branding Consistent

No matter what social platforms you choose to activate, make sure to keep your branding consistent. Keeping your logo and bio information parallel across platforms will help you build brand recognition.

Related Resources:

Content Marketing

When you create content, always remember that you are trying to build a relationship with your audience – not just trying to sell your product.

So much about business in the digital world is the ability to have a two-way connection with your audience, so keep your content relevant and valuable to your audience.

Use these startup marketing tips and watch your growth begin to take off.

Keep reading for more content tips.

1. Start developing content now.

Take my word for it, content can take longer to develop than you may think – especially if you’re juggling multiple tasks for the product launch.

So, get started on developing content as early as you can. This will allow you to build up what I like to call a “content bank,” so that when it comes time to publish a new blog or newsletter, you have multiples to choose from.

2. Optimize for SEO.

You’ve certainly heard this before, but optimizing for search engines is a fundamental part of getting your website at the top of the search results page and in front of your target audience.

Google’s search engine algorithms are always changing, but these tips are a great place to start when optimizing your website.

Matrix Marketing Group is always testing new methods and they hit a streak out top Google search. The golden SERP.

digital marketing agency — Matrix Marketing Group

3. Don’t start publishing your content too late.

Don’t wait until after your product launches before you start publishing blogs. If you’re entering a new market (or entering the market in general) for the first time, start to build your presence in that industry before the launch date.

Start writing blogs and posting about issues, products, and news topics that are relevant to your industry. This will help you to start building a following of people that are genuinely interested in your products and maybe an early adopter.

And, on another important note, SEO can take a few months to gain traction, so you want to start writing blogs and valuable website content right away. This will help to ensure you’re ranking well in the SERPs before your product hits the market.

4. Diversify your content.

It’s no secret that the online world is flooded with content, so you have to make sure yours is of high quality and comes in many forms to suit the preferences of your audience.

Infographics, podcasts, and how-to videos can all help you build excitement for your product and show potential audiences how they can put it to use.

Determine what formats are best for your audience and then reuse and recycle content in various forms to keep them interested and engaged.

5. Organize your content with topic clusters.

Organizing your website’s content is highly important, not just for user experience, but for Google bots as well. The better it is organized, the easier it is for Google to index and will help you improve your search rank. For more information on website architecture, check out this blog post.

Email Marketing

Email may be one of the oldest digital marketing tools, but it is also one of the most successful marketing tools. In fact, it’s estimated that for every one dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect to receive approximately 38 dollars of revenue. That’s a pretty incredible ROI.

1. Personalize your emails.

Today’s consumers have high expectations for the emails they receive. Emails that aren’t customized to your customers’ needs will never inspire action – they may never even get opened. So, when writing email content, provide your customers with a personal, engaging experience, leaving them inspired to take action.

2. Use an enticing subject line.

33 percent of email recipients open an email based on the subject line alone, according to this article. To create click-worthy subject lines, consider personalized introductions, including a discount or a special offer, or being a bit mysterious to pique their interest. Also, make sure to keep it short and simple – don’t let it get cut off on mobile devices.

3. Test your emails.

Don’t blindly send out emails and hope they work. Instead, try using A/B tests to see which subject lines, designs, copy, and CTAs result in the highest open and click-through rates.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

While organic search is incredibly valuable in garnering website traffic, it can be hard for new businesses or new products to quickly make their way up to the top of the Google results page. So, a quick fix is to start developing PPC ad campaigns.

PPC ads are the paid search results that pop up at the top of your Google results page. As its name suggests, the sponsor of the PPC ad pays each time it is clicked. The price per click can vary greatly, ranging from a few cents to more than $50 per click, depending on the popularity and specificity of the keyword.

PPC ads can be a quick, relatively cheap way to build awareness for your product. Interested? Check out our beginners guide to PPC ads. Or, if you want to know more about how PPC differs from traditional SEO tactics, check out this article.

Public Relations

Build a buzz around your product. If you’ve done your research, you know how your product is going to affect the lives of your consumers – make it known to others too!

Media Relations

Pitch your product press release out to relevant media outlets or offer interviews with influencers to start building awareness (and excitement) for your product. The key to successful media relations is to identify highly relevant journalists or influencers – don’t just “spray and pray.”

Instead, reach out to a few specific journalists. Pitch them a unique angle and make it clear how your product is going to be innovative and highly valuable to their readers.

Guest Blogging

Use these guest blogging startup marketing tips and watch your growth begin to take off.

Another aspect of public relations today is securing guest writing or guest blogging opportunities. Guest blogging is when you write an article, but instead of posting it on your blog, you’ll publish it on another website or media outlet.

Guest blogging has a few benefits. First of all, it allows you to write for an outlet that may have more readers than your blog – enabling you to reach a larger audience and increase awareness. The second benefit is that it helps you build backlinks to your website.

Gaining backlinks is like gaining trustworthiness votes from other businesses on the web. Typically, you earn them for creating high-value content that others want to share and link to. When you’re able to attract a lot of backlinks from various dependable sites (think Forbes, NeilPatel.com, Entrepreneur, etc.), you become a more credible website in Google’s eyes.

You can start guest blogging by reaching out to various relevant media outlets to see if they accept guest posts. To up your chances of securing a guest post, go ahead and pitch them a few article ideas in your initial outreach. These ideas should have headlines and topics that closely resemble the articles that are already published on their site.

You can start guest blogging today, we accept guest blog posts. Interested? Go here.

Network, network, network for startup marketing

Get involved in your city’s startup community. For example, we love Denver Startup Week, where thousands of entrepreneurs converge to share ideas and tips on how to succeed in the startup world.

Use these startup marketing tips and remember people still buy from people, not emails.

After the Product Launch: Don’t Lose Momentum

What do you do on the day of the product launch and the critical weeks following launch day? The key here is not to lose momentum and keep the buzz going about your product.

During this time, your marketing tactics will largely remain the same to keep the hype going about your product. However, there are a few more topics I’d like to mention.

Monitor and Analyze Results

Before the launch, you had your strategy, messaging, and tactics all laid out, but it’s important to monitor and analyze your results as your product launch moves forward to determine what is resonating with your audience.

If some of your tactics are getting better results than others, look into it and see what may be causing your success (or lack thereof). Use these insights to shape ongoing or future marketing strategies.

Remain Persistent But Never Pestilent

After the launch is over, don’t stop marketing. Very often, your product is the right fit for people, but it may not be the right time. Continue to move forward by maintaining open, consistent communication with your audience. This can come in the form of a newsletter, regular blog posts, and email marketing.

The key here is never to be irritating. You don’t have to email people once per day to remain top of mind. And, when you do reach out, always provide value. By becoming a reliable resource for your audience, you can build up credibility, and when the timing is right, you can rest assured your company (and product) will be top of mind.

Focus on Retention

When all is said and done – this maybe weeks, months, years down the road – don’t forget to focus on retention. It’s common knowledge that it’s cheaper to keep your customers than to attract new ones. Once you’ve begun selling your product, don’t neglect your loyal customers – they’ll be your product’s advocate, which plays a major role in attracting new customers.

To keep your customers happy, build a relationship with them that shows them you care about your customers and will be there for them if they ever encounter problems. When trying to increase retention, consider implementing some of these ideas:

Start a loyalty program.
Occasionally distribute discount offers.
Consistently provide helpful content.

Thanks for sticking around to the end! I hope you found this post helpful. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to comment or contact us. We’d be happy to help.

Use these startup marketing tips and watch your startup begin to gain traction.

General FAQ’s

In startups, what is the “window of opportunity?”

The window of opportunity must be opening rather than closing, and remain open long enough to capitalize on the opportunity. A window of opportunity is a short, often fleeting period during which a rare and desired action can be taken.

How do you scale a startup company?

Your team is the most critical element of the startup. When building your team, make sure your marketers and sales professionals are willing to collaborate in their day-to-day lives. This is the period when you must be testing marketing messaging, workflows, and sales funnels. Once tests show results, you can begin to scale these marketing activities.

What makes a startup successful?

The team needs previous startup experience, product knowledge, and industry skills to predict the success of a new venture, like a startup. From our experience, we have found that experience alone was not enough to make the team thrive. While experience broadens the teams’ resource pool, they need to be able to identify opportunities, and they need soft skills too.

Who is George Schildge?

George’s career all started when he landed in Boulder, Colorado in 1982. While working at a little startup called BTI, later sold to British Oxygen Company (BOC), is where he caught the startup bug. He’s been helping startups with ideation to the commercialization of product portfolios for diverse revenue streams.