By Kerry Creaswood:
You have a great idea, you know it will provide for a product or a service that people would want. Are you wondering what do you need now to launch your startup in India?
Here’s everything you want to know.
4 Early Steps Before The Launch
1. Start with a comprehensive business plan that goes beyond just the financial aspect. If you wish to get investors or loans to start your business, you need a business plan. But did you know that there are other ways to go about it too? You can gain direct experience in your industry with the help of apprentice model, or by hiring experts from the industry, or figuring out how to test and refine at a reasonable cost (otherwise known as hard knocks).
2. You should also cover testing of the product. This should go beyond google; you need to talk to real people and ask for feedback. Once you have feedback, use it to tweak your product or service for better results.
3. Knowing your market is important. You should know your market inside and out – that includes suppliers, distributors, and competitors as well as your customers.
4. Learn to understand your customers and their needs, not just for the time being, but for future too.
The next steps involve marketing.
8 Steps To Help You With Marketing
When it comes to marketing follow these steps and help your launch be successful. Do not avoid any of these steps.
1. Start early. The earlier you can start putting out the news of your launch, the better it is. Try to get this out 6 to 8 weeks prior to the actual launch date. Continue to keep it going with the updates. Seek out news sources to report your launch.
2. Make sure you alert industry analysts as well. Industry analysts are sure to be busy. Hence, contact them early with well-written briefs and make sure your meeting request explains explicitly why it is to their advantage to meet you.
3. Be sure to make your product or services available to influencers – be it bloggers with a large number of followers or friendly customers who will tell others about your product or service.
4. Social media is a must – make teasers, leaks, or even press releases on social media to mount interest among the audience. Again keep this going through and even after the launch date. The point is to get people talking about your product or service.
5. Provide videos, free trials, and demos. This will also help in increasing their interest.
6. Involve partners or other allies to get even more word of mouth; the more attention you get, the better it is. And this is something that can benefit them as well.
7. Use your email list and social media to keep the interest going. It also helps while posting testimonials of the people who have tested your product or service. You should also try to get this into the news outlets as press releases.
8. Respond equally through email and social media platforms as soon as you have your team ready.
4 Steps After The Launch
1. Thank bloggers or anyone who covered your launch.
2. Be active on social media, look for customer feedback (including the negative) and look for ways to turn the negatives into positives. It may be a way to improve your product or service and when you do, ask them for their feedback again.
3. Make tutorials (written or videos) and show customers how to use the product features.
4. Watch for events where you can promote or showcase your product or service.
Conclusion
By starting with these steps – writing a business plan or working through prelaunch and post-launch – you can help spread the word about your product or service. These steps will help create interest and help you have a good launch, keeping the interest going and growing.
One thing to keep in mind is to not look at negative feedback defensively, rather take it as a way of improving your product or service.
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