Even the best new product launch marketing plan could fail without the right partnerships. Brands can’t succeed in a marketing vacuum.They need to get consumers on board with sharing their product’s information early on in a campaign. Through strategic partnerships with both content creators and technology producers, brands have a greater chance of succeeding when it comes to debuting a new offering.
By working with third-parties, brands can connect with a greater pool of consumers and improve their marketing ROI. These brands can shift some of the responsibility of gaining audience awareness to influencers and innovators who offer a more significant opportunity for growth. Often, these partnerships also serve to improve the customer experience, ensuring that brand awareness is positive.
Building a Content Campaign by Connecting With Influencers
Influencers are great tools for building brand awareness, but they have another added benefit. They create content with which other consumers can interact. This content is free marketing material for brands that pays ongoing dividends. In some cases, brands will sponsor specific online influencers through events. In others, they will pay for marketing space or time on the influencer’s site or account. With the right influencer—one trusted by the target demographic—brands can connect with an even greater audience. However, these partnerships can be quite expensive for brands, especially when the influencer is particularly well-known.
Alternately, there’s a pool of influencers which can both keep marketing ROI high and significantly expand brand awareness through unsponsored content. These are the micro-influencers who may not have millions of fans but do have significant pull in their social circles.
Leverage Social Media in a New Product Launch Marketing Plan
Brands must encourage consumers to post content about the brand, and usually offer something in return in the form of a contest, reward, or discount. This is a strategy that General Mills used in gaining awareness for a range of its cereal products while also creating a unique, engaging event. The brand started a campaign where consumers were encouraged to build Rube Goldberg machines using branded material, and then share those machines on the company’s Facebook or Instagram pages. Winners were eligible to win a $20,000 scholarship, further creating goodwill for the CPG brand. This strategy created extensive content in the form of videos, comments, pictures, and more. It drove interest on social media pages. Finally, the positive message it sent through the scholarship provided media outlets with news to share.
This innovative marketing campaign provides a great example for other CPG brands. These brands can harness the power of hashtags and online contests to build user-generated content surrounding their new product launch and enhance awareness.
Technology Partnerships in a New Product Launch Marketing Plan
Brands can partner with technology developers when creating a new product marketing campaign. This marketing strategy offers brands ways to supplement their own branded apps with third-party ones, which may expose a brand’s product to a new audience. This is especially important for gaining awareness during a launch. There are several types of platforms that brands should consider, including:
- Rewarded video: Rewarded video is excellent for pre-launch campaign strategies. With rewarded video, consumers receive rewards points or in-game gear for watching advertising content. Brands can take this a step further by testing several campaign strategies on one of these platforms to see which one fares best among consumers. It’s an opportunity for A/B testing in front of a new audience, which can help a brand gain valuable insight before and even during a launch.
- Voice ordering: This is a concept still in its infancy and has been slow to take hold with consumers. However, the barrier could lie in technology availability rather than consumer preference. Smart speakers, the primary focal point for voice ordering, are seeing a rapid increase in popularity. Worldwide, the market grew by 187% in the second quarter, when compared to the same period from 2017. As voice is the primary means of ordering through smart devices, brands could benefit by seeking out platforms which are compatible with voice ordering.
- Shopping apps: Shopping apps are ideal for campaigns at brick-and-mortar locations. They act as an opportunity to reach consumers in the shopping aisle and increase purchase intent at the moments that matter. Shopkick, for example, uses an incentivized system to encourage consumers to seek out and interact with products in the store. By scanning the UPC of a product, or purchasing it, these consumers receive kicks (rewards points) which can be redeemed for gift cards later. This works well in a product launch as it encourages consumers to seek out and engage with products in the store proactively.
- Augmented reality apps: Augmented reality apps allow a brand to merge the digital and physical space into one location. Several major brands, including Target and IKEA, offer augmented reality apps which consumers can use on a mobile device to view products in their space. The AR overlay allows brands to offer consumers a digital sample of a product which is both innovative and engaging.
Partnerships play a central role in any new product launch marketing plan.
By leveraging the technology of third-party developers, brands can expand their audience and reach consumers to share news of a new product. This helps improve product awareness and boost affinity while also offering a higher marketing ROI than in-house development.
Partnerships play a central role in any new product launch marketing plan. By connecting with the right influencers, consumers, and platforms, brands can encourage engagement. User-generated content keeps costs low for these campaigns while also offering more understanding of the consumer base. Working with a third-party for a new product launch is the ideal way to spread awareness which will drive sales and lead to success.
Shopkick’s partners leverage our app to reach out to consumers during a product launch both online and in the store. To learn more about how our offerings can supplement your campaign, contact us.
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