A product launch is all about getting eyeballs on your new offering. To do this, marketing firms routinely utilize emerging technology to boost the buzz around their new product/service. Currently, that technology is live streaming.
While you shouldn’t throw out more traditional methods like video marketing and brand partnerships, increasing your use of live streaming technology can ensure that your marketing strategy is relevant and competitive.
The Importance of a Good Launch
A good product launch is a vital part of any marketing strategy. A successful launch will help your product gather a larger chunk of the market share, and the hype that builds around your promotional materials will garner the interest of new potential customers.
Your launch will also set the stage for the rest of your marketing campaign. During the promotion, you’ll decide on the tone of your branding, and will gather important data about your audience and their tendencies. This will streamline future marketing efforts and will give your business key insights into the market.
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How a Live Steam Can Help
Live streaming has become an integral part of all major companies’ marketing campaigns. Recent estimates project that live streaming will be worth $223 billion by 2028 and that advancements in technology will make live streaming easier and more accessible for audiences around the globe.
The increased interest in live streaming means that your marketing department must create an effective live stream campaign, and should look to leverage the platform in unique and engaging ways. In particular, aim to create live stream content that directly engages audiences, as this will draw more people to your company’s website and will give marketers useful insights through analytics that tracks user data.
Once you’ve ended the broadcast, you can review the footage alongside key analytics like clicks and engagement to see what brought the most out of users. This mixture of qualitative and quantitative data can be used to create future campaigns with greater efficacy and can help you ensure that the entire product lifecycle is supported by accurate insights.
Creating a Perfect Stream
Before you go live, you must create a nuanced and useful live stream script. This should be a collaborative effort, in which your marketing team uses design thinking to create and test your live stream before you start broadcasting. Design thinking has a few key steps:
- Empathize with Users: Imagine yourself in your audience’s shoes. What will they need to know about your new product? What needs does your audience have? What similar campaigns have resonated with them in the past? Answering these questions will help streamline your production process and will catch any potential issues.
- Define: You need to clearly show your audience how your new product or service will help them. For example, does your product use new tech to solve an existing problem? Or, do you offer something that no other company can? If so, be sure to emphasize and re-emphasize these points during your broadcast.
- Ideate: This is your quality-control stage. During this stage of design thinking, you’ll work together to identify any challenges that your live stream may face, and will work proactively to overcome them.
- Prototype/Test: You must test your live stream before you go live. This means more than just turning the broadcast on a few minutes before the scheduled stream. You should complete an entire mock stream, complete with talking points and imaginary interactions.
A stream will only be effective if you plan ahead and create a clear strategy for success. You should plan for multiple scenarios and should seriously consider writing a script to get everyone on the same page.
You also need to advertise your stream before you go live. This should be part of your overall product launch strategy and should tease the elements of your product that are most likely to draw large audiences. This will ensure that you don’t have awkward pauses during Q+A sessions, and a larger audience will improve the value of your analytics data.
Streaming for Other Marketing Opportunities
Streaming can inject life into other marketing strategies which may be underperforming. This is particularly useful if your marketing efficiency has dipped in the past few months, but you cannot commit to a large budget for new videography or digital marketing. Marketers who are keyed into streaming can choose to go live and can leverage a relatively cheap eCommerce broadcast to promote their product/service and create a real buzz around their offering.
An eCommerce live stream differs slightly from a product launch stream. You’ll need to provide something of value to audiences, and should recognize that an eCommerce stream is about more than selling. The easiest way to create good eCommerce content is to get in touch with an influencer who can bring a large following to the stream. Using an influencer is also a great way to quickly build meaningful bonds between your business and the consumer, as audiences naturally trust the influencer who is advertising your product.
Conclusion
Live streaming can help your business connect with new audiences, and can give your marketing team tons of relevant feedback within the first few hours of your launch. However, you should plan ahead to ensure that your live stream doesn’t flop, and can do so by writing a great script and getting help from an influencer.