Launching a new product can be an exciting time for your business. How do you get the word out about your awesome new product?
How does a total user base of 4.3 billion sound? That's the total number of expected email users by 2023, according to Oberlo.
More than 91% of these email users open their emails on a daily basis. For that reason alone, using emails to launch new products with email marketing campaigns is the best strategy there is.
People don't fall out of "favor" with email. With all the noise out there everyday, emails are like an oasis for successful product launches, given that these email subscribers are a captive audience and they signed up to hear from you.
As such, it's a promising channel (and a profitable one) to help launch your new products with email campaigns when you do it right.
You could spend money on expensive marketing campaigns, but this is not always necessary. How about doing product launches with email campaigns instead?
In this blog post, we're going to discuss what things you need to consider before launching a new product and how to use email marketing strategies that will help generate more revenue.
9 Best Practices When Using Email for Product Launches
1. Make Emails Relevant
According to OptiMonster, only 14% of subscribers ever feel that the emails they receive from brands are relevant to them. You don't want your subscribers to ever fall into that 14% bandwagon.
With an eclectic mix of proper email list building strategies (use appropriate lead magnets while trying to build your lists), personalization, email marketing segmentation, email marketing timing, and working with your tags and/segments, you'll ensure that you only send out emails that are relevant to your users.
Utility emails such as order confirmation emails, order update emails, shipping update emails, etc. are already very relevant. It's the email marketing emails that you have to focus on to ensure relevancy.
2. Offer discounts and savings
More than 42.3% of Americans sign up for email marketing campaigns just to receive savings opportunities and discounts, according to Evently.
While we don’t always suggest doling out offers and discounts as a perennial strategy (or worse, a habit), you can certainly send out discount coupons and provide opportunities for your email subscribers to get a “deal” on launch days at least.
Use FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) along with your discount strategy to ensure that the message you are sending out is that these discounts won’t last long and are specifically launch day specials.
Use email marketing + social media (on top of your blogs, PR campaigns, paid advertising campaigns, and even referral software) to help spread the word and get the world talking about your products and/or brand.
3. Use visuals the right way
We are wired to process information visually. We learn, get inspired, and our minds react to visuals more than anything else. Visuals are powerful tools for promoting your products, but you may not be utilizing them to their full potential.
How do you use visuals? Use visuals to promote your products in three steps:
- Create buzz: Don't send a single email out on launch day. One of the open secrets to successful product launches with email campaigns is to create buzz and excitement around launches (and yes, it never gets old. Just see what Apple does each year). Work your way backwards from the launch date, and "tease" your product launches using visuals.
- Build Excitement: Send regular emails leading up to launch day with "progressive teasers" -- each email reveals just a little more information to your subscribers and potential customers than the previous one does.
- Launch with product visuals: Finally, splash emails with product visuals designed to entice.
Here's an example:
5. Share videos within emails
Did you know that almost 50% of online shoppers look for videos about products and services they might be looking for? Video has a direct correlation with eCommerce sales and revenue. Period.
See how DJI does it (for every single product launch):
Produce videos (anyone can do it today, and there are tools to help you create videos that can also double up as ads) and use them inside your email campaigns for product launches.
There’s a range of video types you can use: product reveal videos, actual videos of products themselves (but don’t reveal too much for product launch email campaigns), animated videos, video testimonials, and so many more.
Embed videos directly into your email (if your email service provider allows that) or create a GIF preview for your video that email users can click and watch elsewhere.
6. Take conversations beyond email (use social media)
An email marketing campaign is an email marketing campaign, and we agree. But why just depend on emails when you can take the party everywhere?
Use email marketing + social media (on top of your blogs, PR campaigns, paid advertising campaigns, and even referral software) to help spread the word and get the world talking about your products and/or brand.
See how Harry’s uses a “referral” system to help spread the word:
But brand Harry’s doesn’t just stop there:
Here’s an example of how Harry’s also pushes excitement for launches on Twitter as well:
Push the excitement, buzz, and the events of the launch on social media as well. Use videos. Use short teasers. Get people talking about your products or your brand using hashtags.
Go beyond email and use the collective power of social media, the visual impact of videos, and the insane reach of social media to work in your favor.
7. Use pre-order emails
Why should you wait until the product is ready? Who says email marketing campaigns for product launches make sense only “after” or just before product launches?
So, what's a better email campaign than the product launch email campaign? It's the pre-order email campaign.
Sell even before your product is ready and the launch date is out. Asking for pre-orders is so much better than even the actual launch emails.
First, you are already building anticipation and buzz (above). Second, pre-orders get you revenue even before the product is ready. Third, it's the ultimate form of validation for your products.
See how a pre-order email looks like:
8. Make the sale
Your emails are not the time to be timid about asking for the sale directly. The goal of an email marketing campaign is to sell something - and if you're launching a new product, you want people to buy it.
What do you know about your prospects? What are their fears or hesitations? How can you address them in conversation with prospects?
Understanding all of this is a prerequisite for successful launch emails for eCommerce.
Once you are past that, ask for the sale on launch day.
9. Remember that launches are forever
So, your launch day is 2 weeks from now. You’ve successfully used email marketing campaigns for product launches before. You’ve done it again now.
But most businesses just stop after the launch day. Emails fade away.
Launches are forever. Don’t stop sending out regular emails (even for those who never purchased during the build up to launch and on the launch day itself).
Continue with your email marketing campaigns. Nurture your potential customers with exclusive information, behind the scenes footage, events, and more content.
This is also when advanced tactics such as retargeting ad campaigns and retargeting email marketing campaigns come into play.
Based on proper audience management, email marketing segmentation, timing, and personalization, launch new campaigns to get several of those non-purchasers back and have them complete the sale.
Marketing Plan for A Product Launch: How to Orchestrate Your Product Launch
Marketing plans for product launches might have several moving parts -- none of those are hard to do. However, it takes some work (at the start, the middle, and the end, and beyond that).
You'll need research, competitive analysis, product positioning, branding, web presence (with several tasks to cover up your basics and leading with your brand’s USP), social media presence, content marketing, SEO, email marketing (and automation), analytics, and tracking.
If you intend to use pay-per-click advertising, you’ll also need bidding control, campaign management, campaign optimization, landing page management, lead generation, corresponding automation, and more.
There are several different fires you’d have to put out constantly. Most of the work related to digital marketing is ongoing.
Yet, product launches are a huge opportunity for your business. Miss this one, and you miss everything. Gaining traction can be hard and you don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of missed opportunities.
There’s a saying in digital marketing: “If you want results today (sign-ups, leads, sales), start at least 3 years before the time you need it badly enough”.
Here’s a rundown on how to orchestrate your product launch:
Ensure website or ecommerce store completion
From the main website or eCommerce store to little tweaks and attention to detail, ensure your website or eCommerce store is ready for business.
This includes brand colors on store pages functioning right, necessary basic workflows (such as signing up for a newsletter or the checkout process of your eCommerce store -- including setting up a payment provider, doing a few product purchase flow testing, checkout testing, and more).
Get active on social media (even before you think of launch)
Gaining traction, creating buzz(for your product launch or otherwise), and having people follow you on social media takes time. It’s going to happen on the day you show up with your brand’s social media handles.
Create brand-consistent profiles, such as:
linkedin.com/company/yourbrand
Notice that your brand name should be as consistent as it can be across your social profiles.
Next, start posting regular updates with a wide variety of content mix: including news, updates, opinions, videos, reels, shorts, other content (blog posts), and more.
Social followers start noticing your brand, engage with your content, comment on your content, and leave their opinions underneath various pieces of content you publish. Start engaging with these followers naturally.
As you get bigger and more recognized, you’d also have to add “social monitoring” and social-driven customer support channels ( to help your existing and potential customers.
Opt-in Driven (or Permission-Based) Email Marketing and Automation
Your product launch is not complete with email sign-ups, opt-ins, pop-ups, in-line forms, sliders, and announcement bars (with links) -- all leading to some sort of workflow that allows people to sign up for your launch offers.
Automation (in some form or function) should kick in whether it’s an in-line form within a blog post, a pop-up on an eCommerce store, a regular newsletter sign-up, or an actual customer.
It’s called lead nurturing, and it’s more powerful (while easy to implement) than you think.
Shopify, for instance, has dedicated apps such as Shopify forms, Shopify Inbox, Shopify Emails, and Shopify automation to let you launch and manage email campaigns along with email automation with ease.
Casual newsletter sign-up? Send the newsletter when it is due (and continue henceforth)
Potential lead, signed up for a discount offer? Trigger an automated email that delivers the discount coupon code.
Henceforth, follow-up with more emails (automated and segmented) depending on actions potential or existing customers take.
Potential customer visited a product page and left without doing anything? Or maybe added an item to your cart but didn’t complete the purchase?
Send automated emails and/or retargeting emails prompting and nudging them to complete the purchase.
There’s more where automation is concerned, but you get the idea.
Comprehensive Set of Channels (and a Checklist for Product Launches and Beyond)
In summary, here’s the comprehensive set of marketing channels you’d need to work on to ensure a successful product launch and continuation of your efforts for a sustained business (in terms of digital marketing):
Website: Complete, fast-loading, easy-to-navigate, simple (for most business cases), and clear. Your customers should know what you are offering within 3 seconds or less.
Content marketing engine: blog posts (also helps with search discovery, engagement, window of trust, and more) and other pieces of content (eBooks, guides, resources, white papers, and so on). Some of these can also be used as lead magnets for lead generation, followed by nurturing (below)
Social presence: Active content distribution and updates on social media (with a regular, consistent schedule) along with engagement, social monitoring, social media support channels, and more.
Email marketing: Broadcasts, automated email campaigns, impromptu email campaigns, retargeting emails. This along with active tagging and segmenting to help with personalization and relevance.
Affiliate Marketing: Tap into a global workforce of partners and affiliates willing to go the whole mile to get leads or sales for your business.
Paid advertising: Across networks such as Google (including Google shopping ads), meta ads (Facebook), X (Erstwhile Twitter), Pinterest Ads (if applicable and available). Ads should lead to dedicated landing pages with email marketing and/or SMS marketing completing the workflows.
Analytics: Get the right insights and keep a tab on your KPIs with proper integration with analytics tools and appropriate tracking.
If you’d like to see how brands run their campaigns and product launches, dig up all the information you need and view it in a single dashboard with Panoramata.
Create tracking lists with brands doing product launches and running campaigns on ad platforms, make changes to their landing pages or websites, and view all their email marketing campaigns with ease.
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FAQs
1. How can email campaigns help with product launches?
Email campaigns create excitement and awareness by directly engaging your audience with exclusive updates, teasers, and special offers. They help build anticipation and ensure your launch reaches the right people at the right time.
2. What are the key elements of a successful product launch email?
A successful product launch email includes a compelling subject line, eye-catching visuals, and a clear call-to-action. Personalization and early access offers can also boost engagement and conversions.
3. How do you plan an email sequence for a product launch?
Start with teaser emails to generate curiosity, followed by announcement emails to reveal the product, and finish with follow-ups to highlight benefits or offer limited-time deals. Timing is crucial—schedule each email strategically to maintain interest and momentum.
