Even with a great product and a known brand, every product launch poses uncertainties. In the US approximately 10,000 new products debut every year in the CPG industry alone, and within two years, 85% of these items are categorised as failures and are scrapped.  

There is no precise formula for capturing the adoration of your desired target market, but there are ways of harnessing decision science best practices to target your potential shoppers, educate them on what is unique about the product, scaling product reviews and rewarding their repeat purchase loyalty . Studying the latest product launch best practices can provide meaningful insights into how to make your next product launch a surefire success. 

Here are our top 5 best practice product launch tips we learnt from in 2020 though working with our customer brands: 

1. Targeting the competitions shoppers 

In the CPG industry targeting shoppers of your competitors can be really difficult and sometimes just not sustainable long term. In conversations with our customers there are limited effective channels to access these shoppers, targeting can be quite broad as it's not down to the category or product level and the costs can be really high making those campaigns just not sustainable.

Here at Shping when our customers speak we listen. Hearing about these challenges we went about creating a really simple way for our partner brands to engage with shoppers of their competitor brands. What's more we were able to set it up at a category, subcategory and even at product level of those competitor brands making it incredibly targeted. As an example if you are a new dark chocolate brand we can target shoppers of specific dark chocolate products by EAN. Across all of our customer brands we are seeing an average conversion rate of 45% for competitor ads which is incredibly qualified.

2. Rewarding repeat buyers

Offers and rewards are just as important for soliciting repeat purchases as they are for driving new product trials. Keeping tabs on buyers and retargeting with ads, texts, and offers is an effective way to maintain interest. 

Reward programs are typically associated with retailers rather than brands. However, Shping for Brands offers a means of rewarding repeat customers directly for repeat purchases and providing their feedback in the forms of product reviews or surveys. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, partnering with an established shopping app can improve reach and retention while achieving a significant return on investment (ROI).

3. Engaging new customers directly to nurture loyalty

A successful product launch consists of more than converting sales and convincing shoppers there is value in trying your product. Once a purchase is made by the customer, it shouldn’t be viewed as the end of marketing efforts, but rather the beginning. Since it takes approximately eight purchases for a trial buyer to become loyal to a brand, creating an onboarding experience is crucial. 

The best product launches involve a multitude of channels but must consider how you as the brand are going to connect directly with the consumer in order to maintain a personalised relationship with the shopper to nurture them to 8th purchase milestone. Shopper marketing apps like Shping for Brands allow brands to engage directly with shoppers before visiting a brick and mortar store and continue to nurture consumers long after the first purchase.

4. Choosing an incremental marketing strategy in pursuit of long-term success

Many marketers make the mistake of investing heavily during the first year of promotion, but between the first and second purchase, brands lose roughly half of all buyers. This process of attrition continues until stability is achieved around the eighth purchase, so marketers will need to think long-term. 

An ultra targeted incremental marketing strategy involves breaking up a long-term marketing plan into a regular weekly/monthly activities that continue to address new shoppers and existing customers that can be reviewed and tweaked based on performance.

5. Collecting actionable data to inform future marketing

Effective targeting requires segmentation on demographics, persona’s & life-stages of your shoppers but what we know is also mission critical for brands is the ability to connect directly with their customers to build their own first part data that can be used to make all future marketing as targeted as possible. This allows brands to significantly reduce wastage and increase ROI.

Today’s consumers are seeking highly relevant, personalised experiences with brands. Brand and product loyalty is largely connected to personalised marketing, which means timing offers based on purchase frequency, proximity, and past purchases are essential to ensuring an experience based on individual relevance.

Find a Product Launch Partner to Double Your Odds of Success

Shping for Brands is a proven marketing partner for brands launching new products into Australian bricks and mortar retailers, helping them employ many of the aforementioned best practices.

In essence, partners can take advantage of incremental marketing strategies, piggybacking off Shping for Brands' audience to expand their own market share while also surprising and delighting prospective customers with rewards as soon as they engage with their brand, make a purchase and provide a review or feedback. By building an audience within the Shping for Brands platform, brands can get valuable insights into who their customers are and leverage first party for ultra targeted future marketing campaigns. 

Looking to make your next product launch a success? Contact Shping to gain insights into developing a highly successful product launch campaign