5 PR Essentials to Launch your Product

One positive advantage of launching your Product in the current times is that there are multiple ways to tell the world your product story unlike earlier times. Top of mind comes, the news a venture generates when it gets funding, almost all the media today writes about it. For eg. Sourbits' funding by Sequoia Capital ( the last news that i saw everywhere). But the question is what do you do, if you have still time to fund raise and in the meanwhile you want the market to test out your product and build a traction for it. Let me enumerate some of the practices that i have seen work well in the last couple of years1. Launch it the Social Media way : - Simple, mostly cost effective and easily reaches a large audience. Better still, ask Online publishers to review it and bloggers to write about it. The critical point here is, to not to do this sporadically but consistently. One post on Facebook, or a few tweets is not the answer. The product has to be constantly talked about. Its ok if there is some debate on the product as long as its done in a meaningful manner.

2. Product Message and Positioning :- Many a times, we get to read a statement like - "the best ERP software in the country", or the "biggest app in the marketplace" - its tempting, i am myself tempted to use this many a times, but please refrain from using words like -largest, biggest, best and most successful. Go deep and find the real USP of your product, if you created it, then there must be some strong reason for it. what is the reason? what differentiates it? how will the end user be benefitted? or rather how will your product create a difference to the bottomline of your user? If you answer these basic questions, you have a strong positioning statement ready with your product. The more differentiated the message, more are the chances of it catching the eye and being read and reviewed.

3. No time like the Right time :- Refrain from talking about your product till you figure out when is the right time to talk. Ideally right time is the time when you have - validated the product, got your first round of cumulative feedbacks, mapped your product strategy and drafted your product positioning. Its first lauch then it might as well be well planned. Many Tech entrepreneurs i have seen, undermine the importance of a planned product launch as they believe - "my product will tell the story" if i have a good product then i don't need PR and all the noise. True, but in a dynamic environment like ours, where everyday new products are hitting the market and every possible idea is being tried out.. it is worthwhile to invest in a planned product launch approach.

4. Invest in Facebook ads :- Save up some money and (if you do have any spare cash) do invest in Facebook campaign, i have seen it working. Yes, most of us would like to have the bigbang lauch through the mainstream papers and TV adds, lets leave it for the time being for the Volkswagon and Vodafones of the world. Last years have shown, Tech ventures who have effectively used online to build branding and then in due course spread their tentacles offline.

5. Engage :- The biggest premium i see moving forward is not the number of clicks, diggs, and retweets but the kind of engagement your social presence creates, all of us in the online space know how numbers can be manipulated if not bought. So build quality, easier said then done. But focused, clear cut discussions, genuine feedback mechanisms, earnest interest to interact with your audience are some of the things that will help your product in the long and short run. Think Engagment. Its challenging but its really the icing on the cake as far as your Product Launch is concerned.