An effective product launch email series can be one of the most effective tools in your email marketing arsenal. In fact, some of the best profits in marketing have been made with a simple product launch sequence.
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However, these spectacular examples can give the wrong impression. You might wrongly conclude that you need to be launching an impressive product, and then have world-class copywriting that absolutely floors people.
What you need to consider instead is that the principles behind massive product launches can be applied to anything new that you introduce as a business. It can be a new feature, an improvement to existing services, new benefits or just more options for customers.
You just need to understand the concept of creating a buzz and having people looking forward to your “next big thing”. So consider that when we talk about “product launch emails” in this guide, we are referring to any improvement, feature or service that adds additional value to the marketplace.
Why product launch emails matter
Most businesses put in way too much effort on trying to create something better, whilst completely forgetting about marketing. Let’s say that you’ve created an amazing product or substantially improved a service. None of that matters if you’re the only one who knows about it.
I often see passionate business owners and managers working super hard to build or create something that blows away the competition, but then they forget to tell the world about it.
It’s actually ok to “brag” about the things you’re doing to add additional value for your customers. In fact, that’s why they signed up for your email list. People want to know what’s coming next.
Benefits of a product launch email
Excite & Engage: Product launch emails are the perfect way to create a buzz around your release, whether that’s a new service, feature or improvement in your products.
Re-engage Stale Leads: If done right, these emails are a great way to reignite leads who have gone stale for any reason. An exciting change in your offerings or brand can often reignite interest and re-engage older leads, leading to many benefits, including better deliverability.
Demonstrate Value: Use this opportunity to show exactly how your solutions solve real problems for your customers. This will not only build anticipation for the upcoming solution, but also increase the perceived value of your brand in general.
Improve Engagement: When you craft your launch emails well, they increase the overall sense of relationship building and engagement with your brand. That is to say, the benefits go beyond just getting people to care about your newly launched product or feature.
Types of “product launch” emails
As we already discussed, the concepts behind a product launching sequence can be used to create anticipation for anything that’s new and upcoming. In practice, the use cases are literally infinite, however let’s look at some typical use cases.
New product release emails
This is the classic example that you think of first when thinking about product launches. You have created a new product (or service) and you’re excited to announce it.
You might keep it simple and just send a single announcement email the day it launches. Alternatively, you can go all out and create an anticipation sequence leading up to the launch.
Improvement and benefit introduction emails
I’m sad to see how many businesses invest a ton of effort improving their product, without letting anyone know about said improvements.
You should never feel shy about announcing how you have improved your product or service. This can include completely new features, but also any smaller tweaks that improve quality of service.
The same goes for any additional benefits that your customers get. That might be increased limits, additional support channels, or really any other benefit you can think of. If it is “new and improved”, you should introduce it via email.
Event or webinar announcement emails
Yes, upcoming events (offline or online) can be treated as if they were a product you’re about to launch. Even if said events or webinars are completely free of charge. Using a product launch approach doesn’t require that the offering in question is a paid service or product.
New free and complimentary options
And that brings us to free stuff in general. Remember that a product launch sequence and the engagement it generates has benefits other than just producing sales on launch day.
Just because the most famous product launches are those that generate millions in sales, doesn’t mean that product launches are limited to direct sales.
You can, and should use email to get people excited about the introduction of new free and complimentary features and benefits as well. This could be adding additional benefits to your free-tier service, or just additional free resources.
The excitement will build engagement, good will and word-of-mouth for your brand, which will in turn increase your sales down the line.
Content launch notification emails
One of the best angles you can adopt is to view your valuable content as if it were a service or product that you offer for sale. This is true even though you’re giving it away for free.
If you look at examples of companies that make a killing via valuable content, you will notice something. Their free content is so good that it could easily be sold as a standalone product.
With that said, you can promote the launch of a new blog series, podcast, or other educational resources using the product launching methodology as well.
The ingredients to a successful product launch campaign
Whichever sequence of emails you choose to utilize, there are some general best practices that will always apply if you want your product launch campaign to be successful.
Compelling subject lines
Remember that the name of the game is “anticipation and creating a buzz”. Subject lines play a key role in getting people curious enough to open those emails in the first place.
Exclusive reveals & teasers
So how do you actually create anticipation in people? Well, the main way to do this is to give people a “taste” of what’s coming, and then tease them about the final and full reveal.
You can do this in a single email, or if there is enough to go on, you can even have an entire series of emails that gradually drip information and build anticipation over time.
Calls to action and actionable steps
As a marketer you have to realize that calls to action are a must in everything that you do. This is true with any email that you ever send. And this goes beyond simply getting people to click on a link or a button.
In the case of product launches, your call to action might be to ask people to look for your next email in their inbox. For example you might inform them that the next email will reveal even more information, and instruct them to be on the lookout for this email.
Effective Branding & Design
Product launch emails are also brand-building emails, and more so than other emails which you send otherwise. This means that you really want to make your branding stand out.
Make sure to utilize a great attention grabbing custom email design that leverages your brand colors and utilizes a color background. Use images, and make sure to feature your logo prominently.
If you need help coming up with a custom email template, consider that we offer this as a service.
Personalization and segmentation
As with all other types of email marketing, you get better results when you segment and personalize your campaigns. If you’ve done your segmentation properly, you should be able to differentiate how different subscribers care about different things.
Once you have differentiated your subscribers, this is data you can use to treat them differently during the launch process. To achieve this, you can use our smart personalization feature, or even send completely different emails to the different advanced segments.
What are the stages in a product launch email campaign?
There are 3 major stages your product launch sequences can go through. Note that except for the 3rd stage, these stages are not mandatory. However, if you do utilize all 3, this is generally the order in which you want to do things.
Build initial suspense
If you decide to go for a sequence that starts early, these are going to be the emails you send very early on. This is going to happen at least 15 days before a launch. And what do you do in these emails? Well, you simply tease people about what’s coming and keep things a bit vague.
Share more specifics
At this stage you’re still teasing people and building up anticipation, but you start sharing more details. The specifics can revolve around the launch process itself, such as revealing the launch date, or how orders will be delivered or made. However, most of the time it will relate to sharing specific details about the product that you are launching.
3…2…1 Launch off
This is the actual launch email. And it is the only mandatory stage in a launch process. If you’ve done a good job in getting people excited up until this point, then your job in this email should be fairly straightforward and easy. If not, you will have to do all the work of both getting people excited, and also announcing the launch, all in the same email.
Types of emails in a launch sequence
When it comes to the actual emails that you send out, it is up to you to decide which goals you achieve and in what way. However, to make life easier, it’s good to look at a couple of categories that these emails typically fall into. As you look at the different types of emails, I want you to consider what stage they fall under, as this will help you understand the stages even better.
Coming soon teasers
This is an email that is entirely focused on the concept of announcing that there’s this big thing coming soon. This is going to be an email that doesn’t reveal too much, and definitely doesn’t go into specifics.
On the one extreme, it might not even hint at what’s coming. It might just be a visually grandiose email that just announces that there’s this big thing coming, and asks the reader to stay tuned. Or, it might give a couple of hints, but nothing too specific.
Troubleshooting and FAQs emails
This type of email will make more sense for certain types of products than others. However, when it does make sense, it can be very powerful. This is basically an email where you go into more detail about exactly what the upcoming product (or service) will do. And you do it by answering common questions that people might ask, or do actually ask you during this period.
Limited-time offer or pre-order emails
This is another type of email that goes into more specifics, and it will make more sense for a certain type of product launch. With some pre launch campaigns, if you did a good job exciting people about the upcoming product, there will be a portion of readers willing to pre-order. You can entice by offering special pricing or perks that are only available to those who pre-order.
Storytelling emails
Use this type of email to build anticipation by sharing the story behind your product or service development. The idea is to leverage the “hero’s journey” whereby there’s a problem that you (or your customers) run into, and you go on a mission to solve the problem, once and for all.
With a story like this, you paint a picture of your product as the hero, and give a glimpse of a brighter future for your audience. This can get subscribers emotionally invested and awaiting that happy ending when your launch finally unfolds.
“Problem/Solution” emails
This type of email is really useful in that it achieves quite a few goals. First, you get the reader to relate as you describe a pain point they’re all too familiar with. Next, it allows you to introduce your product as the potential solution.
There is no need to utilize any overblown claims, just throw in a strategic hint at how it alleviates said pain point. This will spark curiosity, as well as build further anticipation as the pre-launch momentum gathers pace.
Social proof emails
It’s generally a good idea to involve some of your top fans as early testers for new products as features. This allows you to both get good real-world feedback, but also, gives you great social proof.
With this you can then craft special “social proof emails” where you share some testimonials and real world feedback about the upcoming product.
Get A Strategic Partner On Your Side
There’s no need to go at this alone. While we do put out a lot of free content to help you, nothing beats a one-on-one conversation. In these articles we try to help clarify things as best as possible. However, every business is different, so we have to generalize.
If you want to understand better how to implement email marketing in your specific business, let’s have a chat. At the moment I am still able to do some free demos, so be sure to book one while I can still do these.
I would love to hear about your specific needs, challenges and any confusion you might have about email marketing strategies. And then, help you see how you can use Emercury to improve your bottom-line.
Alternatively, or in addition to booking a free demo, you can also grab a username for our forever-free-plan while we still have it. It’s probably the most generous email marketing automation plan on the planet. We include almost every feature in this plan, with very few restrictions.
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