Make the Most of Your New Product Launches

I agree that, at a first glance, launching a new product can seem like a mundane activity.

You create a new page, add few pictures, paste a product description, set the price and other attributes and … miss out on a ton of marketing opportunities.

Yup.

It’s not that easy to convince a visitor to buy anymore. Visitors expect more and more from stores, from uniqueness and a plethora of information to deals and free shipping.

And unless your product pages deliver on that, you are losing on a massive marketing opportunity.

Below is a short guide to help you overcome this.

1. Develop a Selling Proposition

First of all, you should know (or figure out) why your visitors should buy the product from you in the first place. This is the main premise of the message you’ll use to communicate with visitors.

Your selling proposition will be the base for your product description, product promotion, additional copy (incl. blog posts) and anything else you’ll be doing to promote it.

Resources:

Why Your Online Store Needs a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to Thrive (Shopify)

Your Unique Selling Proposition (Magento Ecommerce Blog)

2. Create a Landing Page

There are various reasons why you’re adding new products. Perhaps you’re introducing new product line or category or adding a new brand to your portfolio.

Doesn’t matter.

What matters is that your customers know about it ahead of time. Even before you get those products delivered and are ready to ship them.

Therefore, create dedicated landing pages, informing your visitors about what’s coming. Offer information as to when products will be available, what brands you will carry and any other information your visitors might find useful.

Resources:

10 Best Practices for Ecommerce Landing Pages (Volusion)

5 Ecommerce Landing Pages: Good and Bad (Practical Ecommerce)

3. Rewrite Product Descriptions

A common mistake many online retailers make is using product descriptions supplied by the producer.

And there is more than one problem with this approach, starting with the fact that you have duplicate content on the site that lacks originality and offers no direct value to your own customers.

Generic product descriptions are just that: generic. No one wrote them with your audience in mind. Because of that, they will always fail to achieve the three main objectives of a good product description:

• Providing relevant information.
• Establishing trust in the store.
• Convincing the visitor that this product is “the one” for him or her.

Here are some tips on creating your own product descriptions:

6 Characteristics of a Good Product Description (Ecommerce Insiders)

How to Write Product Descriptions that Sell (SocialMediaToday)

4. Source Testimonials or Reviews

It doesn’t matter how much you boast about the product. Your visitors will believe other shoppers more than you.

Consider sourcing testimonials or reviews of new products to increase the authority of your product page.

If possible, send them as gifts to your five best customers and ask for feedback. Not only you will get the reviews you wanted but also strengthen relationships with those clients.

5. Source Good Quality Images

Did you know that images can increase product sales by up to 30%?

Often, however, those images supplied by the producer aren’t good enough to use. They are either in a wrong size, low quality or do not reveal the true value of the product.

Also, you might want to optimize the images to use with Google Shopping Campaigns. Google recommends using images with white, grey or light grey backgrounds so they present better in search results.

If you want to find out more about taking your own product photos, check these posts:

Why Presentation and Context Are Crucial to E-Commerce Product Photos (Kissmetrics)

15 Video Tutorials for Product Photography (Practical Ecommerce)

How Great Photos Play a Role in Your Ecommece Store (Ecommerce Insiders)

6. Create Promotional Graphics

Create banner graphics to advertise the product or category on the home page, your blog, newsletter, banner ads, or wherever else you can put it in front of your users.

Resources:

7 Best Practices of Creating Effective Banner Ads (Volusion)

Banner Ad Best Practices (ReTargeter)

7. Create Relevant Content

Content marketing is a great way to get a word out on new products or an expansion to your inventory line.

Write blog posts and create other types of content that could attract visitors interested in your new products to the site. Just remember ;a good content marketing strategy doesn’t focus on products but on needs of people who might be interested in buying them.

Resources:

10.5 Tools for Effortless Content Creation (SERPs)

5 Ways Ecommerce Sites Are Killing it With Content Marketing (Shopify)

15 Most Engaging Content Types for B2C and B2B Companies (SERPs)

8. Optimize Product Page for SEO

SEO is still a relevant traffic channel. Kissmetrics reports that up to 30.5% of average ecommerce traffic comes from organic searches on Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.

So you shouldn’t neglect it when creating new product pages. When creating these pages, make sure that you do at least the following:

• Include product name and category in page title.
• Include the above plus keyword in page description.
• Include 1-2 long tail keywords in the product description. Just remember to first and foremost write it for people. not search engines.
• Optimize images.
• Tag your page, if possible.

More info:

Top 10 SEO Tips for Ecommerce Stores (WooThemes)

8 E-Commerce SEO Tips Gathered From A Decade Of Consulting (SearchEngineLand)

17 SEO Best Practices That Could Double Your E-Commerce Sales (SearchEngineLand)