8 STEPS TO Launching your first product - PART 3
“The moment you make a mistake in pricing, you’re eating into your reputation or your profits.” - Katharine Paine
Introduction
In part two of our series, we looked at setting realistic goals and generating awareness through a compelling social media campaign. In this third and last part, we’ll look at how you can judge the right price and deal with customer feedback. You can also read part one here.
7 - Implementing an effective pricing strategy
Money talks and with consumers pricing will be one of the most important aspects of their buying decision. According to a study from McKinsey, price is the most important factor for customers.
When setting your price point, therefore, you need to be fair, realistic, and transparent. It’s all about finding a figure that gives you a profit and is within your customer’s capacity.
If you’re not certain you could try different price options such as subscriptions, one-off purchases, or tiered pricing models. Try out different options and prices until you find the sweet spot that works for everyone.
A good way to tempt people is by offering limited time-limited discounts or incentives to early customers. This provides a sense of value and urgency that can get people through the door early.
Pricing should be an ongoing process. Different factors can influence it such as your cost, demand, and ability of your customers to pay. Stay open to adjusting pricing based on your customer feedback. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. It’ll take time, involve experimentation, and listening to what your customers say.
8 - Handling feedback and making improvements
The product launch is just the beginning of your journey. Once you’re up and running you should listen to your customers, take their feedback into account, and encourage people to share their opinions.
Digital technology can give you new ways to gather feedback. Customer ticketing systems such as Intercom or Freshworks can help you find new ways to leverage feedback from your customers. Chatbots such as Liveperson or Braze can automate customer service, saving people the time and frustration that comes with trying to get through to a call center.
Not all of that feedback will be positive, but it’s important to listen and respond to it either way. When it’s positive, show appreciation, and when it’s negative make sure you address concerns proactively. According to one study, time to respond is considered critical when shaping a customer’s perception of their customer experience.
Marketers may naturally be fearful of negative feedback, but it can be incredibly valuable in shaping your marketing proposition and helping to improve your product. Throughout the launch period and beyond you should collect and analyze your customer feedback and make updates to your product as you do. When you do make improvements, communicate this directly to your customers to demonstrate your capacity to evolve and improve.
Whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between customer feedback is invaluable when it comes to shaping the success of your product. Embrace it, in all its forms, learn from it, and use it to improve your product and service to continue meeting and exceeding your customers’ expectations.
Conclusion and final thoughts
Launching your first product can be exciting, daunting, rewarding, and challenging all in one. There is no hard and fast rule to follow but in this series of articles we have given you key considerations that can give you the best possible chance of success.
Every launch is different and will require a unique approach, but from conducting research to identifying a target audience, working out your metrics, engaging with influencers, and using customer feedback, each step will require a unique tailored approach to help you engage and inspire your audience in new and exciting ways.
Successful launches tend to have similar factors in common such as detailed planning, continual improvement, and a customer-centered personalized approach. With the right product, strategies, and a bit of perseverance you’ll be on the road to a thriving product launch.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Jarchow is a passionate marketing leader with expertise in guiding evolving, growing, or transitioning companies to strategically align their planning, people, and processes for optimal growth and opportunity capture. Jeff empowers collaboration to seize opportunities in dynamic marketplaces and maximize resource utilization. His leadership style fosters innovation, propelling brand and product portfolio growth through visionary strategies and effective utilization of creative resources. Jeff is based in Denver, CO.
About Brian Timothy and Associates LLC
Brian Timothy and Associates, provides medium sized businesses with fractional expertise to help them grow and improve. Using our expert consultancy, we’ll bring focus, experience and proven results to help take you onto the next better. Unlike other companies we are transparent and follow through on our promises. We don’t bill endlessly. We don’t pass the baton and we won’t be opaque in our pricing. You’ll see clearly what you get and what you pay for.
Brian Timothy offers a wide range of assessments to build and improve all core small to medium business functions. Give our team 25 minutes and we’ll ask thoughtful questions, understand your challenges, share our experience, and see if our expertise can be useful to you.
