On March 8 2011, Guy Kawasaki [GK] launched his tenth book “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions”. After only a week, the book was on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. The obvious conclusion is that at least some of that success was due to the product launch strategies he used although it should also be noted that the author himself is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, best selling author, and Apple Fellow so is not short of ‘profile’.

He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. He is currently a Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, and has been involved in the rumor reporting site Truemors.com and the RSS aggregation site Alltop. com. He is also a well-known blogger so he is a recognised and trusted authority on all things web marketing.

However leaving those advantages aside for a minute, let’s look at the 12 things that he did to launch his book and note how you can adapt the same techniques for your product launch whatever the niche you are in.

#1. Facebook Business Page – With more than 800 million people on Facebook, this may well be the first step in building an audience for your product. It certainly was for GK. You can upload photos, videos and integrate your page with your blog as well as run competitions and sweepstakes. The quickest way to build a group of followers is through Facebook Advertising  which you can laser focus on your market demographic. Business Pages are not as flexible as websites, but implementing social features is much easier. [Watch out for the new FB Timeline Feature coming to a business page near you]

The way that Guy attracted visitors to engage with him and subscribe to his mailing list was to give away a PDF version of his first book, “The Macintosh Way”, to anyone who “Liked” the page for his new book – The rights to his first book had reverted to him, so there was no cost involved – You’re probably not in the same position so offer the first chapter of your book as the download or write a white paper giving people ‘the gist’ of the vision that drove you to create your product and why it’s relevant now.

GK’s budget for all this was $2,500 and he used Hyperarts to design his Fan Page but do a google search and you’ll come up with a myriad of alternatives. This, of course, does not include the graphics for the book cover or anything associated with your product graphics. The best place to get these designed is 99Designs.com where you can run a competition and choose the proposal that you most like for as little as $600.

#2. Website [or should that be blog?] - GK took 2 months to add content about his book to his site – a mistake to wait that long in my opinion – The goal is to make your site the centre of your social media marketing network and not to overwhelm your Facebook page with tabs by relying on it alone. Provide your bio, pictures and info/links so people can go to Amazon’s Kindle store or iTunes and download the digital version of your book or pop round to their nearest store to buy the hard copy edition.

No matter how many people are on Facebook,they are not there all the time and there are just as many who aren’t at all. The great thing about building up your own site is that YOU own it. You just ‘rent’ space on Facebook who have a habit of  unilaterally make major changes with little warning to users – that’s you – The lesson here is that while a Facebook Business Page is worth the investment, its flexibility and capacity are limited AND things can happen that you have no control over… and do, regularly.

His goal was to make it as easy as possible for people to get hold of his book or review the first chapter or better still, buy it. Attract visitors to your site by posting engaging articles about your book and what inspired you to write it then add pictures, videos, testimonials and reviews.

Guy supplemented his page with photos of enchanting people, places and things to provide a subtle reference to the title (Enchantment). He spent another $2,500 on creating the site from scratch but if you already have a blog creating a landing page will cost a fraction of that.

Another good idea is to approach fellow bloggers in your niche and ask them to review your book or offer to write a guest post for them. Carefully target the blogs that are most relevant in the lead up to your book launch or product launch. Follow them on Twitter. ‘Like’ their pages on Facebook. And comment on their posts in a friendly way.

GK added audio and video because he does lots of speaking engagements so had a library ready made to choose from. These are powerful tools because they offer your prospects another way of connecting with you and getting to know you better. What you write builds confidence and positions you as an authority. Adding audio allows people to consume your content on the move. Adding video lets them see your body language too.

They are also easy for your blogger friends and fans to embed in their sites when doing a review. if you’re going to do live action video, expect to pay about $1500 just for the videographer. On top of that you want to pay an editor to make the best of your raw footage. The best place to start your search is Elance.com or Odesk.com which are both rich sources of expertise that you can put to work on your project. But don’t forget, your goal is not Hollywood movie style production values. Your community is interested in YOU and what YOU have to say…

#3. Review Copies - For someone who already has an established reputation and a publisher, like GK, 100 to 200 galleys/books will be sent to reviewers. This is the conventional route to sales but ‘Enchantment’ was launched using social media marketing. A free review copy was sent to any of the 20,000 bloggers whose RSS feeds are aggregated on Alltop.com – Guy Kawasaki’s site -. Just over 6% responded and duly received their copy.

That’s whats called going wide rather than deep. Covering such a wide spectrum of markets may work for the well known but you’d do better tightly focusing on your niche. You can use software like buzzstream.com or ecairn.com to do this across a number of different platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.com. You can then keep track of all your contacts and where you are with each one.

Your goal is to do as many video interviews and/or webinars as you can to help promote your book or product to their audience in the lead up to launch day.  All told, the ‘Enchanted Campaign’ sent out approximately 1,600 copies for review and scored about 150 interviews and 200 reviews in the lead up to their launch. Doing this builds buzz. It’s what I call the ‘ignition phase’ of your product launch.

The cost for this campaign was about $16,000 at $10 per book sent but that does not count the subscription to your CRM software. Don’t be frightened off by this number. You can achieve very much the same results for your launch at 15% of the cost as long as you have a digital product.

Make sure you link to the best reviews from your blog. This social proof will help the waverers get off the fence and find out more AND drive traffic to your reviewers sites. That’s a good way of saying ‘thank you’ to your reviewers for their time and generosity too.

As GK says “Don’t focus on only the A-listers — “nobodies” are the new somebodies in the flattened, social networking world we now live in. You never know who’s going to make your product “tip.”

#4. Email - Steps 1,2 and 3 are all designed to attract subscribers to optin to your launch email list. The more people on your list the better because  you can engage with them just by pushing send. Your auto-responder statistics will tell you exactly how you are doing. You’ll know who opened your mail. Who clicked on which link AND you’ll be able to segment your list accordingly. Being able to measure all this, tells you exactly how well your campaign is doing and helps you refine your subject lines and your copy too.

Note: Your strategy here is to create mail sequences designed to build excitement by giving away great content. These are NOT marketing messages. Cage your urge to sell.

On launch day, the day that ‘Enchantment’ hit the stores, 160,000 emails were sent out driving people to buy the book. Of these, 3.75% clicked through to the order page. That’s a great CTR.  Building a quality pool of email contacts is clearly something anyone can replicate, but it takes time. Email may be old school, but it’s still the best plus it’s not expensive AND it’s effective.

There are lots of auto-responder services out there but Aweber.com is probably the best one to start with. It’ll cost you $10 per month at the outset

#5. Pay Per Click - I mentioned advertising in section #1 when talking about Facebook and to tell you the truth, this is where you should start. With Facebook Advertising. It’s a bit different to Google Adwords or PPC. Your are also less likely to lose your shirt on Facebook. The one drawback is that you cannot send people direct to a squeeze page hence the development of the Facebook Reveal technique.

You want to make sure that you change your ad every two or three days. Test different images until you find one that grabs people’s attention and boosts your CTR above 0.05% – the minimum acceptable level – and drives it up to close to 0.10% when you will see your – CPC – cost per click start to drop dramatically. You can actually buy clicks for 0.10cents or less. Something that is very hard to do on Google. And remember that you can reach out to your prospects on the move too using mobile advertising platforms like AdMob.com and Google’s equivalent. http://www.google.com/ads/mobile/advertisers/

If you don’t have a thorough grasp of managing PPC or mobile campaigns, take some time to get used to the process or better still hire a specialist. It’ll cost you money for sure but he will probably save you his fee by managing your campaign efficiently and get better results than you more quickly.

That’s what GK did. He didn’t understand PPC black magic – nor do I really – so he relied on David Szetela, a buddy from his Apple days who ran a six-week program on Google AdWords, Facebook ads and Twitter (Promoted Tweets).

Your concern is probably to make sure that you get enough traffic. Traffic is not not what you should focus on. You can buy as much highly targeted high quality traffic as you like. But if your landing page does not convert that traffic into sales or opt ins, you are in deep trouble. So test, test and test again and make sure that your page converts

The ‘Enchantment’ campaign was managed by Clix Marketing. You should be prepared to pay $5000 dollars on this item to give your marketing strategy a solid kick start.

#6. Contests, Competitions and Sweepstakes - Now we’re back to Facebook. Contests are a powerful way of engaging your community in the ignition phase of your book or product launch. Generate awareness for your book. Put your product launch in context. Competitions can do both these things.

GK ran a photo contest which supported the launch theme for his book. He used a Facebook app that enabled people to submit pictures in five categories, and a popular vote determined the finalists. He selected the winners. The prizes were five Nikon 3100s and an Apple iPad. That contest resulted in 1,150 entries, 35,000 visits, 70,000 entry views and 10,500 votes.

Facebook is a platform in which images and videos attract the most ‘likes’ so it was logical to use this medium in the campaign.  People love photo contests too. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to build buzz – Beware professional contestants and people who game the system – At the end, manually pick the winners and don’t depend solely on popular votes. Also be sure to take legal advice about contest laws where you live.

How much you spend on prizes is up to you but in this case study a few Nikon cameras and an iPad bumped up the costs by about another $6,000 in all.

#7. Quizzes – The quiz started as a final exam in the book so it was logical to take this online too. In this case so people could decide if the book was a good choice for them to read. The obvious place to start was Facebook where there are a wide variety of Apps to help you – just do a Google search – The kicker in this case and the big surprise in fact happened when the quiz was set up on the ‘Enchantment’ site.

Here are the stats… Approximately 700 people took the Facebook version, and 2,900 people took the standalone website version, even though it came out two weeks after the Facebook version.

If you can afford it – Electric Pulp were paid $3,000 to create the website version – You should seriously consider doing this. Facebook is not always the right answer to your questions.

#8. Infographic - You see these all over the web nowadays. They explain a complex report quickly and easily. A picture is worth a thousand words. An infographic communicates a lot in a little space. ‘Enchanted’ created one that was a complete overview of the book. Bloggers could and did embed in it their reviews so it paid off handsomely and helped the book to go viral.

This tactic is not used that often in a product launch but it’s well worth considering. You could get one done for as little as $1500. GK hired Column Five to do his.

#9. Graphics - If you think of your reviewers as affiliates which indeed they are if they have an Amazon account, creating badges, buttons and banners to help them promote your book on their sites is the least you could do. And is common practice in any digital product launch.

Add QR code stickers to the mix and suddenly you are able to drive off line folks straight to your site where they can find out more about your book or product from right there in the bookstore or corner store.

Put your QR codes on badges too and let your fans help you promote your book by wearing the link to your book’s Facebook business page or site

Make sure that you cross link all the sites and social media properties by placing these graphics on each one so you can push traffic to your money site – in this case for your book – In the first few weeks, there were approximately 100,000 impressions of the ‘Enchantment’ badges around the web.

Big Takeaway: People like to embed badges and wear them on their clothes so this tactic had a powerful impact.

#10. Wallpapers - Another innovative tactic that GK used was to create wallpapers. Apart from being used on desktops computers, people can add them to their smart phones and iPads. It’s a short step from here to twitter and youtube channel backgrounds. Guy Kawasaki didn’t expect many people to use them, but they did and the cost of having them created was worth it. Just $400.

#11. PowerPoint/KeyNote Presentations - Once you have created yours there is so much you can do with them. Make a video. Post them on slideshare.com. And of course, use them when you are making personal appearances or giving a keynote presentation. Don’t forget this powerful tool. If yours is slipshod, then people will judge you by that. if yours is creative and professional, people will associate those qualities with you and your products too. Don’t skimp on this. GK paid $3600 for his.

Click here to watch video

12. Thank You Slideshow - This was  attach of genius. One that is truly appropriate in a social media marketing world. GK asked his friends Brad Jefferson and Andrew Jacobson at Animoto.com to create a ‘thank you slideshow’ for the team behind his book. For the small amount of trouble involved in collecting pictures and laying them down to a music track, expressing a very public and heartfelt thank you to everyone involved in your product launch pays huge dividends down the line. It’s worth every penny!

Conclusion - While Guy kawasaki’s launch was built around his new book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, you can apply these ideas to almost any product launch. Of course, the costs will vary and can be reduced to a shore string budget if you are prepared to put in the hours yourself and shop around for good deals.

Just remember that perfection is paralysis so it’s better to pay an expert to get a vital piece of your launch done rather than do it all yourself. That’s solo-preneur thinking that will ultimately hold you back. Speed to market is everything in this fast moving world so get it out there by doing a product launch optimised to achieve this and budget accordingly. Take a look at this cost/benefit analysis for more…

Are you planning to use social media marketing in your product launch ? What was the biggest takeaway for you in the ‘Enchantment’ launch? Leave a comment below and give it your best shot…

If you want to be the best, study the best then imitate what they do and how they do it but first find out why. Without meaning, your research will be wasted.

You may love him or hate him. Whatever you feel,  you cannot deny that Steve Jobs made a major impact in the worlds of technology, film, music and marketing but you may not know that the  man who penned the Apple 3 marketing mantras was someone else altogether. It was Mike Markkula who was the first big investor and chairman of Apple Computer Co. He was also a kind of father figure for Jobs.

Here are his three marketing mantras…

#1.  Empathy - “We will truly understand the needs of our customers better than any other company”
#2. Focus - “In order to do a good job of the things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities”
#3. Impute - “People really DO judge a book by its cover. You may have the best product, of the highest quality or the most useful software but if you present it in a slipshod way,  your prospects will perceived it as slipshod; But if you present it in a creative professional manner, you will IMPUTE its desired qualities.“

So what does this mean to you?

Knowing your customers’ feelings, their needs and their attitudes better than any one of your competitors allows you to engage them more strongly and just as importantly, encourages them to identify with you. They will see you as a friend because you are able to express the same emotions as they feel. Whether that be about the big game or a particular product or service does not matter. What matters is that you are voicing their opinions – talking their language – and identifying with their vision of themselves.

People buy products because they see them as an extension of who they are

If you are in a position to eliminate unimportant opportunities, it means that you have a vision. You know WHY you are in business. You have a purpose. You have identified a common enemy – One that  your prospects feel strongly about – that puts you right beside them facing him. You stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them. You are part of the community which you serve. And you are their leader. Their trusted adviser. The one that they turn to synthesize the meaning and the impact that changes in your world will bring. The one with the strategy that will make the most money out of the opportunity that is on offer

A strategy is not a plan. A plan is linear. A strategy is fluid. It allows you to vary your tactics to handle the challenges you face on the ground as they happen. Making sure the people in your small business understand your strategy and really ‘get’ it empowers them to take their own decisions without your input. They can select the opportunities that will get everyone closer to your goal and reject the ones that won’t. It gives them focus

And the missing mantra?  That elusive 4th principle…

Jobs was a stickler for how his products looked. Not just on the outside but on the inside too. He knew that Apple outlets had to reflect this same elegant and simple design philosophy. The glass and steel shops or should I say shrines that Apple builds, put their products in the right context.

So Context is #4 – “Put your products in the context of larger developments in society”

It is just as important in your product launch marketing as it is in Apple’s.

You want to prime your market. Prepare your community for the pre-launch to come with an ignition sequence built round your blog and your social media platforms. Here are three key drivers of context

1. Technological Developments
2. Social Trends
3. Economic Reality

Explain how these three drivers are impacting their lives or their businesses for the worse or will do so and they will understand why your product is relevant now more than ever. Show them how it will hurt their vision – and yours – if they ignore these trends then provide the answer that, by now, they are excited to know more about. Use social media marketing to do it

They are ready for your pre-launch sequence.

Take these three marketing mantras as penned by Mike Markkula and put them to work in your business and more particularly in your next product launch. They served Steve Jobs and Apple well in theirs. And they will do the same for you too…

Have you read “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson? What was the one other big takeaway for you and why?  Leave a comment below and tell us what you think…

“The value of the web economy in G20 countries will nearly double by 2016, according to Boston Consulting Group. Driving the spurt from $2.3tn (£1.5tn) to $4.2tn (£2.7tn) will be the rapid rise of mobile internet access. The study, supported by web giant Google, assumes that in four years 3bn people will be using the internet, or nearly 50% of the world’s population”

That quote came straight from the BBC who went on to say that the rapid fall in the cost of smartphones – with cheap versions now costing about $100 – means that by 2016 about 80% of all internet users will access the web using a mobile phone. That does not include feature phones or tablets like the Ipad or Kindle Fire

Impressive as these numbers may be, they still only represent 4.1% of the total size of all G20 economies so the upside is still large to say the least.

The Boston Consulting Group point out that web access will not be a luxury any more. The majority of web users will live in emerging markets (within four years, China is expected to be home to 800 million people using the internet; that is more than the United States, India, France, Germany and the UK taken together) and about 80% of all internet users will access the web from a mobile.

These are highly reputable sources sounding a warning bell for those small businesses who have not woken up to the challenge that this massive shift will mean to their very survival. Paul Zwillenberg of BCG says that entrepreneurs building a digital business are outperforming rivals who do not embrace the web economy.

They need to grasp the fact that the web which was once one big amorphous mass is splintering into different ecosystems with Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google leading the charge in the west and with Baidu and Tencent dominant in China.

Once electricity had a massive impact on people’s lives bringing list where there was darkness and heat where there was cold. Whole industries were transformed and new ones created and yet no-one talked about the ‘electricity economy’ as we talk now of the ‘web economy’ which is having a similar impact on our lives and our businesses

Five years ago the iPhone and the iPad did not exist and yet today they account for 72 percent of total revenue for Apple. By 2020 the web economy will be so much a part of everyone’s daily lives that it will be regarded in much the same way as we look upon the use of electricity today.

The challenge that small business owners, that’s you,  face is one of re-engineering their whole business model to position themselves to take advantage of the opportunities that are being thrown up by this seismic shift without letting the tremors shake the foundations of what they have built to date.

The traditional marketing strategies that you have always used are losing their potency. You are faced with social media marketing, search engine marketing and many other web based marketing strategies yet you still have to sell your products every day to a demographic that is changing almost by the minute.

In short you are in a vice.

On one side is time or rather the lack of it. you have time to run your day to day business BUT add in the demands of learning the ins-and-outs of the web economy not to mention how to do one  product launch after another online add you quickly reach overwhelm

On another, you have to give your prospects and customers a reason to move from doing business with you offline to doing business with you online and on the move.

Have you found the answer to these questions? If you have, how have you focused your mobile marketing efforts? Please pay it forward by sharing your insights with the launch marketing community… Leave a comment below and tell us how you did it and why

US $116,000 per second.That’s what the big brands are spending on their Super Bowl Advertising…

And yet, iPhones and iPads account for 72 percent of Apple’s total revenue. Neither existed 5 years ago… Apple have just had their best quarter ever with net income greater than Google’s revenue for Q4

If you haven’t got the message yet, these figures should tell you something very clearly

1.  In the last 5 years, Apple has reinvented itself as THE supplier of smart mobile devices.
2. Pretty soon 50% of connections to the internet will be made from mobile devices
3. PayPal expects to see $7 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012.
4. If you haven’t integrated mobile into your marketing strategy already you are in danger of being left behind as the mobile revolution gathers pace…

You still have a little time but the last few are pushing to get on board. These people will be in the vanguard. The next group will be playing catch up…

The quickest way for you to jump this queue is to get hold of Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner’s new book
- Go Mobile – released just in time for the Super Bowl next week. You’ll learn how to leverage the explosive growth  in this new marketing channel and put it to work for you

Meanwhile, advertisers will spend about $3.5 million trying to grab the attention of the 100 million+ people expected to watch the game. And virtually all of these spectators will have a smart phone in their pocket.

This then is the perfect time for a small business to take advantage of the advertising spend made by the major players by implementing their own mobile marketing strategy at a tiny fraction of the cost of the big brands

Here are 7 ways to score some big points…

#1. QR Codes - Everyone wants a bite to eat in the lead up to the big game so put QR Codes to work for you by going to Kaywa, QR Stuff, or QuikQR (to name a few). Produce one for Giants fans, and one for Patriots fans. Then print them on to stickers and slap one on every pizza box that leaves your shop. Stick them on fliers, business cards, menus. In fact any promotional material that you have had printed for your business.

When customers scan the code make sure they go straight to a landing page on your website where you can offer them a coupon for a game-time special in exchange for their name, email, and maybe even their phone number. Boost excitement some more by running a sweepstakes for everyone who subscribes and tweets about it to their network. Prizes are up to you but could include the ‘chef’s special’, dinner for two, a two for one offer on  your hot selling widget or, well, you choose…

To add that extra spice to the impact, treat your QR code code campaign as a product launch by engaging your customers with a social media marketing teaser campaign. Ask questions about previous super-bowl winners, famous players and game winning events…

#2 SMS - Text messaging is universal so make sure that you include this tactic in your Big-Game Marketing strategy. And, at the same time, be careful to be respectful of how you use it. Time sensitive news is a good use so now you have collected mobile phone numbers using the QR code tactic, make use of them as part of your product launch by asking your subscribers to predict the score at half-time and full-time. Then announce the winners to one and all.

#3. Twitter Campaign - A tweet is 140 characters long for a good reason. Twitter founders, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey designed the platform to be used by people on the move. So make use of it in your mobile marketing strategy. Set up lists of useful services needed by people going to the game [don't forget to add yourself to each one] Create another two lists, one for each group of fans. Respond to tweets in your stream about the game. Take your quarter by quarter scores game and tweet about it. Not forgetting your  QR codes sweepstakes competition either. Tweet about game-changing plays (interceptions, fumbles, missed field goals, etc.) then invite everyone over to yours after the game for a massive tweet-up

#4. Facebook - This is the perfect platform to run a competition or a quiz or a sweepstakes. There’s an App for that. Go to Lujure, Rafflecopter or Wildfire for more details. Engaging your community like this is adds to the fun for everyone involved. This year Madonna is booked to perform the half-time show so that’s a perfect excuse for a you ask everyone to rate her performance out of 10 and compare it points wise to other great shows from the last 5 years.

People can access your Facebook business page from their smart phones and play from inside the stadium. Then post Madonna’s score in a blog post on your site, email everyone and announce the result on your FB page. Ask people if they agree or disagree. Stir up the discussion and join in from time to time.

#5. Email – No launch would be complete without a sequence or three of emails. Create one sequence to support your sweepstakes campaign. Another about your social media teaser campaign. And a third telling the story who thinks who is going to win and by how much. All in the run up to the game. Then rinse and repeat after the winners have been declared and the tweet-up is over, thanking everyone for getting involved and saying how much you enjoyed it.

#6. Mobile Website -  The best is to have your existing site optimized for smart phones and slates
like the iPad but failing that you can go to mobisitegalore.com and set a mobile site up in less than 60 minutes. They’ll even host it for you. Create one page for each of the promotional tactics that we have covered so far. Integrating all these tactics so that one platform is driving traffic at another is the way to play it. Then you can focus your efforts on maxing out the engagement you get. Staying focused and driving deep will get your the most yardage from your cmapign especially if you treat the whole thing as a product launch aimed at boosting footfall or engagement with your brand

#7. Mobile Apps – A word of caution here. Businesses are creating vanity Apps left, right and centre and not getting the ROI they expected. According to analytics firm Localytics,  26 percent of apps downloaded last year were only used once. which just goes to show that if you go down this road, you have to follow through by treating your App as a new product that you should build a launch marketing strategy round.

Taking all the other 6 tactics into account that we’ve discussed, you may decide to pass on this for the big game but if you’ve already had an App built this is a perfect time to leverage game to do a product launch for it.

Make sure that you design a teaser campaign using Facebook and Twitter as we’ve talked about then give everyone who downloads your app on Game Day some kind of perk; Add a bonus for existing users who log in and use the app during the game. That way they don’t feel left out. Then, take some of the competition/quizz/sweepstake ideas discussed and apply them to your App launch. Announce the winner after the dust has settled on the closing ceremonies, and don’t forget to send a text or email to everyone who participated to say thanks the next day.

With the big brands drawing everyone’s attention to the super bowl by spending big bucks, you have a great opportunity to leverage the occasion to market your business for all your worth and at the same time engage your community through the use of social media and mobile.

Have you launched a mobile super bowl marketing campaign ? Do you have an App ? What’s your #1 tip to anybody considering adding mobile to their marketing strategy?

Pay it forward and share your experiences with all of us … Oh, and enjoy the game

Do you want to add value to an existing physical product?  Do you offer a service and wish to leverage your expertise to boost your income ? Or is your goal to make the most out of your most prized asset, A lifetime’s experience?

Then the most profitable way to do that is to create a digital product… One that you can bundle into your existing offer and in so doing differentiate yourself from your competition… Or one that will stand alone as an additional offer and in so doing will expand your circle of trust and strengthen your positioning as THE trusted authority to do business with. Whichever is most applicable to you, you want to make sure that you first decide how to appeal to your prospects aspirations…

Here are 4 ways…

#1. Appeal to their sense of self – Do your prospects aspire to be respected? To be differed to as an expert? A source of good advice? A trusted and senior figure in their market? Then the identity based model is for you. You want to teach them to be that person.

#2. Appeal to their desire to implement a simple system – When I first met my celestial navigation instructor, he said ” I can teach a monkey to do this, Rory, so you should have no problem at all” Now, however you take that the point was that he had a system that made a complicated subject easy to understand. Do you have a system? One that will transform a complicated process into a simple step by step process? One that will act as a template that cane be pulled out and used repeatedly?  If so then this product type is for you…

#3. Make it easy to achieve a goal – These are ‘how to’ products. How to get #1 Google rankings in 5 easy steps. How to manage your social media marketing in 20 minutes per day. How to outsource your life. A good example if this genre, is the ‘4 hour work week‘ by Tim Ferriss which is all about outsourcing repetitive tasks and just doing the value added work that people will pay top dollar for.  If you can inspire people to think differently and achieve their goals in the same way then #3 is for you.

#4. Appeal to a higher purpose – Some people are not interested in the every day. They are passionate about making life better for the 99%. Is your prime goal to reinvent life as we know it. Then this is your category of product, however loath to call it that you are. You have to make people an offer. You have to give them a reason to join your movement. Maybe you even have to appeal to their idealism. However you chose to describe your mission, the fundamental fact is you want to put together a marketing strategy and launch your book.

The most effective of these four is to appeal to people’s sense of self  or their desire to implement a simple system that will make their lives easier. Using this strategy to decide how to approach your community will set the whole tone of your product launch. it must be congruent with your vision and will help you answer your prospects’ first question … “What’s in it for me?”

Are you using a different model ? Which one ? Why did you choose that one ? Do you have a key tip to share?

Please be kind and leave a comment for the rest of the Prolaunch community below… Why? Because you guys ROCK!

I was staying with Adele, a friend who lives in Roussillon, France over the weekend. She wants to launch her own small business. Her plan is to take select groups on wine tours in the area visiting artisan wine makers whom tourists never normally get to meet.

A quick visit to Trip Advisor will tell you that wine tourism is a growing market. You can visit the big Chateaux in Burgundy, Champagne or Bordeaux in large groups but her idea is to keep things small and exclusive by offering a personal service. She’ll pick you up at the airport, drive you to your hotel or gite and accompany you on your very own custom-designed  tour.

She has specialists knowledge of the area. Her family have lived in the same village for generations. She’s passionate about wine and she speaks perfect English. She is just the person a very discerning wine tourist is looking for.

Are you an expert? Do you have specialist knowledge and experience? Are your passionate about one particular hobby? And/or do you have a highly sought after skill?

If so, then this post is just for you. You could be passionate about herbal medicine, organic gardening, keeping chickens or training horses to compete in dressage competitions. These are micro-niches that can and do earn people an income [sometimes and 6 figure one at that]. The more specialist your knowledge the more likely that there will be a community out there wanting to learn from you.

You can reach out to any country in the world from the computer on your desk so if there are 5000 world wide Google searches per month for your subject there is a market out there waiting to be tapped.

So here are the 11 tips that I gave Adele…

#1. Research The Competition - The fastest way to find out whether there is a ready market for your business idea is by finding out whether anybody else is in the same market. If you have competition, that means there’s money to be made. If you cannot find any, be deeply suspicious. It is highly unlikely that your idea has never been thought of before. Competition is good.

#2. Define The Difference - Now you know what your competition is offering, it won’t take your long to analyse what is common to them all and how each one differentiates themselves however slightly. Your job is to put your finger on the one thing that none of them are doing that they should be doing. This ‘difference’ will become your big idea.

#3. Play To Your Core Strengths - what are you good at? What do you love to do? And just as importantly what do you hate doing? Doing a SWAT analysis of your core strengths is essential. Your business idea has to play to these. It is these that you will apply to your ‘difference engine’ to set yourself apart from the other players in the market.

#4. Define Your Avatar - This is a crucial step. Through your research you want to build up as complete a picture of your ideal client as you can. This will of course include their demographics – [age, education, sex, marital status, salary and geographic location] These are just statistics. You want to dive deeper. You want to know their attitudes, their concerns, their hopes and dreams, their likes and dislikes. Your aim is to create a collage that builds up into a complete picture of someone. Someone you can give a name to.

#5. What’s your big idea - With steps one, two and three complete, write down your big idea in 140 characters or less. This is your value proposition. It expresses what you do for your clients that no-one else does. It has three distinct parts.

- The power phrase
- The benefit
- The enabling phrase

Adele’s could be “Guided visits to artisan Roussillon wine makers in select groups of 10 or less | taste little known fine wines | and enjoy sights tourists seldom see”

That sums up what she is offering her prospects in a nutshell. [note it's not about her, it's about what her guests will experience] People will instantly ‘get’ what’s in it for them so Adele can follow up by telling her launch story

#6. Your launch Story - Now you have your prospects attention, you want to build excitement by telling them your story. Adele’s will quickly cover the story of her village and her family’s association with it which goes back generation upon generation. And how she became passionate about the wine produced by small local vignerons. She will go on to talk about the varietals of grapes used in the area and how most are cultivated organically [this will appeal to the wine buff's inquisitiveness and build their thirst to know more] Then she will talk about how these wines accompany the local produce cooked in small restaurants known for their distinct fine regional cuisine – There’s more. Much more but you get the idea. She is stirring people’s interest and desire to enjoy the tours that she arranges. Her passion for her subject will flow onto the paper.

#7. Create Your Product Launch Marketing Strategy - Now she has the fundamentals clear in her mind, she can turn to communicating her message to her market. She may well choose to set up a blog so she can post regular articles on the local wine scene, the restaurants she has discovered, recipes she cooks. She will make sure that she includes the photographs that she has taken and videos she has made. This will be the center of her web of influence.

Then she will make sure she becomes a regular commenter on the major travel forums. She will answer questions and help people by solving their problems. She will do all this without any thought of being paid. She will cage her marketing messages and just focus on building up the widest circle of influence she can. In doing all this, she will become recognized as a trusted authority. Someone to turn to for unbiased advice.

Building the triangle of trust [credibility, like-ability and Respected authority] will position herself in the market and attracts potential clients

#8. Blow Away Preconceptions - In any market, people have fixed preconceptions. These might have been true once. Or they might simply be myths that have been accepted as true. Or they might be plain wrong for 1000 different reasons. You are the expert. You know your market better than anyone so this presents a golden opportunity for you to write a report and publish it as an ebook. Make it available on Amazon’s Kindle Book store and on Itunes. Then do a product launch for your book using the social media channels you have established a presence on.

Note that you want to stick to your main goal in this ignition phase of your business which is to strengthen your positioning as the trusted authority and broaden your circle of influence as much as possible.

You will have to put a price on your book on the Kindle and itunes platforms so strongly consider your pricing strategy in the light of what comes next.

#9. Do Your First Product Launch - By now, you will have started to build up an email list so launch your book to them. Make sure that you add value to the written word by slicing and dicing the content into videos and podcasts. Add check lists and resource guides. Boosting the perceived value of your offer will allow you to multiply your selling price by a factor of 15 or more. Once you have done your beta launch – for that is what your first product launch is – and refined your sales funnel, your copy and your offer, it’s time to do your second and then your third. Stacking launches like this compounds the power of the momentum that you build up and has a similar effect on your bottom line

#10. It’s All About Piling on The Value - Your prospects believed in you beforehand. Now that they have put their money down you have the chance to turn them into raving fans. The more perceived value that you can pack into your offer the better. Your goal is to under promise and over deliver in spades. Your new customers have to be so blown away by what they have bought from you that they are happy to recommend you to anyone and everyone.

Think about it – there are lots of online products that they can buy – but, they’re buying yours! Respect that. Embrace it. It’s the responsibility or every virtual entrepreneur to take care of their customers properly, not only so that they remain happy and content, but also to make sure that they sing from the rafters about how fantastic you AND your eBook or video course is. In the world of the social web, this couldn’t be any more important than it is right now!

#11 Your Product launch in Real Time - You can’t relax for long, sorry!!!

The day that you open your shopping cart and your product launch begins in earnest,  is THE day that your business could change for ever. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Social media plays a huge part in any product launch online nowadays. The importance of ‘being there’ to monitor feedback in real time, answer questions and thank people for supporting you cannot be understated.

Monitoring Twitter, Facebook and Google+ for people talking about your launch and product is massively important. Get involved and as always, embrace your community [regardless of what they are saying], help them, inspire them and motivate them by giving great advice without constantly pitching them to buy from you.
Conclusion – So, that wraps it up. If you’re in the process of launching, or thinking of doing a product launch or launching a small business like Adele, then I hope this post clarified the steps you want to follow, and perhaps even gave you an Ah-Ha moment

The fact is that you want to aim to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time AND deliver extra-ordinary value. Remember, there is only one YOU. This means your experiences and your opinions count to the people who have decided to follow you online. That personal branding is starting to pay off, isn’t it…!

Have you done a product launch? How did it go? What was your biggest takeaway ? Do you have a key tip to share?

Please be kind and leave a comment for the rest of the Prolaunch community below… Why? Because you guys ROCK!

Have you ever launched a new product that you expected  was going to be a winner ? Did it bomb?

Truth be told every small business owner or entrepreneur should confidently be able to put his hand in the air and admit that they have been horribly wrong about a launch in the past. I know I have.  I was convinced I had a golden eagle on my hands when in fact it was really chicken poop.

Why am I happy to say so so publicly?

Because I am happy to say that I have stepped outside my comfort zone and tried something new. Many well known brands have failed their way to their current niche dominance. Who can forget Qwikster, Netflix’s doomed spinoff DVD service? Or HP’s  iPad killer, the TouchPad. If you are not making mistakes, you are not pushing the boundaries. You will never find the lever that will transform your business into a jet propelled rocket ship

One of my mentors, Aaron Botzer,  said this to me ” Rory, you make too many mistakes BUT you’re the only damn guy doing anything round here, so carry on doing what you’re doing but remember, never make the same mistake twice. If you do, I know you are not learning from them”

With that backhanded compliment ringing in my ears, I have followed his suggestion as best I could

So here are 3 product marketing lessons, I would like to pass on to you…

#1. Look and Listen before you leap – This one comes straight from the genius himself. Steve Jobs famously never did any market research. He let other companies do that for him. He simply sat back and looked at his chosen market place and listened for cash registers to start ringing. When he found one filling with cash he knew he had a proven market. All he had to do then, was apply Apple’s core strengths – Engineering and Design – to the problem and reinvent the solution.

When you commit to spending time, energy and money on building out a new product, you want to be confident that you are not wasting your time. The one way of having that certainty is to take your idea to market quickly in its most basic value added form.

Method 1 – Buy some PPC advertising. What’s your click  through rate? Few or No clicks means that the market is dead

Method 2 – Invite your subscribers to join you on a webinar. How many turned up? Did they ask lots of questions? There is a message you want to listen to if there are lots of empty seats

#2. Play To Your strengths - You know what you are best at so focus on those strengths. If you have a proven market but are short of expertise then hire someone who can give you that edge. There are two types of people out there in the wilds. The generalist whose expertise is shallow but covers a wide range of subjects.  And the specialist whose expertise is deep but narrow.

By dint of necessity, most small businessmen are the latter. They are highly skilled in a very narrow niche. Entrepreneurs are cut from a different cloth. They see an opportunity and build a team of experts round them to exploit it. They have a broad knowledge of many business disciplines but know that they are not expert in any of them.

Are you playing to your strengths? Or are you holding yourself back by trying to master every detail yourself?

#3. Become The Trusted Authority In Your Market - Your business peers recognize you as an expert but are you a trusted authority in your market? Here’s the difference. An expert is well known within a very limited circle. A trusted authority is well known right across his market, in all the micro-niches round it and perhaps in other markets too which have nothing to do with his.

How do you transform yourself from being an expert into a trusted authority?

To become the trusted authority in your niche, helping your customers must be your passion. Do this by over delivering on value and under delivering on promises. Word then travels by word of mouth. You attract new prospects like a spring flower attracts bees. And because you are trusted, people are prepared to pay more for your products and services. They know that are going to have a brilliant experience. The risk of failure has been removed.

That’s why people are prepared to pay top dollar for a German car. Or lavish large wads of cash on eating in the French Laundry in the Napa Valley.  The experience is guaranteed. Even when things go wrong, they go right because the problem is dealt with quickly and effectively. Quality counts. So does value. Price becomes secondary

Small businesses have to focus on delivering golden eagles. They cannot afford to compete on price. That way lies certain death. Narrowing your niche so you are attracting the 20% of the customers with 80% of the money is the only strategy. Focus on this community. The one that instinctively understand what’s in it for them when you make them an offer.

Three simple simple strategies to ensure that your product launch is a success. Follow them in sequence and you will succeed.

OK, here’s what to do next… In the comments below tell me about how YOU are going to become or have become the trusted authority in your market… share your story!

If you’ve never done a launch before, I bet you’re sure that you have forgotten something or rather a whole host of things. No doubt you have resigned yourself to having some unexpected surprises. Every launch has its fare share of curve balls thrown at it. There’s no way that you can hope to execute what you might call a perfect launch. Such animals don’t exist.

They are like unicorns… a beautiful myth

To help you sleep at night, I put together this product launch checklist. It does not offer a guarantee of success. That will depend on the quality of your product. The value that you are offering. And how well primed your target market is. I’m sure that you understand that no amount of strategy and systemizing can transform chicken poop into gold eagle coins.

So with that said, here’s your check list [I have grouped then in blocks to reduce the overwhelm]…

#1.  What’s the goal for your launch - Have you defined that in such a way that you can easily measure it. You could say ” I’m going to make a million dollars” but how realistic is that if you have only just past the first $1000 in online income. Far better to set some more attainable numbers. How about … “I’m going to double the size of my list” or “I’m going to attract 10 joint venture partners” if you achieve those quickly, then set new bigger goals. As they say, if you are going to move Mount Everest, first you have to pick up a stone”

#2. Have you broken your launch down into stages - First comes your ignition sequence where you grab your market’s attention and pique their curiosity. Then comes the pre-launch sequence with its three online events – webinar or video, you chose – The penultimate stage is your launch. This is when you open your shopping cart and appeal to your prospect’s lizard brain by popping some hot buttons. And finally, there’s your launch stick sequence where you follow through after your cart closes to make sure that buyer’s remorse does not kick in and result in a  flood of refunds

#3. What’s your timeline -  for the ignition sequence, pre-launch, launch and launch stick sequence? Did you put all that down in a spreadsheet with dates in the left hand column and actions on the right plus the list that you’re going to send it to. Does it look realistic?

#4. Who else is involved in your launch? OK… you are a solopreneur. You’re doing it all yourself. But that does not mean, you can do your launch in a vacuum. There’s your bank account manger, your merchant account manager, your customer support person – that could be your VA – Oh and by the way, did you give that person a list of questions that they could be asked and the answers? You want to make a list of all the people who could be impacted by your launch even in the smallest way and make sure they are all on the same page.

#5. Have you fixed your online pre-launch events on the best days of  the week -  This is common sense but you want to think about this in the context of your launch timeline. Fixing the dates of your launch – that is when the shopping cart is open – and working back picking the best days of the week to do your live launch events is best. These are the priority building blocks around which your email sequences must fit.

#6. When do you reach out to your list? Have you tested your email copy? What’s the open rate like? Or even more important… Are your people clicking on the link?  Do you plan to segment your house list? Have you tested your lead magnets? Which one converts the best? Have you tested your email headlines with a quick burst of PPC advertising? That’s just 7 questions on your emails that you want to address before you even start thinking about pushing the send button on the first one, the shot across the bows… Oh and here are a couple more… Are you offering the option to people to give you their mobile numbers? And does your autoreponder service cover a multitude of platforms from email to social media to mobile ?

#7. When do you reach out to JVs and affiliates – OK, I admit it. This is a trick question. Getting your affiliates to commit to promoting for you happens right at the beginning of your ignition sequence. This is when you ask them to put your launch in their diaries. Don’t tell them what’s coming. Just them that something will happen and they should be ready for it. How do you plan to educate them? Will you run a contest? Who will manage it? have you written all the swipe copy for them to mail? What about the website that you promised yourself that you would build for them?  There’s a lot of work involved in a big product launch with an army of JV partners. In fact, it’s like running a second launch in parallel to the main one to your community…

#8. Have you tested all the technology - Having painstakingly stitched all your systems together, the very next action to take is to run a few dummies through the sales funnel. Did all the pieces flow together… the emails came in the right sequence… the credit cards all slid through the payment process without a hitch… ? And please make sure that the people testing this system do not include you. They are there to try and break it. You are just there to take notes and listen to their reactions. What you thought was intuitive might not make any sense at all to someone else

#9. If you are the product launch manager, which other skills do you need? OK… Don’t tell me. You’re doing it all yourself. How will you manage your time? There’s the videos to be scripted, shot and edited. There’s a whole raft of emails to write not to mention the other copy… like sales pages, blog copy, Facebook wall posts, tweets and don’t forget Google+ either. I’ve got news for you… Doing a product launch is a team sport
#10. What is your big idea – You could call this your USP or your value proposition. It’s designed to rock your community back on its heels and make your competitors sit up like frightened rabbits. Disrupting the market by reinventing the solution to an age old problem should be what you are all about. Putting your strengths to work to help your community is your goal. Express how you aim to do this in 140 characters or less and you will be golden

#11. Do you have a crushing offer - This has to re-frame your prospect’s thinking. Right now he is probably thinking of every reason he can why he should NOT buy. His lizard brain is trying to decide whether he should bolt right now. The moment he  hears your offer the coin has to flip. You want him to start asking himself … “How can I not buy this?” The risk of missing out has to far outweigh the cost of buying. That means you have to focus on bundling so much value into your offer that buying becomes a no brainer.

I’ve lost count of the number of questions that I have asked you. Each one is important.  Simply take those questions… and start answering them one by one. Start to dig into this Product Launch Checklist and add more as you go. The best way to handle this complex web of questions and answers is by using a mind mapping software like Mindjet Mindmanager and then importing that into Goalscape to make it graphically clear

When you’ve got all the pieces in their proper place in your mind, implementation is simple. Launch your new product ! Enjoy the buzz, enjoy the money, grown your lists exponentially and become the trusted authority in your niche. Explode your market. Get the power and respect you deserve.

You can do this…

OK, here’s what you need to do next… to burn this into your brain… Take action!

In the comments below tell me about how YOU are going to use the Product Launch Checklist.

Tell me what you think… and specifically, share your story!