The Role of PR in Launching a New Product: Best Practices and Strategies

Launching a new product is an exciting yet challenging endeavor for any company. The success of your launch hinges not just on how well you can create buzz, but engage with your target audience and differentiate your product from the competition. A thoughtful and well-executed PR strategy is crucial to achieving these goals and ultimately, can be the sales driver for your brand. In this guide, we’ll outline best practices and strategies for leveraging PR in the pre-launch, launch and post-launch phases to ensure your company breaks through the noise, attracts potential customers and establishes brand credibility.  

The Planning Phase: Building Out a Product Launch PR Strategy

As you get ready to launch your new product, the planning phase is arguably the most important phase of your PR strategy. A strategic PR plan doesn’t happen overnight – ideally, this process begins at least 6-8 weeks before your target launch date. So, what do you tackle first? Figuring out what your narrative will be. Developing a compelling narrative that highlights your product’s unique value proposition is key to breaking through the noise. Your narrative should be focused on how this product solves a bigger market challenge or need in a way that your competitors don’t. Addressing your audience’s pain points with clear and concise messaging ensures that your story resonates not just with your target audience, but with the reporters who cover your industry. Articulate why this news matters now and how your product solves challenges for your customers in a way that competing products can’t.

It’s critical to establish clear launch objectives before you dive into your specific tactics. This can include building and strengthening relationships with target journalists and analysts and generating media coverage, driving sales interest by positioning your product as a differentiated and preferred solution, and driving traffic to your website. Once you’ve determined your overarching objectives, it’s important to then set quantifiable, measurable KPIs that map back to them — this can include KPIs like the number of press mentions secured, press interviews held, tone of coverage and how well your product messaging is reflected in your launch coverage.  

Engaging with Media to Build Buzz

Once your messaging is finalized, it’s time to pinpoint the media outlets, journalists and influencers who are most relevant to your industry and target audience. This launch media outreach list is the backbone of your PR success. The best way to find targets? Read, read, read. Figure out what journalists have covered your competitors, similar products or topics.  Study their coverage to figure out the broader industry themes and trends that are most important to them. Crafting personalized pitches is key in media engagement – at Karbo, we always tell our clients that we don’t believe in a ‘spray n’ pray’ outreach approach. Reporters are receiving hundreds (if not thousands) of product pitches every day. The biggest mistake people make is making a pitch too promotional or self-serving. Demonstrate that you have read a journalist’s work and clearly outline how your product fits into the larger industry landscape they cover to increase the likelihood of your story getting picked up. 

Do everything in your power to make it as easy as possible for a reporter to cover. Consider offering embargoes to journalists 2-3 weeks before your launch date to give them ample time to meet with your executives and prepare their stories.  

Post-Launch: Measuring the Impact of Your Campaign

Post-launch, it’s essential to measure the impact of your PR efforts to understand what worked and what can be improved. Start by evaluating the quantitative metrics you set during the planning phase. Media monitoring services like MuckRack, Google Analytics and social media analytics platforms can help track these metrics. 

When analyzing the volume and quality of media coverage, it’s important to look at the tone and sentiment of the articles to determine if your key messages were communicated effectively. Analyzing the depth of the coverage can provide insights into how well journalists understood and conveyed your product’s unique value proposition. When evaluating website traffic, it’s always helpful to correlate traffic spikes with specific media placements to better understand what publications and stories are resonating most with your target audience.  

Partnering with an experienced PR agency makes all the difference in successfully launching a new product. Interested in learning how Karbo can help? Get in touch with our team at info@karbocom.com.