If you’ve been running a Shopify business for a while, you’re probably familiar with launching a product. But do you do it justice or do you just throw up a new product and add it to your next story on Instagram?

If you’re not rinsing the novelty of having something new to buy for all its worth, you’re leaving money on the table.

I usually find small business owners are in 1 of 2 camps:

1) They launch a new product with 1 Instagram post, a couple of stories and one email and hope for the best

OR

2) There's a big build-up, sneak peeks, and countdown timer, drop it on the site and sit back waiting for the sales

Both of these are missing a key thing though...

The follow up!

In October of this year, I coordinated a multi-five-figure ($30K+) product launch for one of my clients. They hadn't launched anything new for a couple of years, so this was a much-anticipated item. They also have a community of die-hard fans and at the time had around 8k subscribers on their list.

Here's how we did it.

Step 1: Build hype

This is easily done on Instagram, "Hey this is coming...", but are you building hype by email too? Give them a sneak peek by email too to get your audience excited. You could blur out the actual product or send an email that says something new is coming, so get ready. You can do this across 1 or 2 emails, depending on the scale of the launch.

Step 2: Launch

Now that you've hyped everyone up it's time to let it loose into the world. Either reveal the product right in the email or make them click through to the website to see the new items with a CTA that's like "VIEW NEW DESIGNS NOW" or "SEE DESIGNS".

Step 3: Follow up

This is where I see a lot of brands falling flat. They launch and then forget this bit. Once it's launched, make sure you follow up with an email (could be text-only) that says, "I'm blown away by the response of last night's launch. Here's a breakdown of the features, why you loved designing it, what place it had in your range, how you're using it, etc."

Step 4: Follow up again

Think this is too much? It's not! Leave it for another few days and then drop back into their inboxes with something fun and engaging. Maybe it's a video of you showing the product/collection up close. If you have reviews, drop them into this email... even better if you have UGC.

For this brand in particular, this is the sequence we followed:

Email 1: Announced the date the item was dropping/"Mark your calendars"

I included a photo of the product since it'd been in production for years and the audience knew it was coming thanks to sneak peeks on Instagram

[7 days later]

Email 2: Be the first

This email outlined the 2 products that would be in the launch and more details about them. Reminded them of the date and this time I added the time of the launch.

[3 days later]

Email 3: The launch

Short and sweet. Here it is, get it now.

[the next day]

Email 4: Holy smokes

The plain text founder email that says, you guys really showed up for us last night. If you didn't get yours yet, here's the link again.

[5 days later]

Email 5: Reviews

As I didn't have product-specific reviews about this item. I picked general reviews that highlighted the key qualities of the brand.

After that, regular service resumed 😂 but I made sure there was a banner at the bottom of the next emails that reminded subscribers "XX just landed, get yours".

The results of this launch were staggering, not just from a sales perspective but 70%+ Open Rates, 11%+ Click Rates when we emailed their entire list. That's the whole point of keeping your list warm using engagement segments.

Failing to launch? If you're looking for more tips and ideas for planning your campaigns and who to send them to, this masterclass is the thing.👇