New Product Launch Marketing Guide Part 4 – Website Content

We’ve learned a lot about launching new parts and accessories over the 17 or so years we’ve been in business, so we’ve put together a multi-part guide as a reference. This is the fourth article in our series, and its’ focused on publishing website content that supports a new product launch.

New Product Launch Step by Step

This is the fourth article in a series that address the seven key steps in the product launch process:

1. Competitive Analysis and Benchmarking
2. Developing and Testing Messaging
3. Pulling Together Essential Content
4. Web Content and Content Strategy (this article)
5. Generating Reviews and Testimonials
6. Awareness Advertising
7. Refine, Revise, and Retarget

It’s All About The Product Detail Page (PDP)

Most of the people who will buy your new product will learn about it on a product detail page (PDP), either on your company’s website or on a retailer’s website. This is because most consumers use either Google or Amazon to learn about products:

• Google typically shows “product listing ads” (aka Google Shopping ads) to anyone who searches for a product or product-related query
• Amazon is extremely popular with US consumers – even die-hard DIY’ers that buy the parts and accessories elsewhere – because most Amazon products have reviews

If your new product is going to sell, the PDP needs to sing. The ideal product detail page has:

• Great photos that build value in the product and help potential buyers visualize ownership
• A short description that highlights unique sales propositions (USPs)
• Essential product specs and attributes
• Video that builds value in the product
• Video and/or written installation instructions
• Customer reviews that include user submitted photos and videos
• An easy way for end users to verify product fitment
• One clear and obvious call to action – either “Add to Cart” if you sell direct to end users, or a “Where to Buy” button if you sell via dealers and distributors

Ideally, your website already has great PDPs, and all you’re doing is dropping the right content into the right slots.

Sales Pages Are Underutilized in Parts and Accessories Marketing

Because the PDP is so visible, a lot of manufacturers focus on making a great PDP and stop. However, a dedicated sales page (aka “landing page”) for each new product is a best practice. This is because awareness ads perform better when users are sent to a sales page rather than a PDP:

• PDPs don’t get people excited – they are very transactional, and tend to put users into a “Do I need this and how much is it?” mindset instead of a “This is cool! I want to learn more!” mindset.
• Sales pages provide more of the “Why?” than a PDP. If someone is comparing your product to the competition, you want them to understand why they should buy from you.

A good sales page is very formulaic. Above the fold, you need four things:

1. A headline/statement that conveys the product’s value
2. One great image or video that builds value in the product
3. A clear call to action
4. Social proof, like a testimonial or average review rating

Below the fold, you want all of the following:

1. Each of the product’s important features and benefits (this is where the messaging you developed and tested is really helpful)
2. Along with each important features/benefit, be sure to show a call to action
3. Showcase more social proof, ideally photos and/or videos from end users along with quotes from reviews (or additional testimonials)
4. Installation info – either illustrations with a link to download a PDF or (even better) an install video
5. Info about the company and why the product was developed
6. A list of frequently asked questions* with answers hidden inside an accordion (eg the user has to touch the question to read the answer)

Finally, once a sales page is developed, it should be tested, and re-tested as much as possible. Great sales pages are the result of an interative long-term process.

*To generate your list of FAQs, see the next section.

New Product Launch Content Strategy

Last but not least, it’s important to map out a content strategy for your new product launch. At Spork, we typically use the following strategy.

Send a press release, and share/showcase any positive press on social media. Press releases aren’t as popular as they used to be, but they’re still a good idea. Several auto industry publications repurpose press releases as content, as they’re easy to summarize and rewrite at scale. Most of the time a press release will generate little to no organic response, but if it generates a link to your website that’s great for SEO.

The press release should also be published to your company’s website, and then any mentions in any publications should be promoted on social media.

Generate short form videos and/or blog posts about frequently asked questions. Using a tool like AnswerThePublic, it’s easy to come up with a list of common questions people have about a specific type of product. Answering these questions via short form video and blog post is a best practice, especially if the videos and blog content reiterate your product’s unique selling propositions (USPs).

Showcase influencer and user submitted content. As influencers publish content about your new product, it should be showcased on your company blog and social media profiles. This helps the influencers grow while calling attention to the social proof that influencers provide.

Likewise, any videos, photos, or reviews that users submit should be showcased as feasible. Most of the time, this content is shared on social media only, but occasionally it can be used to generate a blog post or short form video.

Review and Next Steps

Hopefully you have great product detail pages for the new product, as well as a sales/landing page and a content plan for the next few weeks or months.

Also, if you don’t have a plan to get all the content you need, now is a good time to check in with stakeholders. We’ve worked on a few product launch projects where the stakeholders didn’t want to invest in video production (for example), and we were able to overcome that issue by explaining what content competitors are sharing.

The data from the bencmarking and analysis step of the process is all that’s needed; Once it’s clear that 80 or 90% of the competition has invested in an installation video (for example), stakeholders understand they need to invest as well.

Next, we’ll dive into securing reviews on new products to get them going.