New Product Launch Marketing Guide Part 6 – Awareness via Advertising

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 fifth article in our series, and its’ focused on building awareness for a new product with advertising.

New Product Launch Step by Step

This is the sixth in a series of articles 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
5. Generating Reviews and Testimonials
6. Awareness Advertising (this article)
7. Refine, Revise, and Retarget

Awareness Advertising Is As Cheap As It’s Ever Been

In the years we’ve been in business, we’ve seen a steady decrease in the awareness advertising costs. The reason? Social media.

Social media networks have steadily increased the amount of online advertising inventory while also improving ad efficiency. In 2008, for example, a $5,000 budget might have bought you 250k semi-targeted impressions on an automotive website with maybe 800 ad clicks. Today, that same budget buys 500k highly targeted impressions on Facebook/Instagram and at least 5,000 clicks.

And because Facebook and Instagram use AI for ad targeting, the people who see your ads in 2024 are very likely to be interested in your products. This is vastly different than advertising 15 years ago (or even 5 years ago), when a lot of the clicks on display ads were accidental.

Creative Is More Expensive, However

The drop in advertising costs is somewhat offset by an increase in the cost of creating ads. In 2008, most ads were a 468×60 banner image. Maybe that image was an animated GIF, or maybe you had a dozen different images you tested, but whatever you did creative wise was pretty easy.

Today, effective advertising requires video, and images, and multiple different headlines and descriptions. And because ads are so targeted, ad creative has to be updated regularly or impressions and clicks will drop off. In campaigns spending more than a few thousand a month, ad creative is often updated weekly.

The good news is that if you’ve been following our product launch process, you’ve been obtaining video and imagery you can use for advertising in a few ways:

• You invested in video production as part of pulling together essential product launch content, and you’ve got some good clips plus a full install video
• You’ve been sending product to influencers to review, and they’ve been uploading video to YouTube that you have permission to re-use
• You’ve been asking end users to upload videos and photos in product reviews
• You’ve also been asking end users to submit video to your company directly online

If so, you likely have what you need to put together some good awareness ads. If not, collecting photos and video clips is the very next step.

What About Building Awareness Without Advertising?

Before the rise of social media, it was possible to build awareness without advertising. Typically, this was done by pitching stories to popular publishers. But once YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter X, Reddit, etc. became the content consumption platforms they are today, everything changed. Automotive enthusiasts used to read their print copy of Motor Trend cover to cover or visit Jalopnik every day during their lunch break, but now they view all content on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and TikTok.

None of the social media platforms have an editor, so traditional public relations doesn’t work with them. Instead, the trick is to cultivate relationships with people who have a large following on these platforms and then get these people to talk about your product. We call these people “influencers” of course, and if you’re following our launch process you’re already working with them.

Still, as effective as influencers can be, they are not really “free.” They’re also not a substitute for advertising:

• Social media ads can be targeted based on real-time data…if a user was just looking at truck accessories on CarID and popped over to YouTube to watch an install video, you can target them with an ad for your truck accessory.
• Because of the constant creative updates, ads are always being tested and refined. As a result, they’re more effective than a long winded testimonial or oddly phrased endorsement from an influencer.
• Ads can showcase specific features and benefits in a way that gets the customer’s attention quickly and accelerates the sales process.

As great as influencers can be, awareness advertising is always a good idea.

Review and Next Steps

As consumers have embraced social media, awareness advertising has become more cost effective. The challenge is to constantly collect photos and videos to keep ads fresh. Sending products to influencers and repurposing their footage (be sure to get their permission) is one way to collect photos and videos. Another way is to ask end users to upload photos and videos in product reviews, or to share them directly with your company via website upload.

Once awareness ads start running, a lot of the work in the product launch process is done. The product has a comprehensive PDP and great sales page. All the messaging on the website and in the ads is effective. Influencers are trying out and reviewing the product, and reviews from end users are starting to roll in.

But before the marketing team moves on to another new project, there’s one step left: Refine, Revise, and Retarget.