Set up your new product for success with these website optimization and strategy tips. Learn more here.

Website Optimization Tips for a Successful Product Launch

How to Optimize Your Website for a Successful Product Launch

If your brand is getting ready to launch some hot new products, you’ll want to do more than add a “buy now” button and some new images to your current site. Product launches are make-or-break moments for brands. The months (or even years) of planning and R&amp;D investment culminate into a single moment – when your product meets the market for the first time. 
If you want to ensure your product launch is a success, these best practices will help you <a href="https://cms.union.co/services/data-brand-strategy/conversion-rate-optimization">optimize your website for engagement and conversion</a> to minimize customer abandonment and maximize your return on investment.

Your team may be itching to drop in new photographs or copy blocks, but there’s one critical step you need to take before you start building out your landing and product pages. The number one stumbling block for many brands is launching a product on their website without a fundamental understanding of their customer.
Think about it. How will you know that you’re choosing the most appealing images or highlighting the features and benefits that matter most to your customer? Remember, just because you think a specific set of product features will be a critical selling point for your new product doesn’t guarantee your customers will.
To ensure you set your website is set up for product launch success, be sure to take into account these critical components:<h2 dir="ltr">Target demographic</h2>
Who is your product page trying to sell to? Do you have a firm understanding of the specific customer demographic that is purchasing your product? Now is not the time to abandon any research you conducted while developing this new product. Continue to leverage your understanding of your customer as you build out your product launch website presence. 
<h2 dir="ltr">Customer journey</h2>
Where a customer is on their purchase journey can significantly impact your website’s sales performance. Suppose your product launch marketing strategy consists of general awareness campaigns and messaging to new customers. In that case, your website may need to include more educational material to help guide a new customer through the consideration phase.
Likewise, if you’ve spent the past several months teasing your new product and building an audience hungry to purchase, you may be better served launching a streamlined site experience that drives customers to a specific point of sale.

Start with strategy

Even the most robust digital strategies can’t drive success if the underlying mechanics of your website aren’t optimized for conversion. Before you start driving customers to your new product, take the time to ensure the following technical aspects of your site are in working order. 
<h2 dir="ltr">Page load speed </h2>
A study by <a href="https://www.akamai.com/uk/en/about/news/press/2017-press/akamai-releases-spring-2017-state-of-online-retail-performance-report.jsp">Akamai </a>found that even a 100-millisecond delay in your page loading speed can reduce your conversion rates by 7%.
We all expect a page to load in a short amount of time. If pages take longer to load, your customers will assume the page is broken and move on to their next distraction. 
So, what are some common elements that impact your site’s load speed? 
<ul><li dir="ltr">Content (images/text/video)</li><li dir="ltr">Pixels/Third-party Additions</li><li dir="ltr">Server Setup/Hosting</li></ul>
There are tools out there that can determine your site speed (<a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/">Google PageSpeed Insights</a>) so that you can determine how long it takes your site to load. Also, pull out your phone or open your site on a desktop and see for yourself. 
<h2 dir="ltr">Test your cart across multiple devices</h2>
Between iPhones, Androids, tablets, desktops and laptops, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to your site’s design and check-out functionality. You don’t want to risk alienating shoppers who have an incompatible device. 
Check your Google Analytics (or other site analytics platform) to check which devices your audience is currently using to complete their purchases. Then make sure your new product’s launch experience is optimized to those preferences. 
<h2 dir="ltr">Check your hosting environment</h2>
Don’t let a sudden spike in traffic sideline your product launch efforts. If your current hosting environment is configured to meet only your typical traffic needs, it may not have the flexibility to account for the increase in site traffic that comes with a successful product launch. 
Before launching a new product, check with your hosting provider to ensure they can meet the estimated demand. Also, you can inquire about any penalties/contingencies that may be in place if you exceed your estimated traffic volume. Depending on their response, you may need to migrate to a different hosting environment before launching your product.

Optimize site mechanics

Now that we have a firm understanding of who our new product’s customer is and what drives their purchase decision. We also know that our website is technically set up for success. Now, we need to ensure that the content on the page is optimized to push sales.

Convert with content

Don’t make your customer work to figure out how to complete a purchase on your site. Prominent Calls-to-Action (CTAs), especially when launching a new product or line of products, will improve your conversions across all present and future products. 
Create clear CTAs across all of your product pages. Use eye-catching colors to stand out from the rest of the page’s design. Include concise, direct phrases like “add to cart” or “buy now” to ensure there’s no ambiguity on the next step you’re asking your customer to take.

Create clear calls-to-action

Your product launch needs more than a single, hi-res product image. A 2019 survey from <a href="https://www.salsify.com/">Salsify</a> found that US digital shoppers expect to see an average of six images and three videos when looking at a new product. How you visually introduce and represent your product can have a huge impact on your product launch’s success. 
Be sure to incorporate videos and images that tie directly into your target audience. If your product is geared towards a specific demographic, represent that demographic in your on-screen content. Likewise, if your product requires more education or a more in-depth explanation of its features and benefits, include videos or infographics that distinctly showcase that information.

Grab attention with compelling visuals

Hand-in-hand with your launch visuals, you need to ensure that your site copy aligns with your launch strategy. Headlines, body text, and bullet points should align with your customer’s key purchasing criteria as well as your launch advertising and marketing. 
While most shoppers are image-driven, copy plays a strong role in helping buyers understand your product and how it fits into their life. Good copy tells a story. Use language to communicate how your new product will improve the life of your customer. 
While you’re writing out your copy, be sure to keep your <a href="https://cms.union.co/services/performance-media/search-engine-optimization">SEO strategy</a> top-of-mind. What keywords do you need to incorporate? If part of your product launch marketing strategy is built on the assumption that your website or product page will receive a high volume of organic traffic, your site copy will need to be optimized to support this effort.

Align your site copy

Ready to launch your new product or product line in 2021, but not sure where to start or how to merge your website strategy <a href="https://union.co/articles/new-product-launch-strategy">with your social media strategy</a>? Let’s talk. We can help walk you through, step-by-step, how to successfully optimize your website to ensure a profitable new product launch. <a href="https://union.co/contact">Contact us today.</a>

Time to launch

Valtech + Union is a creative &amp; performance marketing agency that creates omni-channel campaigns, unleashing creativity on a data-driven world, helping brands produce memorable, measurable and repeatable results. Obsessed with data-driven performance, we believe every marketing dollar should be viewed as an investment. Our clients expect a meaningful return and we prove the ROI of our work with quantifiable data.

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