How to Plan Content for Your Product Launch

When brands launch a new product or roll out a product update, there’s a pretty standard slate of communications methods to rely on. Product collateral, email, social media, demo videos, advertising, press releases and events are all common product marketing tactics.

But what about thought leadership content like blog posts and white papers? Is your company tapping into these tools, and if so – are you doing it effectively?

There’s a place in product marketing for telling people what your product does; your thought leadership content isn’t that place. Of course, this doesn’t mean blog posts, white papers and other content marketing pieces can’t support your product launch.

As our guide Encouraging Awareness: New Tactics & Opportunities for Product Marketing notes, “Finding innovative ways to reinforce your message across digital, social and offline channels is critical to reaching new audiences and gaining the third party credibility needed for the brand.”

Ask these five questions to help plan effective thought leadership content for your product launch.

How will your content support the product launch?

The thought leadership content you create should tell the story around your product – the story of your audience, the story of your industry, the story of the revolution you’re helping to lead.

Because of this, your first step is to take a step back from the piece of content you’re creating and think about how it’ll connect to the other pieces in your product marketing strategy.

Are you looking to hit a spectrum of prospective customers with one piece of content? Or will you need multiple pieces of content to reach more targeted audience segments? Is the content going to be layered into the overall product launch, be published before to establish the conversation, or after to reinforce the conversation?

What is the call to action?

I know it seems like I’m jumping all the way from the beginning to the end; however, there’s a reason.

When we launched the Cision Communication Cloud a few weeks ago, there were four primary posts published across the Cision and PR Newswire brand blogs. The call to action in the first two blog posts directed readers to request a demo of the product. The call to action in the other two posts focused on a white paper published around the product launch.

Knowing what the calls to action would be helped me plan content that connected with each CTA’s theme.

The blog posts that promoted the demo requests were focused on connected communications and earned media’s coming tech revolution, both of which are key themes addressed by the product itself.

The blog posts promoting the white paper spoke to shifts in earned, paid and owned media, as well as how that has impacted communicators’ jobs, which are key themes addressed in the white paper.

While the thought leadership content you create shouldn’t be about the product, it must function to promote the product. Knowing what action you want your audience to take after reading your content will help you seamlessly unite your story with its purpose.

Who will author the content?

Unless your target audience is marketers, it’s less likely that your content should be authored by a marketer. This doesn’t mean you won’t be creating content or responsible for ensuring editorial quality.

You should be very much involved in the authoring of your content; however, it’s important that the content be primarily authored by someone your target audience will listen to.

That could be a member of your executive leadership team, a customer or brand evangelist, a product manager – the list goes on.

It’s up to you to identify, recruit and work with someone who has the expertise, credibility, and authenticity to connect with your audience. Look to the people whom your audience considers a respectable, knowledgeable peer.

What is the story’s angle?

Will the content tell a personal story? Or focus on data to make your point? Or tap into a challenge your product helps solve?

As with any other content you create, start with the audience you’re trying to reach. Look at what they care about and how your product messaging connects with those cares. This does mean collaborating closely with your product team to uncover those connections (Check out our content marketer and product manager teamwork tips if you need help).

Then decide whether you want to inspire, educate, entertain or all of the above. Pull out the themes that resonate the most and determine what sort of stories you can build around them.

What’s next?

In determining your angle, you may realize there are multiple to cover. Don’t try and fit everything into one piece. In fact, a series of pieces that focus on the different audiences impacted by your product can be more effective than a single post that satisfies no one.

Your product launch shouldn’t be one and done anyway. Look beyond the initial announcement and create an ongoing dialogue around your story. And with analytics, you can continue to improve on that conversation by paying attention to what people are saying about the product and how your previous content pieces have performed.

With the right content, you will inform and influence audience decisions along all stages of the purchase path. Download Encouraging Awareness: New Tactics & Opportunities for Product Marketing for more tips that will help you with your next product launch.

Author Amanda Hicken is a senior marketing manager at Cision, where she directs the demand generation content strategy for PR Newswire’s and Cision’s blogs. She believes the key to successful content is balancing creativity, analytics and commonsense. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter @ADHicken.

from Blogs http://www.prnewswire.com/blog/how-to-plan-content-for-your-product-launch-20145.html