Launching a new product or service is exciting, but really stressful.
There’s a lot at stake.
Fail to turn enough heads, and you end up with a huge paid ads bill with no leads to show for it.
Or even worse, if you capture attention, but fail to position your product the right way, you run the risk of ruining that valuable first impression.
You see, the sad truth is that your customers have lots of other places to put their attention besides your brand.
The options are endless…
As marketers, this means we have to work that much harder to rise above the noise and make a lasting impact. Especially when we are putting out something new.
That’s why at DigitalMarketer, we chose a different route when it comes to launching the new.
We call it the Marketing Blitz Launch.
What is a Marketing Blitz Launch?
If you’re not familiar with a Marketing Blitz Launch, here’s a quick overview.
A Blitz Launch is a 7-day, multi-channel awareness campaign that points all traffic to a single “Big Idea” content piece, which then drives leads to a relevant and urgent special offer.
Let’s break that down:
- 7-day, multi-channel awareness campaign: for the Blitz to work, you need your message everywhere; social, email, blog, and ads will all come into play.
- Points traffic to a single “Big Idea” content piece: much like a funnel, all your traffic will point to the same page. That way no matter where they come from, you customers will all see the same unifying content piece.
- Then drives leads to a relevant and urgent special offer: The urgency will help create buzz, and the small but relevant ask will help seal the deal.
Now that you know what a Blitz Launch is, let’s get into all the essential elements you need to build your own…
The 7 Elements of a Blitz Launch Campaign
Every Blitz Launch you run will have some version of these 7 elements.
#1 You Need a Big Idea
Before you can start building out your campaign, you need to nail down your big idea.
The big idea content piece will make or break your Blitz Launch. All the traffic you create will point to this one piece of content, so it’s got to be amazing.
You can present your big idea as a blog post, article, video, or even a manifesto of sorts.
Here’s what your big idea needs to make your customers do:
- acknowledge and accept a new reality/paradigm, and
- take a recommended action based on this new belief.
These “new realities” can take a few different forms…
- A New Revelation: Tell your customer something truly new. Just watch 10 minutes of the morning news and I guarantee you will hear about how some “new studies show that…” People are always looking for what’s new and exciting.
- A New Perspective: Give your customer a new way to look at something. Intermittent fasting is a great example of this. At the time, everyone believed that breakfast was the most important meal of the day… Then comes along a group of people saying “nah, it’s not, and here’s why…” It was a whole new perspective on breakfast.
- Confirm Their Suspicions: Tell your customers they were right all along. Political campaigns use this tactic often. If you can speak to, and amplify the thoughts and feelings of a group, they will follow you. If you confirm someone’s suspicions, it can sometimes be painful for them at first (after all, not all suspicions are good,) but it is a powerful way to get that person on board with your message.
Regardless of your “new reality” approach, your ultimate goal is to connect this new reality to a deep desire your customer has.
Then you need to create your call to action. This can be anything from asking people to subscribe to a pre-launch list, register for an event, or even participate in a survey/poll.
If you are going to ask someone to buy something, make sure it’s an entry-point offer that costs at MOST $50.
Free trials work great here as well.
Once you’ve written you big idea post, it’s time to build your campaign.
#2 You Need A 3-Part Email Series
We say it all time, cause it’s true y’all!
Email is not dead. It’s alive and well and driving over 85% of the traffic to our sales pages when we run offers!
That’s to say, you need to include email in your launch.
A big part in creating awareness and interest in your launch requires a degree of social proof. So, while it is important to acquire some new customers as a result of your launch, you should also be using your warm audiences as megaphones to share and amplify your message.
We recommend you build out a 3-part email campaign series devoted to this launch.
#3 You Need Paid Ads
Whether its Facebook, Google, YouTube, or LinkedIn, you need to have some well-targeted ads to build awareness.
The benefit of paid ads is that you can target the specific people you know will be interested in the product, and receptive of the big idea.
Ads are also great because they help get your brand out there and increase general awareness. Not only that, but by increasing traffic to your big idea, it will help increase the organic ranking for your brand.
Finally, paid ads are great because they help create opportunities to retarget your customer’s, so your big idea is seemingly everywhere!
#4 You Need a Video Sales Letter
Video is one of the most engaging and effective medium to promote your big idea and your offer.
It’s shown to create a huge increase in conversions on sales pages, as well as on ads.
But, you don’t need to waste time creating 18 different videos for your campaign.
All you need is 1 really great video sales letter (VSL) that you can splinter off a bunch of different ways.
#5 You Need A Pillar Blog Post
Another essential element of your campaign is a piece of evergreen blog content. This content will serve as a place to help drive the readers of your blog to your big idea page.
The great thing about a good blog post is that it’s easily shareable.
Remember what we said about using your warm audience as a megaphone for your message? Well, a well-written blog post with a shareable link will help enable just that!
When building out your blog post, make sure it’s evergreen content. That way the piece can live on, even after the promotion is finished.
#6 You Need A Promotional Banner
The right graphic can really help your audience connect and engage with your content.
That’s why we feel like a banner is essential to every Blitz Launch campaign.
These banners can be repurposed for blog headers, banner ads, home page banners, or even headers in emails and newsletters. By seeing a similar version of the same graphic, your audience will start to recognize your content and ads, which will help you rise above the rest of the noise online.
#7 You Need Some Awareness Assets
The first 6 assets are designed to drive people to the main big idea content piece. However, it’s always a bonus to have content out there that’s solely driving awareness (not necessarily a sale.)
Social media, video ads, newsletter pieces, and text notifications are great examples of awareness assets.
These little snippets can help introduce people to the big idea concepts and get them primed for the rest of your critical elements. You can use these elements to push people to the big idea page directly, or you could point them to your blog post or VSL page.
Launching something new feels daunting at first, but with the right big idea and a well thought out campaign, your Blitz Launch will help you gain the awareness and engagement you need to drive amazing results.
Want to learn more about how to build an amazing Blitz Launch? Check out this workshop, taught by our own Ryan Deiss and the team at DigitalMarketer.
