The Complete Product Launch Checklist [8 Steps]

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Today I’m going to show you a complete product launch checklist. In fact, this checklist is one of the main reasons that our launches now consistently generate 6-7 figures in revenue.

So if you’re looking for an effective way to launch a new product, this checklist is for you.

Step #1: Build Your Audience

Here’s the truth: Before you launch any new product you NEED an audience. Period. Without an audience, you’re relying on luck or for your product to “go viral”. (Good luck with that)

But when you have an audience, you have at a group of people that are going to be interested in your product on day 1.

For example: When I first launched my YouTube SEO course, I sent the announcement out to my email list:

And because I already had an audience, we got a flood of sales on the first day.

To be clear: An audience doesn’t automatically mean your product will fly off the shelves. But it gives you HUGE momentum. Not only will your loyal fans bring in a handful of early sales, but they’ll spread the word about your product:

Now, your audience doesn’t have to be huge. Even a few hundred people will do. But you do need to have a group of people to actually launch to.

Step #2: Define Your Product’s USP

Next, it’s time to answer the question: “What makes my product unique?”.

Pro Tip: Hopefully you’ve done some market research and beta testing at this point. If not, I recommend getting your product into as many people’s hands as you can. This will help you refine your USP for your actual launch.

For example, The Roost was the first super lightweight, portable laptop stand.

And for people that travel a lot (like me) this product INSTANTLY stood out. Their copy also showed that they clearly did A LOT of customer research to figure out what appealed to people like me:

Your product doesn’t have to be groundbreaking for this step to work. In fact, our YouTube SEO course that I mentioned earlier is far from the first of its kind.

What makes it unique is that all of the strategies are packed as a complete system that anyone can follow.

Your USP can also be that your product serves a specific audience. For example, Convertkit’s USP is that their email marketing software is designed for creators.

Step #3: Plan Where You’re Going to Launch

Next, you want to figure out where your launch is going to happen.

Now that your new product is available, how are you going to let people know? Again, this is where an existing audience can be HUGE.

But if I was huge on Instagram, I’d focus my launch efforts on that platform.

Whether you have an audience or not, you can always spread the word about your new product using:

Even if you have an audience, you still want to tap into as many platforms as you possibly can.

Sometimes, if your product gets enough of a buzz, [it can go viral](/content/viral-marketing "Viral Marketing"/index.html) and start to spread on its own.

To be clear: I don’t recommend making “go viral” part of your product launch checklist. It’s more of a bonus thing that happens when you do everything else right.

Step #4: Build Anticipation

Most people announce and launch their product on the same day. And it’s a HUGE mistake.

Almost every successful product launch builds up anticipation BEFORE the actual launch date.

For example, Apple usually announces new products 6-10 months before you can actually get them in your hands.

And movie studios release teaser trailers way before the movie is set to debut in theatres:

In our case, we usually let our subscribers know that a new product is coming a day or two before we launch.

Step #5: Launch Your Product

Now it’s time for the fun stuff: launching your new product to the world!

You might be wondering: Why would the actual launch be part of a product launch checklist? It’s simple actually. There’s a big difference between your launch plan and an actual launch.

Specifically, you want to have all of this in place before you hit the “launch” button:

Then, during your launch, monitor, re-check, and tweak this stuff on a regular basis.

Step #6: Field Questions and Comments

This is a step that most other product launch checklists skip.

In my experience, 10% of people are loyal fans that will instantly buy your product. Another 10% just aren’t interested no matter what. And 80% of your potential customers initially fall into the “People that aren’t sure” camp.

Now: There are two ways to make sure that everyone gets their questions answered.

First, you can create a FAQ page that answers common questions.

Just answer questions that people have about similar products.

For example, when we first launched our YouTube course we had no idea what kinds of questions people were going to ask. But from launching other courses we DID know that people tend to ask the same questions about courses regardless of the topic.

Step #7: End Your Launch

Every launch campaign needs a start and end date. This doesn’t mean that you need to stop selling your product on the last day. But you do need to set a date in advance for the campaign to end.

Step #8: Evaluate Your Launch

So you just wrapped up your launch. Congratulations! Take a few minutes to document how it went. That way, you can setup your next launch to do even better.