How To Launch Products with Public Relations (PR)

Credit: DALL-E with editing from Golden State PR

Congratulations! Your product is nearly ready to launch. But you're wise and realize no one cares (right now). Don't f-ck up all your hard work with a sucky product rollout.

Public Relations (PR)--when effectively executed--creates buzz with the right audiences, sets the vibe and gives you the opportunity to retarget the crap out of them.

If you want my help launching your product, hit me up because that's kind of my thing. But, because I'm a generous Paul (and I want that sweet, sweet SEO), here are a few essential steps to "do" product launch PR.

PREPARATION

1. OBJECTIVES: What do you want to achieve? Brand awareness? Reach a new audience segment? Drive sales? Your goals will guide PR efforts. Each of these objectives requires nuances in your messaging, target publications/influencers and the requested action from the consumer. And yes, the answer is "all of the above" much of the time.
   

2. AUDIENCE: Arguably the most important part of this whole PR thing is knowing your audience. After all, you don't talk to your mom the same way you talk to your friends. Identify audience demographics, preferences, pain points, and where they consume information. Want Boomers? Try Facebook. Want younger people? Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Want smart/nerdy people? Tech websites and Reddit. So on and so forth.
   

3. STORY: Almost every successful product launch (and company) has a compelling narrative behind it. The best advice here is to be honest with yourself. Are you boring and like tinkering in your spare time? Own it, create marketing materials/messaging mirroring that vibe and share the sh-t out of it. Want to tell a story about how you're a reincarnated dragon who used to ravage medieval towns and this product is the result of a vision you had while burning down a city in Norway? Hell yeah, that sounds FIRE (eh, eh).
   

4. MATERIALS: Press people don't have a lot of time, very little, actually. Provide them with tons of juicy images, videos, product backgrounders, quotes, etc. This is why dialing in your brand story and creating materials that ladder into that story is so crucial to do first.
   

EXECUTION

1. MEDIA: Identify relevant media outlets, journalists and content creators in the audience segments you've already outlined. Find their emails online and reach out to them to let them know who you are, why you're reaching out and how it can be mutually beneficial for them to learn more about your product. The "art of the pitch" is something that can't be taught just in this blog post. Only scholars retain the sacred formula for a great email pitch.
   

2. PARTIES: Hosting a launch event is a great way to introduce a new product to press and content creators, if you have $$. I do this all the time for my clients. Virtual events aren't as flashy and sexy as in-person, but are convenient ways to disseminate information. In-person events are great for building deeper bonds with relevant journalists, but it's an added investment in both time and money to execute. This is part of why outlining the goals of the launch are so important.
   

3. REVIEWS: Product reviews are a great way to get the word out about the efficacy of your product and share the brand story. We will tackle the art of the product review in another blog post where we'll dive deeper into the do's and don'ts of this crucial, but sometimes precarious step in the PR process. It's easy to eff this up (cough Humane AI pin).
   

4. MEASURE: Track the PR metrics you give a crap about (again, why setting goals at the outset is so damn important.) Some like to see the volume of media coverage to gauge awareness, some like to monitor incoming website traffic, others affiliate performance, etc. This probably merits another blog post too, TBD on that.

Stay tuned for more insights and tips on effective PR strategies for tech and audio companies on Golden State PR’s blog. Thanks for sticking around. Hope you crush your day today and HIRE ME to do your product launch PR, you probably won't regret it.