How to turn impactful products into lifelong profits using social media and organic marketing with Kate McDonald

On the podcast, I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the lovely Kate McDonald, a launch strategist business coach, and founder of Meant to Biz. Kate helps eCommerce businesses grow their profit through impactful launch strategies and today she’s going to share with us all her tips and tricks.

Why is launch strategy so essential for a successful product?

I want to uncover the misconception with launch strategy that we only launch once in our business, which is usually when we open the doors the very first time. But a launch strategy is something that we should be using time and time again, inside our business. So it really is part of our overall marketing.

With a launch strategy, it’s not just the launch itself, it’s all the things that happen before the launch. This is what we call the pre-launch stage. This is where we’re building the momentum around the organic following. So this could be through our social media platform. Personally, I love Instagram, but I know there are lots of different ones available that you would be trying.

Email marketing is super important. So the main two things I’m talking about are building that audience and building your email list. Also your foundational elements too. But when we’re looking at a launch strategy, we are looking at trying to get more eyeballs onto our product. We need more people to see it, more people to buy it. So that’s what led us to get consistent revenue every single month, which is what everybody wants. 

What are your top tips for creating really engaging social media content for a product launch?

The pre-launch phase is where we want to be connecting our products to our audience and I think a lot of people shy away from it, especially if it’s a new product or something, they don’t want to give out the goods too early. But to be honest, you want people to be ready and waiting to buy when you open those doors and so when we are looking at creating engaging content for social media and Instagram changes every single day, we know this.

But what I am going to say is consistency is key. Having a variety of images, reels, videos, and stories. We need to have that as part of our content strategy. But when it comes to engaging social media stuff, where I’m finding a bigger pull is that user-generated content is seriously the thing that is drawing a lot of people and people want to see other people using it. They want to know how to use it. 

So we do need to look at how we’re making that more appealing and showing off the products in all their features and forms. I find that sometimes if we just have an image, it may not encompass everything that product does. So they’re still wondering, what does it do? Do I need it? 

And so when we are leading into the launch, pre-launch, that is where we’re doing all that kind of stuff. And then inside the actual launch period, that is really where we are in the green light for promoting our product. 

So there are different types of content we’re looking at the pre-launch is where we want the engagement. We want the visibility, we want the awareness and we want the need and want desire. So we want them to have that intensity. Hopefully, they’re setting those timers or reminders or whatever it might be, and then when we go to actually launch the content itself might not need to be as engaging because we’ve got the awareness. Now it’s more directly saying, here it is, now you can purchase the product. 

Besides organic social media, what else can I do to launch a product really successfully?

With organic social media and obviously if anyone’s on it, it’s always a trial and error, and as I mentioned before that consistency is key. But for me, the biggest thing that I feel that you can leverage off social media is collaborations and networks. You just cannot go past it. 

How do we do that? So you want to be connecting with others. It could be other small businesses that have a similar niche. Maybe that’s more like brand reps or ambassadors or influencers, but you want to try and really leverage off any social groups and I do also recommend things like Facebook groups as well. 

I think it’s something that people don’t look into. It’s not about advertising in there necessarily but the connections and the awareness, and support. I feel like social media is one part but if we’re just sticking in our own lane and are not talking to anybody else outside of that, we are limiting our ability to gain that brand awareness. 

Collaboration and network. Collaboration is what most listeners would probably already be aware of. That’s one way of reaching a new audience that might not have found you before capitalising on someone else who’s already built a big amount of trusted followers that are going to actually then put your new product that’s coming in front of their eyes and they might not have ever seen it before. 

Personal favourite strategy

There are some people who don’t like launches, but once you have that kind of solid strategy and plan, it is definitely a rinse and repeat cycle. Once you have all the assets and content and know what you’re going to do, it can actually be quite enjoyable and I get a rush out of it. 

But for me, my favourite strategies, if we’re talking about actual product launches that I’ve done – I feel like you can utilise these strategies for anything that’s upcoming in your business – but I really love pre-orders strategy. Using limited-time incentives for a short period of time works amazingly and when I say short period we’re talking about 48 to 72 hours, we want to try and get people through the door.

I want to just say that as part of the strategy with your launch, concentrate on building your email list whether that is for a waitlist or whether it is just your normal email list because regardless of what happens on social media, you have the opportunity to talk to these people ongoing outside of that platform. 

Tips on keeping a healthy mindset during a product launch 

That’s where this plan comes into place. Obviously, that is why I’m a big believer in having a bit of a launch plan because that’s what you need. So my top tips are trying to leverage any automation that you can have or anything you can set up in advance and this is where email marketing, even social media, you can have all your stuff ready to go. That’s one thing to reduce the overwhelm. So one tip is to land, utilise your automation as best you can.

The other thing is with execution, I’m a big believer in having a formula for this execution and a lot of people might say, that’s a lot. But I want you to think in your mind that when you’re posting either pre-launch or talking about your stuff, it is a little bit on repeat. I want you to think about the people that I’m telling this to again, may have not seen the other things that I’ve said yesterday.

The other part of that on the flip side is when you are in the launch, never, ever stop. So you’ll never know what you could have achieved in that short timeframe. If you go, oh, you know, I won’t post that thing today. I won’t send that email today or I’m just going to stop just before the end of the launch because you’ll never know what the result could be. 

So the biggest advice as well within a launch, we always have a launch love. And no matter how many times I’ve launched in the middle of a launch, it goes a little bit dead quiet. So we want to just promote it and say, here it is, this is the offer I’ve got for you for this period of time. Here’s your chance and you know, don’t stop and just celebrate every little win.

It’s time to pull up your big girl pants!

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