Advertising Strategies for the Promotion of New Products

Advertising plays an important role in the launch of a new product. To build momentum at the launch, the advertising strategy should focus on raising awareness of the product and creating leads for the sales force and marketing team to follow up. Research into consumer response to product concepts and messages provides a basis for developing advertising creative themes. The advertising strategy should also indicate how advertising will integrate with other elements of the launch program.

Suggestions

1. Set objectives for the launch advertising campaign. Important launch objectives include raising awareness of the new product among existing customers and new prospects, generating a specified number of leads for the sales force, encouraging retailers to stock the product and generating a specified number of inquiries or orders for the new product.
2. Identify the target audience for the new product. For business-to-business products, ask the sales force to provide details of purchasing, technical and business executives responsible for buying decisions in existing customer and prospect companies. For consumer products, carry out market research to identify prospects by factors such as age, location, income and lifestyle. Include advertising aimed at distributors and retailers to ensure that products are available in retail outlets in time for the launch.
3. Select advertising media to reach your chosen target market cost effectively. Evaluate online advertising, as well as conventional media such as newspapers, magazines and trade journals. Ensure that publication dates coincide with your product launch schedule.
4. Develop creative themes for the launch campaign. Use concept research to assess consumer response to different creative approaches. According to research firm Power Decisions Group, "concept testing is both a research, and a creative concept development activity." During concept research, a panel of consumers views different products and advertisement concepts, and the researcher monitors their responses. Use the creative theme that gets the best response to develop launch advertisements.
5. Integrate advertising with other launch activities to improve campaign effectiveness. Use telemarketing and direct mail to increase contact with customers and prospects who respond to an advertisement. Include a link that takes respondents directly to a special website that features the new product and encourages visitors to place an order.
6. Include a mechanism for measuring the effectiveness of the launch advertising campaign. Relate the metrics to the launch objectives by measuring factors such as number of inquiries, value of sales to existing customers and new accounts, or number of sales leads.

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