6 Essential Steps to Launching Your Brand Successfully
Whether product or venue-related, launching a brand can be daunting for any entrepreneur, especially if you’re new to marketing. However, with careful planning and execution, it can be a rewarding experience that lays the foundation for a successful business.
From hotels, restaurants, and bars to consumer goods, Accela Communications has led the successful launch of dozens of Singapore-based product and venue brands. We know that outsourcing the launch planning and execution to an experienced agency is not always feasible for new entrepreneurs, so we curated a list of considerations to help you successfully launch on your own:
Step 1: Understand the space you’re in
Before you launch your brand, you must conduct primary and secondary market research and analysis to understand your target audience’s preferences, market trends, and the competitive landscape. Doing this will help you determine the best ways to position your brand and identify growth opportunities.
Step 2: Define your brand identity
Once you clearly understand your target audience and the competitive landscape, it's time to define your brand identity. This includes your brand's values, personality, messaging, and visual identity.
Brand Values: The guiding principles that your business stands for.
Brand Personality: The set of human characteristics that you want your brand to embody (e.g. friendly, reliable, innovative).
Brand Messaging: How you articulate the unique value that your product or venue offers the target market.
Visual Identity: Includes your logo, color palette, and other design elements that represent your brand.
Step 3: Begin with the end in mind
Developing a marketing strategy starts with defining your goals - or what you want the outcomes to be. Your marketing goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). These should all be documented in your marketing plan, in which you define your target audience, messaging, channels, and tactics.
Step 4: Pre-launch activities
Before you officially launch your brand, writing your launch plan is essential. The launch plan should detail all the key elements leading up to the launch event, with a clear budget and timeline that indicates when each element must be rolled out. The launch plan must include:
Brand Marketing: What materials will you need to promote your brand ahead of, during, and after the launch? These may include flyers, digital ads, promotional e-mails, signage, and branded souvenirs or props.
Social Media: Create your brand’s social media accounts and develop a content calendar to ensure posting is consistent and well-planned. If you will work with influencers, curate a target list according to clear selection criteria. Consider micro-influencers, which tend to be more affordable and have smaller but more deeply engaged audiences.
Public Relations: To inform the media about your brand and any launch activities, develop a list of the media outlets and journalists who would be interested in your news, and prepare draft press releases and announcements.
Step 5: Launch event essentials
Your launch event is an opportunity to showcase your product or venue and connect with your target audience. Here is a checklist of essentials to consider:
Venue: If your brand is associated with a product, choose a venue that aligns with your brand values and appeals to your guests. If you are launching a venue, select a layout that will best showcase each area and feature of the space.
Guest List: Curate a guest list that includes individuals from each of your key stakeholder groups, including target consumers, key opinion leaders, local tastemakers, sponsors/partners, and journalists.
Decor: Create a welcoming and on-brand atmosphere with decor that includes your brand colors, logo, messaging, and, if applicable, an engaging, interactive display of your product.
Food and beverages: Provide food and beverage experiences that align with your brand cater to your target audience’s preferences, and, if applicable, incorporate your product as an ingredient or part of the serving decor.
Swag: Consider items your target audience will appreciate and use carefully, and go with the quality over quantity approach.
Social media: Depending on the nature of your brand and its target audience, create a branded hashtag and encourage attendees to share their experiences on social media during the event.
Step 6: Post-launch activities
After your launch event, it's important to continue engaging your target audience and building brand awareness. This can include ongoing marketing activities like email marketing, content marketing, and social media campaigns.
It's also important to track website traffic, social media engagement, and sales data before and after your launch to measure the success of your campaign and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Are you based in Singapore and in need of an experienced communications partner to support your brand launch? Get in touch to learn how Accela Communications can help: [email protected].
