How to plan a successful brand launch

What is a brand launch?

A brand launch is the process of introducing your brand to your target audience. Every brand has to start somewhere, and a successful launch helps make your brand visible to a wider audience of potential customers.

While driving sales is one of the goals of an effective brand launch, it’s also about building brand awareness and customer loyalty. Your brand launch can be a simple digital launch on social media platforms or a large-scale strategy that involves digital and physical marketing across several channels.

You can also create a brand launch strategy for a brand refresh. A brand refresh differs from a traditional brand launch because it doesn’t involve a new brand. Instead, the goal is to update and modernize elements of your brand to make it more appealing to potential new customers.

Why a strong brand launch strategy matters

Your brand launch strategy is key to its long-term success—now and in the future. When you’re just starting, your potential customers don’t know about your brand or the products/services you offer. For many brands, there are hundreds or thousands of similar businesses to compete with.

Effective product development doesn’t help much if you can’t get people to pay attention to your product. A strong brand launch strategy enables you to generate buzz around your brand, giving people a better understanding of your mission and what you have to offer. The more eyes you can get on your brand early on, the better brand recognition you’ll have down the road.

Key elements of a brand launch

While it depends on the complexity of your brand launch strategy, there are many moving parts when launching a brand.

You need to have a solid understanding of your brand identity, brand story, and messaging. These elements help you shape your brand launch and create a personalized strategy centered around your brand.

Your target audience is also an essential part of your brand launch. In addition to your brand identity, your brand launch should be focused on the potential customers you’re trying to reach.

Marketing channels often play a significant role in launching a brand. Social media platforms, billboard and print advertising, and TV and radio advertising can all be used to spread the word about your brand launch and put your brand and products in the minds of potential customers.

When you’re launching a brand, creating and aligning internal teams helps you prioritize each aspect of your brand launch and ensure smooth execution.

6 essential steps for launching your brand

Strategic planning plays a key role in launching a brand. Your brand launch strategy should be tailored to your brand and target audience, and there are several ways to increase awareness of your brand. Let’s look at the essential steps for launching a brand.

Step 1. Define your brand identity

Your brand identity is one of the best ways to connect with potential customers and increase brand awareness. Think about how you want to express yourself as a brand. Are you focused on creating a fun brand that customers connect with, or a professional brand that customers trust for the best quality? Do you have brand colors, fonts, and other visual elements you can use to create a consistent brand identity?

Before proceeding to the next step, think about your brand and how you want to present it to potential customers.

Step 2. Understand your target audience

When launching a brand to connect with a specific target audience, it’s essential to clearly define and understand who that audience is. Typically, the best way to do this is to conduct market research to learn more about your ideal customers and create customer personas based on that research.

Defining your target audience and creating detailed customer personas helps you tailor your messaging to align with your potential customers. The more detail you provide, the more personal you can personalize your messaging.

Step 3. Craft your brand story

Every brand has a story; don’t be hesitant to share yours. Your brand values and vision are deeply entangled in that story. It should be a compelling narrative you can use to share your values, mission, and brand identity with your target audience.

Here are some essential things to consider when creating a brand story:

• Be authentic and honest
• Pick the right target audience
• Clearly outline your values and vision
   

Step 4. Build anticipation before the launch

In the weeks or months before your brand launch, you should work to build as much anticipation as possible. You can use teaser campaigns and sneak peeks to give potential customers a taste of what your brand offers and build excitement. You can also use early access offers to entice people to stay engaged throughout your brand launch. Use social media, email lists, and influencers to help generate this pre-launch anticipation.

Step 5. Execute your launch strategy

Now that you have a clearly outlined brand launch strategy, it’s time to execute it. Plan a coordinated rollout across all the platforms where you launch your brand, including your website, social media, and press releases. This will help build immediate buzz on launch day.

It’s also important to stay engaged with your audience in real-time to create conversations about your brand launch and keep everyone engaged.

Step 6. Measure and optimize post-launch

Once you’ve executed your brand launch, it’s time to measure the results and determine what you need to improve. You can use key performance metrics like website traffic, social media engagement, and sales to measure the results of your brand launch. It’s also helpful to gather feedback from potential customers.

Use these results to determine how to adjust your brand strategy to increase brand recognition and customer loyalty. For example, the results may show that certain advertising or social media posts were more effective.

Best practices for a flawless brand launch

If you want to execute a flawless brand launch, there are a few things you need to do. You can set goals to make sure you have measurable metrics for success. These goals can be helpful when you’re measuring and optimizing your brand launch strategy.

Clear communication is a key part of keeping internal and external teams aligned. Everyone must be on the same page to ensure a successful brand launch, from project management to marketing teams.

Speaking of communication, ensure you communicate a consistent brand message and tone across all channels—consistency results in better brand recognition, which is a big part of launching a brand.

Brand launch pitfalls to avoid

Rushing the planning phase is one of the most common brand launch pitfalls. Waiting to launch your brand can be difficult, but having a clearly outlined plan for a successful launch is better than rushing things.

It’s also essential to focus on your brand launch beyond the initial stages. Measure key performance metrics and use the results to improve your brand. Maintaining momentum is key to brand longevity.

There are countless examples of successful brand launches, including some of the biggest brands in the world. Let’s look at a few examples:

• Burger King: Burger King redesigned its entire visual identity in 2021, including a new color palette, new font, and new logo. To showcase these visuals, Burger King created a series of brand launch videos and generally well-received advertisements.
• TikTok: TikTok was one of the most successful brand launch stories in recent years. The signature sounds and visuals were used in early TikTok advertisements, which meant nearly everyone was familiar with the logo and color palette. Even better, TikTok grew rapidly because it encouraged users to create content and engage with the platform as viewers.

Launching your brand isn’t easy, but there are ways you can simplify the process. Using Jira to manage tasks and track progress across teams helps keep everyone connected and on the same page, which is crucial for a brand launch.

Product features like dashboards, timelines, calendars, and backlogs allow you to visualize and streamline the brand launch process. Dashboards bring all projects into a single view for more informed decision-making, while timelines help teams plan work and track progress. Calendars keep teams aligned on schedule, and backlogs help teams organize tasks by priority. As a result, you can save time without worrying about an ineffective brand launch strategy.