Questions

What is the best timing in the new year to launch business marketing?

I'm preparing to launch a new website and content in the new year and my question is about timing. I want to ensure I miss the holiday season (since my field generally shuts down) and be ready to go when everyone gets back. My gut says mid January. Thoughts?

12answers

Hi there!

In few words, the launch date does not matter a lot as long as you are following with a continuous marketing plan all the year. It is better to tune your lunch date according to your marketing campaign than connecting it to the seasonal event. The timing of your launch only matters if your website is already ranked or has a good authority associated to it. Launching a website is not like opening a local shop. The launch date is defined by the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. In other words, your question must be rephrased as: "When is the best time to launch my first marketing campaign for my newly created website?". In that case, you will need to describe in details what kind of website you have and how are you planning to market it.

I would be able to give you a more accurate answer if you explain to me what kind of website are you planning to launch or what products mainly are you selling.

Hope that helps!


Answered 9 years ago

The best time to launch a business is now.

Unless you have serious overheads to considder, I would launch in your quiet time and give yourself the benefit of a gentle ramp.

There are two things that are great at killing a business. Growing too slowly and growing too fast.


Answered 9 years ago

Hello!
I'll try to answer this question but you really didn't provide enough background info to be real accurate.
You mentioned your business is seasonal, because of this factor many seasonal businesses cannot control the pricing not the demand as much as their competitor could. For your fyi: this called a perfect competition.
Anyway, I think you would be best off promoting right before the season begins. You don't want to start advertising your product or services right when others are already making the purchasing decisions... You want to drive to first buyers to your business in hopes that they provide reviews and referrals to their friends so then they come to you.

The timing would be maybe a month or few weeks before the season & overlapping into the season by a month or month & 1/2... Depending on what your business is and how long the "season" lasts. If is almost through the entire year then yeah keep promoting for longer.

Another word of advice: The efficiency of a marketing campaign depends on what's used for that market.. Tv, email, blog, referrals, surveys, landing page, newspaper, fb, etc... Consider this before you spend your money in the marketing itself :)


Answered 9 years ago

Id look at this question not as "when should I launch", but instead "by when do I want x amount of traction."

Q4 is of course the "money months" when it comes to digital publishing, as ad spend increases for the holiday season.

You're going to be unfortunately missing this, but you can absolutely launch successfully in Jan. as you plan, and build your strategic road map to hit the key goals that would put you where you need to be for this time next year.

Launch, keep metrics, tweak your campaigns, and stay consistent with results year round!


Answered 9 years ago

You mentioned that you wanted to launch a new website and content. With the new year coming many will want to launch “new” items and websites as well. If you are not already I would recommend building as much anticipation as you can prior to launching your website. If you were to launch the website in the beginning of February then you can use Nov, Dec, Jan informing people about the website, building a mailing list and priming your target audience for the arrival of your new website and content.


Answered 9 years ago

Hi - I just came across this and noticed you wrote this years ago, so I really hope your business is going well!! If you need inexpensive yet expert marketing, design or small business consulting services, please consider my agency, Bloominari. We’ve been helping small business owners like yourself for years and we’d love to help you out. I also provide free project estimates! Just wanted to send you this info in case your sales aren’t exactly as high as you were hoping. Let me know if I can help you in any way and best of luck to you! http://www.bloominari.com/contact/request-project-quote


Answered 8 years ago

Great question,
That depends on your business and products. For example,if you run a restaurant,then OMG ... open as soon as possible as New Year approaches. But if you offer financial service,I do not not think anyone would care, so remain close to save the ooerating cost until after New Year. Trust me, I have been in various businesses for the past 36 years.
Again,it all depends on your products and business nature.
Call Clarity and talk to the expert for more information and confirmation.


Answered 5 years ago

You would need to conduct a market analysis to gain some insight into this. Research and Development is your friend :-)


Answered 4 years ago

An attitude refers to the way we behave to something or to any stimulus. It reflects the different characteristics of an individual towards something. We all have attitudes which can form the basis of our personality. One important concept about attitude is that a good number of attitudes is built up in the early stages of the life of an individual. These attitudes are partly based on our own experience of life, on parental influence, on peer influence or from reference groups or from environmental factors. A social attitude is an acquired tendency to evaluate social things in a specific way. It is characterised by positive or negative beliefs, feelings, and behaviours towards a particular entity. Social attitude has three main components: emotional, cognitive, and behavioural. Attitudes are consistent and enduring, that is, once they are learned, they tend to characterise our way of behaving and our personality as well. Nevertheless, with time and experience, our attitudes may change as we mature. For example, we could have been too uncaring and shy during childhood. At adulthood stage, we may learn that we must look after things or be outgoing to some extent.
International business requires the need for managers to learn attitudes and values from the different environments where they are operating. They require tolerance and acceptance from managers. European and western managers usually face the problem of adjustment in different environments. For this reason, it is accepted that managers must learn about attitudes and values in different environments. There are various societal attitudes towards a range of aspects namely work and achievement, time, family, authority, risk, and change. In today’s world, there might also be attitudes towards gender and sexuality. There are trends taking place both in the developed world and emerging economies. The difference might be better marked in developing countries that are either tradition bound or might be less caring of certain values. The business manager then learns the differences between a linear-active culture that rests upon a high degree of formalisation and a multi-active culture, more predominant in emerging economies, that seeks less formality and more relations and customisations. These do impact business practice in an international setting.
Living in a capitalist country with consumerist values might indicate that people would only view value in terms that can be monetised, but this is not necessarily the case. While the marketing minds who help power, consumerism are extremely adept at identifying ideas or movements, this relationship responds to the powerful authenticity generated by independent and charismatic individuals working against the grain. And endeavours that have no intrinsic value, which are undertaken purely for the joy of doing them, continue to stay one step ahead of efforts to sell unnecessary products. In such a world, achievements that are difficult but have no utility become especially admirable.
Few Northern Europeans or North Americans can reconcile themselves to the multi-active use of time. Germans and Swiss, unless they reach an understanding of the underlying psychology, will be driven to distraction. Germans see compartmentalisation of programmes, schedules, procedures and production as the surest route to efficiency. The Swiss, even more time and regulation dominated, have made precision a national symbol. This applies to their watch industry, their optical instruments, their pharmaceutical products, their banking. Planes, buses, and trains leave on the dot. Accordingly, everything can be exactly calculated and predicted. In countries inhabited by linear-active people, time is clock and calendar-related, segmented in an abstract manner for our convenience, measurement, and disposal. In multi-active cultures like the Arab and Latin spheres, time is event or personality-related, a subjective commodity which can be manipulated, moulded, stretched, or dispensed with, irrespective of what the clock says.
To attract the most customers and generate the most revenue, you want your product launch to time perfectly to the point when the marketplace is most anxious for the features and benefits offered. While hitting the exact day is challenging, launching during the basic window of opportunity to appeal to customers is critical. If you launch too early, customers may not be ready to understand the value. Launch too late, and you may miss the point at which customers want the benefits offered.
In a competitive market, the timing of your launch is also affected by the timing of products launched by other companies. First-movers try to beat customers to the market to attract eager buyers. Other companies prefer a second-mover or follow-up strategy to wait until the market becomes familiar with the product features and demand begins to grow. This strategy protects against a negative reaction that may result from the product version offered by the first mover.
The timing of your launch may also affect the quality of the product at offering. In some cases, companies rush through production and quality checks to get a product to market quickly. This is especially true in technology, where product life cycles are often short. Microsoft dealt with some bugs and customer issues when it launched its Xbox360 video game system. The company used the negative response to the first batch of products to adjust the next wave of products distributed to retailers.
To determine the right time, keep the following points in mind:
1. The Readiness of the Product: In general, the best time to launch is as soon as your product is ready. Release a product as soon as it is working. It must perform the stated function, and that’s all. Do all the honing and perfecting when it is already in the market. You can start profiting from your product before you start tweaking it. Take advantage of customer excitement. Then sell the refined versions later. That is not to say you should release something inferior to the public, of course. It describes a different way of looking at product development. Product development should be a never-ending process. It is a lifelong struggle for perfection that is never actually achieved. Knowing that, why not make money as soon as the product is viable? If Apple waited until the first iPhone could do what the latest ones can, we would still be flipping open our Motorola.
2. Sales Cycles: The exact time of the year, month, or even week you choose can make a difference. Ask yourself these questions:
1. Is there a particular time when your target audience will want to use that product?
2. When would they enjoy your product most?
Research proves that Tuesday is the best day for launching a product. On Mondays, consumers are too focused on the coming week. While on Fridays, people look forward to the weekend. On Tuesdays, you can be sure that people have already dealt with issues from the previous week. It also gives you enough time - a total of three days - to spread your message and follow-up on questions.
A seasonal product will itself determine the best time of the year to launch. Self-improvement products can work well in January to help fulfil New Year's resolutions. While outdoor products are best for spring and summer.
The time of the year matters as well. It does not make sense to reveal your product before a major holiday. People tend to travel back home and have no time to read when surrounded by family and friends.
3. Your Schedule: Your ideal launch time will also depend on your own schedule. Schedule the launch when you have as little going on as possible. so that you can devote the needed time and energy for the launch. It makes sense to focus on product launches over other considerations. You only get one shot at a successful launch! Expect glitches, customer service issues, and other unpredictable demands on your attention. It is important to have all hands-on deck, and yourself at the helm, ready to execute the launch with 100% presence.
4. Launch Conditions: There are conditions you need to meet to have a successful product launch.
1. First, establish your brand’s credibility to justify excitement for your new product. If you have not already given your consumer base a reason to trust you, it’s time to lay that groundwork down. More customers will be willing to gamble on the certainty that a product will meet their needs.
2. Make sure that you prepare your business infrastructure for the spike in sales. Is your distribution system in place? Is your payment system glitch-free? Do you have team members standing by for customer service and tech support? Expect success, and you’ll guarantee it.
3. Finally, time the launch in relation to existing products and their performance. The best time to launch a new product is when another product of yours is reaching the peak of its success. You can ride that momentum into the next wave of sales.
5. Marketing and Communication: The best way to ensure that your launch goes well is to have a unique and creative product in the first place. Beyond that, it is a matter of marketing and communication. Stay in touch with your audience. Use email and social media to build excitement around your product and be there to usher it into the market. Expect the unexpected. Be ready to handle questions, concerns, and other feedback from your audience. Stand by your product but look for ways to incorporate feedback quickly. You will need to know what went well, and what did not. The day of your big launch is the day you start preparing for the next one.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath


Answered 4 years ago

summer holiday


Answered 2 years ago

I would 100% agree with Robin Vaughn's reply on this - go to the DATA.

But let me tell you what you can do if there is no data or you cannot access it.

Use your intuition (FEELINGS) like a computer!

Here's how you do it.

Ask yourself a question - see how it feels - give your feeling a number from 1 to 10 depending on how you feel. 1 = low feeling where 10 = high feeling or a more excited feeling.

The thing to note is that your questions should be specific and simple. And that you may have to do a couple of question rounds to get the best result.

Write your answers down. Go with the highest number. Easy!

Here is a process example with sample questions :

1) Should I launch in January?
2) Should I launch after January?

Let's say #1 gets a 6 on your feeling scale and #2 gets a 1. So now you know to launch in January but don't know when in January. So you can do a round 2.

1) Should I launch in the first week of January?
2) Should I launch in the second week of January?
3) Should I launch in the third week of January?
4) Should I launch in the last week of January?

As you can see your focus is specificity. The more specific you can be the better your results will be.

While this process may sound like hog-wash to some - this is a tried and tested process that I have used for over 30 years.

One of my best memories of using this process was when I needed to launch a new company that would have a global client base.

I was based in Australia at the time and the new company needed to be located in an international hub spot with easy global travel, reasonable labor costs, an easy business environment, access to capital, access to skilled English-speaking staff, and a high trust level in people's minds.

Australia was out because of the travel issues and the high staff costs.

I wrote down a list of cities that met the above criteria.

Hong Kong
London
Dubai
Singapore
KL
Bangalore

My best feelings were for Singapore. It felt BURNING HOT good!

So I went for Singapore and pitched it to my other business partners. At first, they said no, but later changed their mind. A month later we launched our company https://B1G1.com in Singapore. It still runs out of Singapore and now serves a growing global client base in over 20 countries.

Over the years I have developed a few more intuitive tools and have used them to make the best decisions or create the best results. For example, one tool I developed helped me create an average sales rate of 7/10 - 10 sales pitches - 7 sales. I can share these with you in a call https://clarity.fm/david.anttony


Answered 5 months ago

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