You started out with a single-product Shopify store, and it blew up. You’re doing amazing with steadily increasing revenue. But you wonder how long is this gonna last?
You know you need to expand your product line, but doing so is risky. More ad spend, product testing, customer education, and maybe it’s all for a flop!
Basically you’re starting from scratch with that same stress that you had when you started the business.
Current Customers to the Rescue??
Something occurs to you, though. If your first product worked wonders on your current customer base, couldn’t your second, especially with trust already established?
You’ve already collected all their emails!
You’ve got a chance. You’ve set yourself a launch date, and now what? How do you move forward carefully in a way that builds enthusiasm without eroding goodwill? You can’t afford to manhandle your list — one of your business’s most precious assets — with a seemingly random and unsolicited promo.
How do you make customers ecstatic to see what else you have to offer??
By nourishing the list beforehand. Take the time to build a relationship with your current customers and slowly put them on their toes to see what you’ll send them next.
To do this right, you’ve got to start small!
STEP 1: Start with the most engaged people on your list, the ones who opened or clicked an email from you in the last 15 days.
It’s really important to have them knowing what to expect from you.
You can do this by:
- Mentioning it in your welcome email
- Let them know in the order confirmation email
- Ask them to move your email from the promotions tab to the primary tab with a clearly illustrated GIF
- Ask them to reply to the email so you know that you can send them the content they want (this one is gold if you can do it)
If you do all of these, you’ll have a list of extremely engaged people that will read almost every email you send them.
STEP 2: Expand the audience slowly.
Especially if you haven’t sent any emails in the last few months to your list members, start with small steps.
A lot of people make the mistake of blasting the whole list with one email that kills deliverability in the long run. They’re shooting themselves in the foot.
Instead, send to recipients who opened an email in the last 30 days. Then expand the segment to 60-day openers, then 90-days openers and so on. Send them a plain text email, with a really engaging headline that will intrigue them.
And guess what…. That will do the most to re-engage your list, immediately expanding your 30-day engaged segment. How awesome is that?!
Before:
After:
STEP 3: Provide valuable, relevant content.
Establish yourself as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) in your niche, the very niche your engaged list cares about. This is the cool part. You can now go ahead and send the most engaged people lots of emails with your most interesting and valuable content.
Once you are sending regular campaigns to a warmed up list, your product launch has a significantly higher chance of success. Successful launch angles include:
- Exclusive offer for brand insiders
- Limited-time friends-and-family discount before public launch
- Favor of making new product available out of gratitude for list’s support
- Request for list’s valuable feedback in testing new product
- Chance to become part of an exclusive group
- Secret information before the public reveal
- Unique no-risk, guaranteed money-back trial
- Special announcement
- Personal confession
- Personal invitation to join celebration
- Referral request
- Any combination of the above.
People who get genuine value from your email content will feel like they owe it to you to at least try your next product. (This is especially true if your offer includes a generous return policy.) You’ll be their BFF!
And that’s how you do a successful product launch without spending a ton of money on ads or placing crippling ROI bets: just three steps to turn your product fans into brand fans.
Comment below with how you launched a new product — let’s compare notes!
Ioan Siran and Thomas McClintock,
Hustler Marketing
