Ready to sell? 6 ways to launch your online store

Starting a web shop can be fast. But getting visitors and orders is trickier, people first need to know you exist. So think about which strategy suits you and pick the methods you will use to launch your shop! We will guide you.

Organic growth or carpet bomb, pick a main strategy

How you choose to launch depends partly on your budget and your media strategy. Will you let awareness grow gradually? Or hit the big drum to reach people instantly? You need to choose between "organic growth" and "carpet bomb" as your strategy.

• Organic growth (or buzz marketing) = a campaign that reaches a limited group, who influence their surroundings, who in turn spread the word to more people over a longer period.
• Carpet bomb = traditional (mass-media) campaign with high intensity over a short time, reaching the entire audience at once.

Communication researchers generally recommend the carpet bomb strategy when you need broad reach quickly and want to spark interest. Organic growth usually takes longer and is better suited for things like attitude change. But: organic growth tends to deliver more permanent effects! And in fact, many campaigns include both networks (organic growth) and mass media (carpet bomb).

6 methods you can use to launch

With a budget set and your main strategy in place, the fun starts: planning how the launch itself will go! Here are some methods you can choose from:

• Create a teaser page. Whether or not you have set a precise launch date, you can start with a teaser page where people sign up for interest. The page should give a taste of what your shop will offer and lure with something, like the launch date being revealed and/or special opening offers being sent out. That way you build anticipation and create a sense of exclusivity. If you pick a clear launch date for the teaser, you can illustrate it with a countdown to amplify expectation.
• Surprise drop, or quiet launch. Just releasing something straight up, without making a big deal of it beforehand, is also a way to launch. For the established and known it becomes a "surprise drop", while for ordinary mortals it becomes a quiet launch. That may sound negative, but there are benefits: by simply releasing the shop and combining it with "ordinary" ads (i.e. ones that do not smell of premiere or launch) you can give the impression of having existed for a while, something that builds trust with many consumers.
• Do something that makes people raise an eyebrow. To grow awareness of your shop you can do something attention-grabbing that makes people write about you and the business. Call it a PR stunt or guerrilla marketing, the common denominator is capturing attention somehow. Just remember that people may get angry and start disliking your business if you deceive them. So try to stay truthful, even when thinking creatively.
• Build the customer base on invitations. Remember when Spotify launched? Early on it was almost like a "music club", only invitees got to use the service. By running the same tactic, maybe with a really strong opening offer?, you can create the same feeling and get those who like your concept talking to each other and others.

Tip! If invitations sound complicated, you can use Eventbrite instead. Create an "event" where sign-ups get a membership and/or a discount, so people can invite others by sharing the page.

• Tell "the big players" you exist. Think PR work is complicated and only for big companies? It is not. Put together a few lines about your shop and send them out to news sites, magazines and/or influencers in your industry. Want to raise the bar? Write a complete press release (in slightly different versions) and tailor outreach to different recipients. The point is to tell "the big players" you exist and take advantage of newsworthiness.
• Advertise, advertise, advertise. From Facebook, Google Ads and sponsored blog posts to traditional radio ads and printed ads in magazines, yes, the options for buying space and reach are many today. The advantage? You can find niche channels to reach exactly your audience. The downside? Competition is tough and the rise of ads has caused many "free channels" to disappear or be throttled. Today the question is where and how much, not whether, you advertise.

When launching you do not have to pick just one method, you can combine several. We generally recommend using advertising in some form combined with one or more of the other methods. But the exact combination and how much you invest in each part depends on your budget and main strategy.

Tips for a successful launch: focus and clear messages

Once you have made a launch strategy and planned your activities, it is just a matter of going from words to action. For the result to land, a few final tips:

• Focus on the right people. Not everyone needs to know about your shop, just your audience. So focus on them and "opt out" everyone else. Sounds obvious, but at launch time it is easy to try to reach "as many as possible" or "everyone". So ask yourself "who am I reaching now?" periodically to make sure you are focused on the right people.
• Craft clear messages. When launching something it is crucial to quickly answer the questions the recipient has. Most important are what and why, those are what decide whether someone gets interested in your shop or not (how, when, and where can be answered later). Stress-test your messaging by pretending to be the recipient and critically reviewing your press release or ad: "what is this and why should I care?". If your launch material answers those questions from your audience's perspective, you avoid confusion and people dismissing your shop before they even visit.

Strategy and method(s) are the framework when launching your shop. But how do you go about it practically? Read about marketing channels in the next course to get tips on how to reach the right people and where to advertise.