Creating a perfume is the first step, but what happens when you want to start selling your creations?
20 years ago, it would have been a hugely costly business with most brands advertising on TV, billboards and glossy magazines – way out of the reach of small artisan companies.
Thankfully now we have Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest plus cheap web hosting and simple online stores where you can get your products online and in front of an audience with a relatively small budget.
However, there is more noise than ever online and more brands vying for the attention of your ideal customer so whilst getting known is simple in theory, in practice it’s not easy.
I see so many people creating great products and then floundering because they can’t find customers or don’t know how to get their products out into the world.
I’ve worked in product development, retail AND run my own successful businesses and have done all my own marketing for the last 17 years. I’ve made a lot of (expensive) mistakes too.
People often say: “But my product isn’t ready yet. Can’t I just wait until I’ve got my products done? “
If you’re going to have a successful launch and a profitable business, it needs planning BEFORE you even start creating products.
If you understand the basics of marketing, you will never have the worry of finding customers for your products. They will be queuing up waiting for your launch.
Here are the 7 things I learned over the years that will help you to get your launch right first time:
- Get really clear on how you want for your life and business – this is often overlooked and if you get it wrong it can cause misery, disillusionment, and exhaustion.
- Create a clear picture of who you are creating your products for – this is sometimes called your “Target Market” but I prefer to call it your dream customer. Most people know they should do this, but a huge percentage don’t do it because it feels too hard and they don’t know where to start. Often the ideal customer avatar is too broad and not clear enough and the products don’t match up with what the audience wants to buy.
- Create your brand manifesto or brand story. What is the moral of your story? What is your big why for creating your product or brand? This is the story you will be sharing in blog posts, on social media, and on your website. It isn’t enough to just put a product description and a price on your online shop and hope people visit and buy. You need to start doing this bit and publishing your content BEFORE your product is even ready or you will be launching to nobody.
- Make sure you price your products properly and keep your costs under control. So many people overspend on branding, packaging, websites without even doing a pilot launch. As much as you want your product and image to be “perfect” from the start, unless you have a huge budget this is very risky. Test the market first with a limited run of product, a simple one-page website and the first iteration of packaging and branding.
- Start gathering emails before you launch by creating a waitlist. This is not a guarantee of sales BUT it will give you an idea of whether people are even interested in your product and you can start to build excitement and anticipation in the run-up to your launch.
- Get your legals and logistics in place and test everything. Make sure your products, your website, and your marketing complies with your country’s regulations. You will also need to make sure your manufacturing, ordering and shipping process works smoothly so you do not run into issues when you open the doors to customers.
- Create a launch campaign to build excitement and run a pre-sale launch with special offers to those who have joined your waitlist before opening the doors to everyone else. This gives you the opportunity to get some revenue in and iron out any glitches whilst making those on your email list feel like VIPS
If you want my help and guidance through the process join the Perfume Business Launch Plan
