The Pre Launch Campaign: Your Secret Weapon For Breaking The 7 Figure Mark With Your Next Product Launch

I came across a thread the other day in a Facebook group where someone was asking about whether or not it makes sense to create an “awareness campaign” for the product they were about to launch on Kickstarter.

Their initial thought was, sending money to an email list might be a waste of money, and that money could be better spent just sending traffic straight to the sales page once it’s live.

I understand the concern.

It’s definitely valid.

But I have to disagree with this strategy.

In my experience… after creating a series of six and seven figure product launches in niches as diverse as luxury watches, crochet hooks, personal development courses, dietary supplements, weight loss products, and B2B courses… a pre-launch, awareness campaign is not only necessary…

… it’ll often dictate the success of failure of your entire launch!

The cart was open for less than 24 hours before we sold out of stock. That’s what a solid pre-launch campaign can do.

Here’s why pre-launches are necessary

If I asked you, what are the most successful product launch campaigns in the history of marketing, you might come up with a lot of different answers.

If you think it’s StomperNet’s $18 million launch… you need to start thinking bigger. And think outside the IM community.

Maybe you think it was the launch of the iPhone. Surely, that was one of the biggest product launches ever, right?

Yes — it was a big launch. It did do over $200 million in a weekend.

But in terms of biggest launches ever, it still pales in comparison to the one industry that produces multiple billion dollar product launches every year.

I’m talking about the movie industry.

Movies are the most expensive and highest grossing “info-products” of all time.

And lucky for us… success leaves clues.

Proof of why “pre-selling” is important.

Take a look at all the movies on this list. This list shows the revenue for the top openings weekends of all time.

What did all these movies have in common?

They all had an excessive amount of pre-launch hype.

I swear to god, if I saw one more “Fate Of The Furious” commercial on TV before that movie came out, I would have put my fist through my Samsung.

You probably felt the same about a lot of these movies before they came out.

You were BOMBARDED with messages before these movies opened. And you probably even went to see a few of them.

There’s a reason why Hollywood makes their pre-launch “awareness” campaigns so big… that’s what works.

Now let’s bring it back to regular product launches.

You need to make your product exciting. You need to take advantage of hype and viral-ity. You need to get people talking about your product.

Your launch is only going to be open for a limited amount of time.

Which means you need people to contribute to the excitement… just like they would for a movie that’s about to come out.

You not only need your prospects to be aware that your product will be available soon… you need to get them fucking DROOLING over the possibility that they could own whatever you’re selling.

You need to channel their desires towards your product.

You need your product to take up real estate in their brain.

You need to convince them to buy — before the cart even opens.

So that as soon as it does… they’re waiting in line, credit card in hand.

Look at the Filippo Loreti launch I wrote about recently.

A big part of the reason that campaign did well was because we built a list of people who wanted the product… and then warmed them up and “pre-sold” them on the idea of buying a watch.

This couldn’t have happened without a pre-launch campaign.

Then, as soon as the cart opened, we had a rush of buyers.

Over $100,000 in the first 3 hours.

And over $250,000 in the first 24 hours.

When your goal is only $20k and you surpass that by 1200% that in the first 24 hours… people start to take notice… Kickstarter’s algorithm starts to take notice… and your ads and articles about your product start to get passed around.

Think of it like this:

If your friend saw a movie on opening weekend and loved it, they’d probably tell you to go see it right?

Of course.

And you’d probably listen to them.

The only reason that friend is telling you to go see it is because someone sold him during the pre-launch… before the movie even came out.

One last thing on pre-launches

Did you ever go out and see a movie that never ran a single advertisement? Meaning, they just opened up one weekend without any commercials or interviews or anything like that?

Probably not.

Wanna know why?

Because you had no fucking idea the thing even existed.

The big lesson here is this:

You need to build excitement for your product. This doesn’t mean you need to go over the top and sound like a typical hypey internet marketing douche… you just need to do things like go on interviews, get articles published, drop hints and teasers, start telling your email list about what’s in the works… make it fun… make it mysterious… get people emotionally invested.

Sell it out before the cart even opens.