July 15, 2025 • 40 mins
Launching a new product on Amazon can feel like navigating a minefield—full of potential missteps that could derail your success. In this thought-provoking episode, we flip conventional wisdom on its head by exploring what guarantees a failed product launch.
By inverting the success model, we uncover critical insights that can transform your approach to introducing new products. Our conversation dives deep into the psychology behind defining success metrics before you begin, revealing how unclear goals almost certainly lead to disappointing outcomes. We examine why competitive research isn't just helpful—it's essential for identifying your unique position in the marketplace and crafting messaging that resonates with your target customers.
The episode delivers surprising revelations about inventory management, with one host sharing a cautionary tale of their "best launch ever" that ultimately failed due to stocking out at the critical moment. We explore why having an established audience creates an unfair advantage for sellers, allowing them to generate initial velocity without deep discounting while collecting valuable feedback throughout the development process.
Perhaps most valuable is our discussion of differentiation in today's crowded marketplace. Your main image and title must stop the scroll, but your entire listing needs to deliver on that promise with conversion-optimized content. We break down why monitoring metrics during launch allows you to double down on what's working rather than stubbornly sticking to your initial assumptions.
Ready to transform your product launch strategy? Listen now to discover why the biggest mistake isn't launching a product that fails—it's not launching at all. Your next successful Amazon product might be closer than you think.
🚀 Transform your brand on Amazon by building a powerful customer list with the After Purchase Funnel Blueprint course. Click here to get the full course for free.
➡️ Ready to go deeper into your Amazon FBA journey to accelerate your success? Get your hands on ALL of the Brand Fortress HQ resources, mentorship, and knowledge base by visiting us at BrandFortressHQ.com
⭐️ Want to help our show grow so we can continue bringing you the very best of guests and actionable content for your Amazon FBA business? We'd greatly appreciate if you took two minutes to give us a five star rating and review. Thank you!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody to another Tactics Tuesday for
Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
Today we're going to talk aboutsomething a little bit different
and kind of an exercise aroundlaunching new products, since
they are so important to growinga brand, and what we're going
to look at is, you know, how doyou guarantee a failed product
launch on Amazon?
Because we want to walk throughthat process as a mental model
and this is something thatactually comes from, I believe
(00:22):
you know, Charlie Munger kind ofpopularized this idea of how do
you take something that'ssuccessful and how do we invert
it, so that way we can see thosethings that we want to avoid,
and I think this is reallyimportant, as we think of things
that we want to make sure thatwe're addressing in that launch
process to give ourselves thebest chances for success.
(00:43):
So, you know, we were talking alittle bit before this and I
guess the first thing is Mike,you had a really good comment
before we hit record on kind ofthat first step of how you
guarantee you know failedproduct launch on Amazon starts
with what does success look like?
So tell me a little bit moreabout how you think about you
know success for a product andhow you'd invert that, if we're
(01:04):
looking at you know, a failedproduct launch.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, I think, first of all, it's hard to know what
failure looks like if youhaven't defined what success
looks like.
So you know.
Otherwise you don't knowwhether you missed the mark or
not.
And I also would say that notdefining success is the first
step to a failed launch, becauseif you don't know what you're
looking for, then you knowultimately there's no way you're
(01:28):
going to hit that target.
So you know, I would say youknow, when you're looking at the
idea of you know what does asuccessful launch really look
like?
To some degree, that'sdependent upon the product you
know, and how much market shareare you trying to get, you sorts
of things, what type of aproduct is, is it a hero product
, is it a loss leader, somethinglike that.
(01:49):
But ultimately there's a numberof things that probably you
need to be dialing in on andalso setting actual goals for to
determine what that successlooks like.
So, in other words, you shouldbe setting some sales targets as
to how many units or how muchrevenue, or you know, whatever
the number is that you're goingto shoot at, you know how many
(02:13):
units should you hit within 30days, you know, or within two
weeks, within 90 days?
You know the first few weeksafter the product goes live.
Because if that's all you'repaying attention to, chances are
when you get through that firstfew weeks, you know you're
going to start losing groundbecause you don't have a longer
term strategy.
(02:33):
For what does that launch looklike?
Because you have to carry thattrajectory out for a ways before
Amazon really understands yourproduct well, begins to
recognize, you know, that it's avaluable competitor in that
space, whatnot?
So you really can't look atjust that first two or three
weeks.
So what are your sales targetsgoing to be after, say, two
weeks, 30 days, 90 days?
(02:53):
What keywords do you want tosecure ranking for and what
level of ranking do you thinkyou can secure?
Do you think you can hit numberone on page one?
Do you think you can hit numberthree or number four on page
one?
Like, what are you shooting for?
Because, again, depending onthe size of the market, being
number three in that categorycould be a super good place to
(03:14):
be in terms of sales.
You know, in other cases maybeyou really kind of are shooting
at I need to be at the top ofpage one.
So what are the?
What are the keywords you wantto rank for what ranking do you
think would be a success?
And again, how are you going tohold those rankings?
Are you, how are you going toearn?
You know, or did you earn,we'll say, in terms of defining
(03:34):
success a steady stream ofpositive reviews and ratings.
If you didn't have anything inplace, then you're probably not
going to get a whole lot ofreviews and ratings out of that
launch, and I would considerthat a failure, because even if
you were to get some ranking,you don't have any reviews on
that.
Then you're going to have ahard time maintaining that.
Also, were you able to maintainhealthy margins, or at least
some profit margin, on thatlaunch, or was the launch itself
(03:58):
an actual loss?
I don't think it has to be.
Most people walk into a launchassuming they're going to lose
money on it and hopefullythey're going to make up for it
on the back end.
I don't think that has to bethe case.
And then again, how are youbuilding a foundation for
long-term and repeatable salesgrowth that's going to be able
to continue long-term?
I think those are the ways thatI would define success.
Maybe you guys have some thingsyou'd like to add to that.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, I think there's a couple of great things that I
hear out of what you said thatI just want to break down a
little bit.
I mean, I think the first thingis, you know, defining what
success looks like.
And you know I think this iskind of an extension of you know
discussion that we had lastweek of you know what is the
role of that product?
Is that going to be a heroproduct?
Is it going to be a tripwireproduct where it introduces
people to your brand?
Is it, you know, maybesomething complimentary to one
(04:42):
of your hero products, whereit's kind of an add on that adds
to, you know, customer lifetimevalue, like identifying what
that strategy up front I thinkis going to give a much better
idea of what that launchplaybook should look like, in
the sense of you know, if it's a, for example, if it's a
complimentary product, well thenyou probably don't need, you
(05:05):
know, a super aggressive launchwith, you know, a whole bunch of
ad spend and stuff like that,when you're looking at, hey,
this is going to be a productthat well, may only have
incremental sales, maybe youhave really good margins on that
complimentary product.
(05:26):
So I think, yeah, starting withyou know what that strategy is
is is super important, and ifyou don't have a strategy, then
that's one of the best ways thatyou can ensure that you're
going to say you're going tofail is because you don't know
what good looks like right outof the box.
So that makes it really hard toknow.
You know, make these kind ofyou know, tactical decisions
that we're talking about aroundhow to execute that strategy.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Once you define what success looks like.
I think a lot of what Mike saidsuccess looks like is give you
x-ray vision into the category,all of the competitors, where
they're getting their sales from.
(06:09):
I mean, there's a wealth ofinformation that these tools
give you that really direct yourlaunch on where, what keyword,
you're going to go after, whereyou know.
Once you decide and determinewhere your top competitors are
getting most of their sales fromwhich keywords, then it's a
fairly easy to build a map ofwhat keyword you're going to go
(06:30):
after in terms of PPC and whereyou're going to put them in your
listing.
So I mean, it all really startswith competitor research on
Amazon using the tools that areavailable to you, and if you're
not, then I think that's areally good way to guarantee a
failed product launch.
Is it not really notunderstanding not only who they
are but where they're gettingtheir sales from on Amazon?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, I think, the other part of that, in terms of
that competitive researchportion, and I think absolutely
you guarantee failure if youhaven't done that, because it's
not just about keywords, it'salso, you know, pricing analysis
.
How am I going to price theproduct?
You know well, you kind of needto know what the market is.
You know what's the low end,what's the high end, what's the
(07:12):
median.
You know, like, you need toknow what, what are the features
that your competitors areoffering in their product and do
customers care about thosefeatures?
One and two do they like youand two do they like them?
You know, like, do they thinkthat your competitors are
actually nailing those?
You know particular featuresBecause, again, you know,
another really good way tolikely fail in a launch is to
(07:39):
not differentiate enough.
Now, again, it may be that, youknow, depends on the type of
product it is.
You know, maybe you don't needa lot of differentiation, maybe
you have a strong brand, this isjust a complimentary product,
in which case differentiationisn't necessarily the key, it's
just hey, this is anotherproduct that we can sell to that
same customer, and so you knowyou don't have to, but you still
(08:01):
have to do the research on thefront end, it's always if you
can, if there's an easy way todifferentiate yourself, whether
that's in the product itself oreven just in the listing, then
you should do that.
And again, it takes research toknow what that differentiation
looks like and how to do it,what things to highlight on your
listing that maybe competitorsaren't highlighting, those sorts
(08:22):
of things.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So yeah, I would say you know, just to piggyback off
of what you might.
What you said, mike, aboutpricing I think that's so
important and something that alever that isn't pulled enough,
and so a couple of things tothink about with that when you
think about pricing is and wetalk about failed product
launches and that is making surethat you have you know some
source to get those initialsales on your product, whether
(08:45):
that's you know using, you knowa list that you have pre-built,
or you know ads or somethinglike that.
Cause I think what a lot ofpeople who maybe haven't
launched a product in a whiledon't realize is that you know
if you're planning on offeringsome sort of discounts or
something like that on yourproduct, you have to have a
reference price to start with,and if you don't have any sales
(09:07):
right out of the gates, you maywant your like, say, you want to
sell the product for a hundreddollars, like you want that to
be your reference price, butyou're on the higher end of the
market.
Well, if you don't have anyreviews and you don't have any
sales velocity, it's going to bereally hard for you to get
those.
You know, first few reviews andfirst few sales if you don't
have some sort of list for yourbrand or some other resource in
(09:28):
order to drive traffic and sohaving a failed product launch
where, if the only thing thatyou have in order to get
visibility for that product isads from Amazon, it's going to
be really tough and reallyexpensive to get any sort of
velocity on that product if youare on the higher end or you're
a premium end product and tryingto price yourself accordingly,
(09:49):
when you don't have the ratingsor the other social proof that
people would expect from ahigher end product and not
listing on Amazon.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I definitely suggest selling at the high end of the
price point, no matter whatcategory you're in, and a big
part of that commanding a higherprice point and giving a
premium feel is also yourlisting.
I mean, if you're not showingin your main image and you're
not helping the consumer tounderstand why your product is
(10:20):
the one to choose and you don'tget very many opportunities to
do that, especially in verycrowded search results.
So I think another way toguarantee a failed product
launch is to not spend theresources whether that be time
or money to really make yourmain image and your copy and the
rest of your images reallyreally stand out.
(10:42):
You know, I think that theamount of time that people spend
reading copy has decreasedpretty significantly, so that
means that our images are moreimportant now than they've ever
been.
So I think another way toguarantee a failed product
launch is to not put thenecessary resources into having
really really stand out images,and now there's starting to be
(11:03):
less and less of an excuse forthat.
I just the other day wastouching up some images using
chat GPT's image generating tool, and I mean it did things that
I was getting ready to have tosend to a graphic designer and
it did it in a couple of prompts.
So, especially if your productlike with.
There's a couple of differenttypes of products that I think
(11:23):
AI are still having a hard timewith, like pool cleaning tools,
for example.
For the life of any, nolanguage model understands what
a pool brush or a pool skimmerare, so I think in some
categories it's not as prevalent.
Using AI tools like that atleast your main image and making
(11:46):
sure that that is better thanyour competitors and running
split tests and really knowingthat it's going to convert at
least as good as yourcompetitors, is really important
in the beginning, and if youdon't, then you're going to have
an uphill battle.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, I would say you know, just going back to what
both of you said.
So, john, essentially you knowthe thing that I think is
critical there.
You know, like you were talkingabout, you know, trying to get
some of those initial sales at,at the price point that you want
to be a reference point, it'sit's going to be a whole lot
easier to get those sales fromindividuals that already trust
(12:19):
you.
So, you know, maybe you can getfriends and family, maybe you
know something like that, buthonestly, but honestly, it's
good to be able to get that froman audience, a community that
you have built or that you arepiggybacking on.
You know, so it's always bestto have your own audience, as
you can.
But when you don't have one,then the time it takes to build
(12:43):
an audience can be considerable,especially if you're not very
good at lead gen and things likethat.
If you have that background,then you can probably do that
and you probably understand whatyou're doing.
But if you don't, thenpiggybacking on somebody else's
community if they're the rightavatar for your product and
we've talked about this abillion times but that is the
simplest, easiest, quickest wayto find an audience that's going
(13:06):
to trust you based on yourassociation with the person that
they already trust, which isthe person that built the
community.
And so in that case, when youdon't have reviews on your
product, if you can gain thattrust through another source and
access their community, thenyou have that opportunity to
sell at full price.
You can always do a little bitof a rebate on the back end, you
(13:27):
know, if you do.
You know like you don't want topublicize this and make it a
big thing, obviously because youknow Amazon doesn't like it but
on a small scale, for a limitednumber of orders in a private
community or something like that, it's not really that difficult
of a thing to be able to sellsome full price orders at your
reference price and maybe give arebate on the back end.
(13:47):
Or maybe it's not even a rebate, maybe it's some other freebie
that they get.
You know, like you've createdsomething that they get as a
result or something.
It doesn't have to be adiscount but to get those
reference price purchases.
But also, again going back tothis and it's not like we
haven't harped on this for agesbut if you have that audience,
(14:08):
it's not just useful for gettingthose reference price purchases
, it's also useful for actuallaunch purchases.
Like when we launch a producthaving an email list of 45,000
people that already trust ourbrand, that is gold for a
product launch.
And as long as you have apattern to make sure that you
trust our brand, that is gold,you know, for a product launch.
And as long as you have apattern to make sure that you
can sustain sales after that andtry to maintain ranking and
(14:30):
whatnot, which is not easy, butat least it gives you the
opportunity to get a lot ofsales up front.
Again, a lot of reviews on thefront end, because those people
who actually trust you and likeyour brand are going to be far
more likely to go give you areview, especially if you ask
them on the front end hey, do mea favor, go buy this product
and then leave us a review.
You know you're going to have amuch better.
(14:50):
You know conversion rate, let'ssay, to reviews from those
orders.
So that launch audience isreally incredibly important.
And then, on the back end ofthat, the product listing you
know, matt, you mentioned.
Hey, make sure that you'reactually dialing in on and
optimizing that listing.
Well, one of the things that Ithink is important for our
(15:13):
audience to know and to remember.
And again, not like we don'tharp on this all the time, but
if you don't know who you'reselling to, then how do you know
how to optimize your productlisting?
You know like you can optimizeit for keywords, you know, and
things like that.
Sure, but one of the things thatMatt's talking about is not
just getting the keywords rightand all of those sorts of things
(15:33):
and making sure you highlightspecific, you know benefits in
your images and that sort ofthing.
But part of it is what is thefeel of the imagery?
You know, and it doesn't have acohesive feel.
And is that feeling?
Is that emotion that it evokes,the emotion that you want it to
evoke for the person that youactually want to sell to most?
And if you don't know who thatavatar is, if you don't know who
(15:55):
that person is, then you reallydon't know how to engender that
specific emotion through yourimagery, because you don't know
who you're speaking to.
So if you haven't taken thetime to analyze who it is you're
selling to, then again you'reguaranteeing, if not a failed
launch, you're certainlyguaranteeing a far more
expensive launch and a much moredifficult road to success.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, and I want to circle back to something that,
mike, you've talked about in thepast and comes from having that
list as well that almost backto the beginning, which is, as
you look at Because most of thebrands that are listening to
this, you probably are sellingalready some product.
You have a hero product orproducts on Amazon that you've
(16:40):
got about leveraging youraudience as to you know what
should that next product be?
You know, I think is somethingthat is incredibly powerful,
that when we look at you knowhow do you guarantee a failed
product launch?
Part of that is you know just,you know sticking to, you know
horse blinders on looking atproducts.
(17:01):
And maybe you know just lookingat keywords and saying, okay,
this is going to be you knowthat next year product, rather
than saying, okay, here's what Ithink that product is going to
be, and then going to a portionof your list and saying, hey,
you know, we're thinking aboutdeveloping product day, product
B and product C, which one ofthese interests you the most?
Okay, getting some informationfrom there.
(17:22):
So now you have a little bit ofactual data from your customers
and then taking that extra stepto say, maybe even get on a call
with somebody or Zoom orsomething like that, to say, hey
, here's the benefits orfeatures that we're thinking
about really focusing on andhere's how we're differentiating
it and making it better thanother products that are out
there.
And you know they might tell you, yep, that sounds fantastic.
(17:43):
Or they may be like, yeah, Idon't really care about that.
And then getting those samplesand actually having them try it
and say, hey, I love this aboutit or I don't love that, which
is a ton of work that you know Ithink a lot of brands don't do
up front.
Which is why they have kind ofmixed results when they launch
products is because you know atthat point you're just kind of
guessing.
You know what your customersthat you've built in your brand
(18:06):
wants, and sometimes you'reright and sometimes you're wrong
.
And when you're wrong, that'swhen you know your product
launches end up falling flat.
You end up investing a lot ofmoney into product that you know
doesn't really move the needlein the long run.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Well and I hate to step in here because I kind of
would like to give Matt a chanceto talk but I think it's
important to point out on thatis that one you'll talk to a lot
of Amazon sellers who, sure,once you get good at this, you
can kind of get a sixth sense alittle bit about the kind of
(18:43):
products that may succeed orfail.
But it's still just that it'sstill a guess at the end of the
day, and in that you really haveto be a lot more careful with
the launch in terms of how muchyou spend on it, in terms of how
much inventory you buy andthings of that nature, because
(19:04):
there's at least an averagechance that the product does not
succeed to nearly the levelthat you expected it to or hoped
it would, because it's based ona guess, whereas if you have
tested this out with an audience, if you talk to your audience,
what product would you want?
If you talk to them about whatfeatures they might want, if you
(19:26):
talk to them about what theydon't like, about the features
of other products, you know whatcolor do they want, what you
know like we spend, we'll spendmonths, you know, in that
conversational process with ouremail audience about a new
product, letting them know,number one, that we think this
is what we want to come out with.
Is that something you'd beinterested in?
(19:46):
And going through all of that,but then also, okay, we have it.
You know, does anyone want toprototype it?
You want to beta test?
You know, here's what theresults were.
You know we're going back tothe drawing board to fix these
things.
You know and I've said thisbefore but by the time it comes
time for a launch, that audiencefeels like it's their product,
(20:08):
like they developed it, and inthat you gain a lot of
confidence that the launch isgoing to go well, because one
you already know.
You're selling a product that awhole bunch of people in that
space that represent your avatarhave already said they want.
They like the features that youcreated.
They've tested it and it workswell.
The features that you'veinvested in are actually
performing the way they expectedthem to, and so now, then, you
(20:28):
also have this large audiencethat you get to launch it to,
generally speaking, at a muchlower discount than to people
who don't know anything aboutthe product or anything about
your brand, so you can launchmuch more profitably.
What that also means is you caninvest in more inventory on the
front end.
And that is what I think is thenext critical piece of this, and
(20:49):
that is you cannot afford tostock out either during or after
your launch.
You know, especially if you'veseen success with that launch
and you stock out, you screwedthe whole thing, and so it's way
more of a risk to order toolittle inventory than too much.
(21:10):
Too much inventory is a scenariowhere you can probably still
rectify that, because even ifthe launch didn't go great, you
can always liquidate theinventory.
You can almost always sell theinventory, at least at cost, and
come out break even.
So that to me is the worst casescenario from buying too much
inventory.
But the worst case scenario ofbuying too little inventory is
(21:32):
you invest a lot of time andeffort and money in that launch
and then you stock out and nowyou don't know if you're going
to be able to regain thoserankings, and that's a huge risk
that I think it's not worthtaking.
And if you already know on thefront end, this is 90% likely to
be a really strong successbecause I know what my audience
thinks and I know they're goingto buy it.
It makes it a lot easier tospend that money on the front
(21:54):
end and buy a lot more inventoryup there, knowing that it's
likely to be a success.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
If you've done everything that we, if you've
gone through all of these stepsand you haven't guaranteed your
product launch and things aregoing really well and you end up
running out of inventory andnot paying attention to this
piece, I my best launch to date.
I ran out of inventory Now,covid did play a part in that.
(22:20):
But my best launch to datenever recovered after ran out of
inventory.
Now, covid did play a part inthat.
But my best launch to datenever recovered after running
out of inventory that first time.
Now that doesn't happen withall products and there are ways.
Now this was a brand.
Not only was this a brand newproduct, but it was a brand new
brand.
So I didn't have an audienceyet.
I did have kind of a tangentialaudience that I could point
there and I did, but it wasn'tanything like you know my other
(22:41):
brands where I had a big, youknow big giant Facebook group.
So it it can't be stated enough.
I mean you might knock theinitial launch out of the park,
but if you don't have thefollow-up inventory to replenish
after, I personally have gonethrough my best launch and not
been able to recover, I spent alot of money trying.
I tried PPC.
(23:02):
I tried all the things that Idid initially to get the launch
out of the gates and I mean itwas screaming out of the gates
but not only did it ruin thelaunch but it essentially put
that brand in a really, reallybig hole right out of the gate
by not just initial I did haveinitial inventory.
Now the launch went sosuccessfully that I blew through
(23:26):
three months worth of what Ithought was going to be
inventory in about three weeksbut I didn't have the follow-up
inventory to replenishafterwards and that was very,
very, very detrimental to notonly that product launch but
also the brand in general.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, I think inventory is one of those
underrated things for newproducts.
I would say the other thing,too, is that, even if all those
things do go well, making surethat you have again within
Amazon terms of service whichwe've talked about before but a
way of asking for those reviewson the product, because that is
one of the biggest.
We started looking at reviewson your listing.
(24:00):
I mean, when we were talkingabout Amazon, that probably is
one of the strongest kind ofbarometers that you have for
brand of.
Not only you know what is yourrating, but how many total
reviews do you have on thatlisting?
Because the reality of it is,if we look at the conversion
rate for, you know, a productthat has two reviews and a
five-star listing, versus aproduct that has 1,000 reviews
(24:23):
and a four-point, even if it's a4.4 rounded up to a four and a
half stars the product with1,000 reviews is going to
convert better.
And it just boils down to whatthat social proof is of every
customer when they're looking atit, saying is this product
going to work for me?
I think the other thing thatmaybe gets underrated that we
(24:44):
haven't talked about yet, ifwe're looking at hey, guaranteed
product launch or failed launchis, you know, not having
something, especially when westart looking at those search
query results that looksdifferent, or, excuse me, the
search results to even get theclicks to the listing.
Because I think now you know,in a lot of categories, a lot of
(25:07):
products look really, reallysimilar and the problem with
that is is that if you're thenew kid on the block, you have
to look different and you haveto say something different in
that first 80 characters to yourtitle in order to get people to
click into your listing.
Because that is half the battlewhen we look at, especially for
a new product, of being able tomake a sale, is just getting
somebody to click on yourlisting and, at least from my
(25:30):
experience, especially in 2025when we're recording this, you
really have to look and sounddifferent from everybody else
that's on those search resultsin order to see some success
with that.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I think it's probably also important to pay attention
, just from a psychologicalperspective, on what that looks
like, because you know yourclick through is determined by
your image and your title.
I mean, that's a send up andprice and deliver.
You know how soon can it bedelivered.
So those are things too likedistribution of your inventory.
You know how soon can it bedelivered, so those are things
too like distribution of yourinventory.
You know is is going to be afactor in terms of you know how
(26:04):
how short is your deliverywindow.
That's going to affect your CTR.
But let's, but let's look atthe, the, the things that you're
paying attention to.
So when somebody's scrollingthrough the, through the
listings, the very first thingthat's going to get them to stop
and pay attention as you said,john, is the image, like the
(26:26):
title is not what's going tostop them.
They're not reading titles asthey scroll, they're scrolling
through images, and when theysee an image that interests them
, then they read the title andso, in that, recognize that no
matter what you have in yourtitle, if your image does not
give them a reason to stopscrolling, then you've already
lost the battle.
And so I think that's a keypoint that you know as you're
(26:47):
optimizing that to get that bestclick through, make sure that
that image is going to stop them.
By the same token, you have tomake sure that you're not going
to that you're not going tocreate a bunch of clicks that
don't convert.
So you could create an imagethat will get really good click
through, but if you haven'tcreated a listing that ties into
(27:10):
that image and into the title,so that when they click through,
what they're seeing is whatthey expect to see, or what
they're seeing is better thanwhat they expect to see when
they look at that image and thattitle, then you're going to pay
a lot for clicks and you'regoing to get really low
conversion rate, and then you'restill screwed.
So it's not just about clicks,it's also about conversion.
(27:31):
But you have to get both.
If you don't get any clicks,then your conversion rate's
irrelevant, and if you get awhole bunch of clicks and no
conversion rate, then you justspend a boatload and you don't
make any money, so you got topay attention to both ends of
that.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, I think that's such a good point, especially
around the, you know, looking atthe clicks, and it's not a
clicks or conversion rate, it'sclicks and conversion rate,
cause I do see this, you know,fairly often, especially when
you know a client that we'reworking with might have a
product that you know they,quite frankly, they have an
emotional attachment to.
It's maybe their third orfourth product that they've
(28:01):
launched and they're like, wow,I think this thing is really
great.
And we look in there andthey're like, oh, my conversion
rate is, you know, is fantastic.
And then you know they've hadlike 100 sessions in the last 30
days and they're like, yeah, myconversion rate is 20%.
I'm like, okay, well, if I 10xyour sessions, what does that
conversion rate look like?
And I think that's the importantthing to look at is that, once
(28:23):
you start really amping up thevolume, does that conversion
rate drop down dramatically?
And in a lot of cases it does,because the only people that are
coming through are the absolutehottest leads that are
interested in that product, eventhough you know the main image
(28:46):
doesn't make the most sense, thetitle doesn't necessarily make
the most sense, but they knowthe brand or you know there
could be a million differentreasons, but you know they're,
they're kind of that.
You know 1% of buyers thatyou're you're serving, that are
at the absolute hottest leads,but you're missing out on the
other 99 percent that you couldhave if you had that listing set
(29:07):
up properly for that product.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
I think another thing that you can do to guarantee a
failed product launch is not payattention to all of these
numbers that we're talking aboutand just launch and sit back
and hope that sales are comingin and you're just checking your
bank account.
If you're not checking yourclick-through rate and you're
not checking your conversionrate and you're not looking to
see the search query performancereport, then you don't know
what the baseline is.
(29:29):
Yeah, you can do a lot ofresearch in the beginning, but
things very rarely are going togo exactly how you thought that
they were going to go once youactually start selling, to go
once you actually start selling.
So, paying attention to all ofthese stats and watching what
your click-through rate does asyou change out your main image
and split testing your mainimage with manage your
experiments or a tool likePickFu or product pinning or
(29:50):
something like that I think thatis also.
Yes, that's part of optimizingas your product becomes a lot
more mature, but that's also alot of the product launch also
is paying attention to thosenumbers and watching what they
do.
I think building that muscleearly on during your product
launch is going to set you upfor success.
And if you aren't payingattention to that, then set you
(30:12):
up for a potential failure.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, I would build off that.
Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
John.
Well, I was going to say tobuild off that a little bit, you
know we talked quite a bitabout, you know, the product
itself and to go a little bitmore tactical, you know, and
some of those products, some ofthose you know, some products
hit, some don't.
And I think the same thing istrue when you talk about what
you expect to be your herokeywords as well, in the sense
that you know typically for aproduct and again, it depends on
(30:38):
how many resources you have,what category you're in and how
competitive it is.
But just say, for example,you've got three to five kind of
hero keywords where you're like, hey, I think these are going
to drive the majority of mysales.
I think it's really important topull apart that data and why
ads are so important in thatearly phase, especially for
those exact match keywords, toreally see what does that look
(30:59):
like.
Because you know, I thinkthere's there's been enough
times where we've seen, you know, maybe one or two of those
keywords where the click throughrate and the conversion rate is
dramatically better than theothers, and looking at okay, how
do we double down on thosekeywords that are working for us
, rather than trying to, youknow, push hero keywords that we
kind of wish or hoped orthought were going to be
(31:21):
successful for us.
And I think getting reallygranular with the data,
especially on the ad side, givesyou, you know, full visibility
into that sales funnel to seewhat keywords are working for
you.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, for sure it's.
You know nothing is ever goingto work out the way that you
expected it to work out.
Hopefully, the best that youcan hope for is that you're
directionally accurate and thenlean into the aspects of that
that end up being the mostsuccessful portions of the
campaign and really push on that.
You know, down the road you canalways push on some of those
(31:56):
other keywords that you reallythought were going to be.
You know drivers that maybeweren't during the launch, but
it doesn't mean they can't beafterward.
But during the launch, payingattention to what is working and
leaning into you know thoseaspects to really keep that
launch moving forward, I thinkis a critical piece.
I also think it's probablyimportant to point out that,
(32:16):
depending on the size of yourteam, there's only so much that
you can pay attention to all atonce.
So one of the things that Iwould recommend and there's a
fine line here, and I've saidbefore that we've, as ProTough,
I think we have sometimes erredon well, I don't want to say the
(32:37):
wrong side of the line, but we,you know, instead of riding the
line, we kind of pulled backfrom it.
What I mean by that is youreally should be consistently
launching products.
It is the best way to guaranteelong-term success and
increasing revenue numbers andprofitability and profitability.
(33:00):
So, you know, because, for alot of reasons, one of which is
the more products you have, themore cross-sell and upsell
opportunities you've got, themore you know backend selling
you can do.
If you're building a list, youknow like there's all sorts of
reasons why having you know thatlarger list of products is
useful, but the big thing is,though, your team is still only
so big, and so I would recommend, first of all, that you do,
(33:22):
within reason, as much of thework before the launch as you
can.
So, because once the launchhappens, then everything is just
this.
You know churning chaos.
You know trying to make surethat you're managing everything
and getting it all right.
If you're well prepared forthat launch, though, and you've
(33:42):
done all the research up front,you really have optimized the
listing.
You've created numerousdifferent versions of your main
image so that you can be testingthose during launch.
You've created numerousdifferent versions of your title
so that you can maybe testthose during your launch.
You know like the more youprepare before the launch, the
easier the launch becomes andthe fewer people it requires to
(34:05):
be able to manage and payattention to all these things
Like we're talking about.
You know monitoring yourkeyword, performance and
monitoring.
You know all of these thingsabout the launch.
If it's just you, that can be alittle bit tough to manage,
especially if it's a high volumeproduct and there's other
things going on.
So just I think, before thelaunch, decide on what are the
most critical aspects that youneed to pay attention to as the
(34:30):
launch is progressing.
That will help you determine isit moving in the direction of
success or is it moving awayfrom success.
Success or is it moving awayfrom success, and what are you
going to do about it?
Because you can't focus oneverything.
You're not going to have thetime, unless you've got a
decent-sized team.
You can't focus on every singlelittle KPI, but if you focus on
the main ones what's your CTR,what's your CVR, what's your
(34:50):
sales numbers per day?
Are they increasing?
Are they decreasing?
Whatever, then at least you'vegot a chance of being able to
make the adjustments that needto be made when they need to be.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, and I think so this might be a good place to
wrap, because I think you bringup a couple of good points there
that I think are a couple of mytakeaways, which is the first
is that I think, first of all,you know, when we talk about
mistakes, probably the biggestmistake is not launching a new
product.
Like if you, you know, if youjust said, hey, I'm not going to
launch a new product, you knowthat is probably the biggest
mistake for a brand long-term.
And then what I would add ontothat is is that you know, don't
(35:29):
bet the farm on a new productlaunch, cause, especially if
you're not doing these on aregular basis or you haven't
done one in a while, you'reprobably, you know, gonna miss a
couple of important steps inwhat we've just covered today.
And sometimes that's okay,cause, if you know, maybe you're
a one person team, you know,maybe you're still just a one
person wrecking crew, you canonly get out, you know, one new
(35:49):
product a year.
Well, going through thatprocess at least once a year is
going to be a make you 10 timesmore effective than if you just
don't do it at all.
Because I have talked to youknow I can think of one client
right now that you know hasn'tlaunched a new product in
probably three or four years andhe is deathly afraid of
launching a product that's notgoing to work out.
(36:09):
And the reality of it is isthat even if you do all
everything perfect, there's no,you know, guaranteed magic
formula that your product launchis going to be perfect.
And you know, sometimes justgetting in and doing it and
learning from that process andcontinuing to evolve is going to
give you more, better result inthe longterm than trying to
(36:31):
make one product launch perfectand never getting off the launch
pad.
So I'd say that's my biggesttakeaway.
I'll, I'll, I'll leave it toyou guys to kind of share maybe
one or two of the biggest youknow kind of mistakes that you
guys see and that you would, youknow, want listeners to take
away from this conversation.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yeah, I mean I think the biggest thing that we've
talked about and something thatwe talked about a lot actually
just with ProTip not too longago is inventory.
Inventory plays a really bigpart of this.
Again, there's tools out therethat tell you that kind of walk
you through what yourcompetitors are and what they're
doing in terms of salesvelocity.
Over ordering, I think, iswe've talked about in here and
(37:09):
defined that that's less of arisk than under ordering.
So I think inventory, payingattention to inventory, crafting
the right plan in the verybeginning and making sure that
you have enough and making surethat you never run out of
inventory I think is the biggesttakeaway for me.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
I think one of the things that I want to mention is
just failure isn't fatal, youknow, learn from it.
But also, in specific to alaunch, I think it's probably
also important to recognize that, technically, just because you
fail a launch doesn't mean thatthat product has to be a failure
(37:45):
.
And in my opinion, it may besuch that if a launch starts
going sideways and you feel likethis is not really going the
direction that you want it andit looks like maybe there's not
a good way to pull out, you know, and when I say pull out, I
mean really kind of pull up,let's say, and turn what is
looking like a failed launchinto a success.
(38:05):
Maybe the better solution is topull out and try again.
You know, remove that inventory, restructure, whatever it is
that you're going to do.
You know in terms of what the,you know what went wrong, what
didn't you do right, what didyou miss.
You know what were the piecesthat didn't happen.
And you know, and maybe make adecision to to relaunch.
(38:27):
Now you're going to have tomake the decision before you go
removing inventory because youknow again, like we said earlier
, you could always liquidate andthat's another option.
You know like, okay, the launchdidn't go well, I'm going to
liquidate this inventory insteadof removing it and trying to
relaunch, figure out what wentwrong, because if I still think
(38:52):
this is you know, if I stillthink this is a product that
should have succeeded right, butI know the errors that I made
and I'm really sure that thelaunch didn't succeed because of
those sure that the launchdidn't succeed because of those.
Then, whether I remove theinventory and try again, or
whether I liquidate theinventory and then restructure
things, create, a new listingand do it again.
You know.
Order the inventory up again,maybe change the product If
there was something about theproduct that was the problem and
try again.
(39:13):
You know there's no reason youcan't do that.
I'm not saying you have to.
Some products are a failurebecause the product itself is a
failure and there's really noway that you're going to rectify
that.
But if you really can see wherethe errors were and you think
there's a way to make that asuccess, you can always try
again.
You know, like, and you learneda lot from the first launch.
Hopefully the second launchwill go better because you
(39:33):
learned those things and youfixed them.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
So Before you wrap it up, John, and to bring it full
circle, if you didn't definewhat success looked like at the
very beginning, then you have noway of judging if it was a
failure or not.
So, full circle again you haveto define what success looks
like at the very beginning.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Absolutely, matt, and you know what I think that's a
great place to wrap for today.
So thank you for bringing usaround full circle.
Thank you, everybody forlistening to another tactics
Tuesday.
Welcome everybody to another Tactics Tuesday for
Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
Today we're going to talk aboutsomething a little bit different
and kind of an exercise aroundlaunching new products, since
they are so important to growinga brand, and what we're going
to look at is, you know, how doyou guarantee a failed product
launch on Amazon?
Because we want to walk throughthat process as a mental model
and this is something thatactually comes from, I believe
(00:22):
you know, Charlie Munger kind ofpopularized this idea of how do
you take something that'ssuccessful and how do we invert
it, so that way we can see thosethings that we want to avoid,
and I think this is reallyimportant, as we think of things
that we want to make sure thatwe're addressing in that launch
process to give ourselves thebest chances for success.
(00:43):
So, you know, we were talking alittle bit before this and I
guess the first thing is Mike,you had a really good comment
before we hit record on kind ofthat first step of how you
guarantee you know failedproduct launch on Amazon starts
with what does success look like?
So tell me a little bit moreabout how you think about you
know success for a product andhow you'd invert that, if we're
(01:04):
looking at you know, a failedproduct launch.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, I think, first of all, it's hard to know what
failure looks like if youhaven't defined what success
looks like.
So you know.
Otherwise you don't knowwhether you missed the mark or
not.
And I also would say that notdefining success is the first
step to a failed launch, becauseif you don't know what you're
looking for, then you knowultimately there's no way you're
(01:28):
going to hit that target.
So you know, I would say youknow, when you're looking at the
idea of you know what does asuccessful launch really look
like?
To some degree, that'sdependent upon the product you
know, and how much market shareare you trying to get, you sorts
of things, what type of aproduct is, is it a hero product
, is it a loss leader, somethinglike that.
(01:49):
But ultimately there's a numberof things that probably you
need to be dialing in on andalso setting actual goals for to
determine what that successlooks like.
So, in other words, you shouldbe setting some sales targets as
to how many units or how muchrevenue, or you know, whatever
the number is that you're goingto shoot at, you know how many
(02:13):
units should you hit within 30days, you know, or within two
weeks, within 90 days?
You know the first few weeksafter the product goes live.
Because if that's all you'repaying attention to, chances are
when you get through that firstfew weeks, you know you're
going to start losing groundbecause you don't have a longer
term strategy.
(02:33):
For what does that launch looklike?
Because you have to carry thattrajectory out for a ways before
Amazon really understands yourproduct well, begins to
recognize, you know, that it's avaluable competitor in that
space, whatnot?
So you really can't look atjust that first two or three
weeks.
So what are your sales targetsgoing to be after, say, two
weeks, 30 days, 90 days?
(02:53):
What keywords do you want tosecure ranking for and what
level of ranking do you thinkyou can secure?
Do you think you can hit numberone on page one?
Do you think you can hit numberthree or number four on page
one?
Like, what are you shooting for?
Because, again, depending onthe size of the market, being
number three in that categorycould be a super good place to
(03:14):
be in terms of sales.
You know, in other cases maybeyou really kind of are shooting
at I need to be at the top ofpage one.
So what are the?
What are the keywords you wantto rank for what ranking do you
think would be a success?
And again, how are you going tohold those rankings?
Are you, how are you going toearn?
You know, or did you earn,we'll say, in terms of defining
(03:34):
success a steady stream ofpositive reviews and ratings.
If you didn't have anything inplace, then you're probably not
going to get a whole lot ofreviews and ratings out of that
launch, and I would considerthat a failure, because even if
you were to get some ranking,you don't have any reviews on
that.
Then you're going to have ahard time maintaining that.
Also, were you able to maintainhealthy margins, or at least
some profit margin, on thatlaunch, or was the launch itself
(03:58):
an actual loss?
I don't think it has to be.
Most people walk into a launchassuming they're going to lose
money on it and hopefullythey're going to make up for it
on the back end.
I don't think that has to bethe case.
And then again, how are youbuilding a foundation for
long-term and repeatable salesgrowth that's going to be able
to continue long-term?
I think those are the ways thatI would define success.
Maybe you guys have some thingsyou'd like to add to that.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, I think there's a couple of great things that I
hear out of what you said thatI just want to break down a
little bit.
I mean, I think the first thingis, you know, defining what
success looks like.
And you know I think this iskind of an extension of you know
discussion that we had lastweek of you know what is the
role of that product?
Is that going to be a heroproduct?
Is it going to be a tripwireproduct where it introduces
people to your brand?
Is it, you know, maybesomething complimentary to one
(04:42):
of your hero products, whereit's kind of an add on that adds
to, you know, customer lifetimevalue, like identifying what
that strategy up front I thinkis going to give a much better
idea of what that launchplaybook should look like, in
the sense of you know, if it's a, for example, if it's a
complimentary product, well thenyou probably don't need, you
(05:05):
know, a super aggressive launchwith, you know, a whole bunch of
ad spend and stuff like that,when you're looking at, hey,
this is going to be a productthat well, may only have
incremental sales, maybe youhave really good margins on that
complimentary product.
(05:26):
So I think, yeah, starting withyou know what that strategy is
is is super important, and ifyou don't have a strategy, then
that's one of the best ways thatyou can ensure that you're
going to say you're going tofail is because you don't know
what good looks like right outof the box.
So that makes it really hard toknow.
You know, make these kind ofyou know, tactical decisions
that we're talking about aroundhow to execute that strategy.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Once you define what success looks like.
I think a lot of what Mike saidsuccess looks like is give you
x-ray vision into the category,all of the competitors, where
they're getting their sales from.
(06:09):
I mean, there's a wealth ofinformation that these tools
give you that really direct yourlaunch on where, what keyword,
you're going to go after, whereyou know.
Once you decide and determinewhere your top competitors are
getting most of their sales fromwhich keywords, then it's a
fairly easy to build a map ofwhat keyword you're going to go
(06:30):
after in terms of PPC and whereyou're going to put them in your
listing.
So I mean, it all really startswith competitor research on
Amazon using the tools that areavailable to you, and if you're
not, then I think that's areally good way to guarantee a
failed product launch.
Is it not really notunderstanding not only who they
are but where they're gettingtheir sales from on Amazon?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, I think, the other part of that, in terms of
that competitive researchportion, and I think absolutely
you guarantee failure if youhaven't done that, because it's
not just about keywords, it'salso, you know, pricing analysis
.
How am I going to price theproduct?
You know well, you kind of needto know what the market is.
You know what's the low end,what's the high end, what's the
(07:12):
median.
You know, like, you need toknow what, what are the features
that your competitors areoffering in their product and do
customers care about thosefeatures?
One and two do they like youand two do they like them?
You know, like, do they thinkthat your competitors are
actually nailing those?
You know particular featuresBecause, again, you know,
another really good way tolikely fail in a launch is to
(07:39):
not differentiate enough.
Now, again, it may be that, youknow, depends on the type of
product it is.
You know, maybe you don't needa lot of differentiation, maybe
you have a strong brand, this isjust a complimentary product,
in which case differentiationisn't necessarily the key, it's
just hey, this is anotherproduct that we can sell to that
same customer, and so you knowyou don't have to, but you still
(08:01):
have to do the research on thefront end, it's always if you
can, if there's an easy way todifferentiate yourself, whether
that's in the product itself oreven just in the listing, then
you should do that.
And again, it takes research toknow what that differentiation
looks like and how to do it,what things to highlight on your
listing that maybe competitorsaren't highlighting, those sorts
(08:22):
of things.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So yeah, I would say you know, just to piggyback off
of what you might.
What you said, mike, aboutpricing I think that's so
important and something that alever that isn't pulled enough,
and so a couple of things tothink about with that when you
think about pricing is and wetalk about failed product
launches and that is making surethat you have you know some
source to get those initialsales on your product, whether
(08:45):
that's you know using, you knowa list that you have pre-built,
or you know ads or somethinglike that.
Cause I think what a lot ofpeople who maybe haven't
launched a product in a whiledon't realize is that you know
if you're planning on offeringsome sort of discounts or
something like that on yourproduct, you have to have a
reference price to start with,and if you don't have any sales
(09:07):
right out of the gates, you maywant your like, say, you want to
sell the product for a hundreddollars, like you want that to
be your reference price, butyou're on the higher end of the
market.
Well, if you don't have anyreviews and you don't have any
sales velocity, it's going to bereally hard for you to get
those.
You know, first few reviews andfirst few sales if you don't
have some sort of list for yourbrand or some other resource in
(09:28):
order to drive traffic and sohaving a failed product launch
where, if the only thing thatyou have in order to get
visibility for that product isads from Amazon, it's going to
be really tough and reallyexpensive to get any sort of
velocity on that product if youare on the higher end or you're
a premium end product and tryingto price yourself accordingly,
(09:49):
when you don't have the ratingsor the other social proof that
people would expect from ahigher end product and not
listing on Amazon.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I definitely suggest selling at the high end of the
price point, no matter whatcategory you're in, and a big
part of that commanding a higherprice point and giving a
premium feel is also yourlisting.
I mean, if you're not showingin your main image and you're
not helping the consumer tounderstand why your product is
(10:20):
the one to choose and you don'tget very many opportunities to
do that, especially in verycrowded search results.
So I think another way toguarantee a failed product
launch is to not spend theresources whether that be time
or money to really make yourmain image and your copy and the
rest of your images reallyreally stand out.
(10:42):
You know, I think that theamount of time that people spend
reading copy has decreasedpretty significantly, so that
means that our images are moreimportant now than they've ever
been.
So I think another way toguarantee a failed product
launch is to not put thenecessary resources into having
really really stand out images,and now there's starting to be
(11:03):
less and less of an excuse forthat.
I just the other day wastouching up some images using
chat GPT's image generating tool, and I mean it did things that
I was getting ready to have tosend to a graphic designer and
it did it in a couple of prompts.
So, especially if your productlike with.
There's a couple of differenttypes of products that I think
(11:23):
AI are still having a hard timewith, like pool cleaning tools,
for example.
For the life of any, nolanguage model understands what
a pool brush or a pool skimmerare, so I think in some
categories it's not as prevalent.
Using AI tools like that atleast your main image and making
(11:46):
sure that that is better thanyour competitors and running
split tests and really knowingthat it's going to convert at
least as good as yourcompetitors, is really important
in the beginning, and if youdon't, then you're going to have
an uphill battle.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, I would say you know, just going back to what
both of you said.
So, john, essentially you knowthe thing that I think is
critical there.
You know, like you were talkingabout, you know, trying to get
some of those initial sales at,at the price point that you want
to be a reference point, it'sit's going to be a whole lot
easier to get those sales fromindividuals that already trust
(12:19):
you.
So, you know, maybe you can getfriends and family, maybe you
know something like that, buthonestly, but honestly, it's
good to be able to get that froman audience, a community that
you have built or that you arepiggybacking on.
You know, so it's always bestto have your own audience, as
you can.
But when you don't have one,then the time it takes to build
(12:43):
an audience can be considerable,especially if you're not very
good at lead gen and things likethat.
If you have that background,then you can probably do that
and you probably understand whatyou're doing.
But if you don't, thenpiggybacking on somebody else's
community if they're the rightavatar for your product and
we've talked about this abillion times but that is the
simplest, easiest, quickest wayto find an audience that's going
(13:06):
to trust you based on yourassociation with the person that
they already trust, which isthe person that built the
community.
And so in that case, when youdon't have reviews on your
product, if you can gain thattrust through another source and
access their community, thenyou have that opportunity to
sell at full price.
You can always do a little bitof a rebate on the back end, you
(13:27):
know, if you do.
You know like you don't want topublicize this and make it a
big thing, obviously because youknow Amazon doesn't like it but
on a small scale, for a limitednumber of orders in a private
community or something like that, it's not really that difficult
of a thing to be able to sellsome full price orders at your
reference price and maybe give arebate on the back end.
(13:47):
Or maybe it's not even a rebate, maybe it's some other freebie
that they get.
You know, like you've createdsomething that they get as a
result or something.
It doesn't have to be adiscount but to get those
reference price purchases.
But also, again going back tothis and it's not like we
haven't harped on this for agesbut if you have that audience,
(14:08):
it's not just useful for gettingthose reference price purchases
, it's also useful for actuallaunch purchases.
Like when we launch a producthaving an email list of 45,000
people that already trust ourbrand, that is gold for a
product launch.
And as long as you have apattern to make sure that you
trust our brand, that is gold,you know, for a product launch.
And as long as you have apattern to make sure that you
can sustain sales after that andtry to maintain ranking and
(14:30):
whatnot, which is not easy, butat least it gives you the
opportunity to get a lot ofsales up front.
Again, a lot of reviews on thefront end, because those people
who actually trust you and likeyour brand are going to be far
more likely to go give you areview, especially if you ask
them on the front end hey, do mea favor, go buy this product
and then leave us a review.
You know you're going to have amuch better.
(14:50):
You know conversion rate, let'ssay, to reviews from those
orders.
So that launch audience isreally incredibly important.
And then, on the back end ofthat, the product listing you
know, matt, you mentioned.
Hey, make sure that you'reactually dialing in on and
optimizing that listing.
Well, one of the things that Ithink is important for our
(15:13):
audience to know and to remember.
And again, not like we don'tharp on this all the time, but
if you don't know who you'reselling to, then how do you know
how to optimize your productlisting?
You know like you can optimizeit for keywords, you know, and
things like that.
Sure, but one of the things thatMatt's talking about is not
just getting the keywords rightand all of those sorts of things
(15:33):
and making sure you highlightspecific, you know benefits in
your images and that sort ofthing.
But part of it is what is thefeel of the imagery?
You know, and it doesn't have acohesive feel.
And is that feeling?
Is that emotion that it evokes,the emotion that you want it to
evoke for the person that youactually want to sell to most?
And if you don't know who thatavatar is, if you don't know who
(15:55):
that person is, then you reallydon't know how to engender that
specific emotion through yourimagery, because you don't know
who you're speaking to.
So if you haven't taken thetime to analyze who it is you're
selling to, then again you'reguaranteeing, if not a failed
launch, you're certainlyguaranteeing a far more
expensive launch and a much moredifficult road to success.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, and I want to circle back to something that,
mike, you've talked about in thepast and comes from having that
list as well that almost backto the beginning, which is, as
you look at Because most of thebrands that are listening to
this, you probably are sellingalready some product.
You have a hero product orproducts on Amazon that you've
(16:40):
got about leveraging youraudience as to you know what
should that next product be?
You know, I think is somethingthat is incredibly powerful,
that when we look at you knowhow do you guarantee a failed
product launch?
Part of that is you know just,you know sticking to, you know
horse blinders on looking atproducts.
(17:01):
And maybe you know just lookingat keywords and saying, okay,
this is going to be you knowthat next year product, rather
than saying, okay, here's what Ithink that product is going to
be, and then going to a portionof your list and saying, hey,
you know, we're thinking aboutdeveloping product day, product
B and product C, which one ofthese interests you the most?
Okay, getting some informationfrom there.
(17:22):
So now you have a little bit ofactual data from your customers
and then taking that extra stepto say, maybe even get on a call
with somebody or Zoom orsomething like that, to say, hey
, here's the benefits orfeatures that we're thinking
about really focusing on andhere's how we're differentiating
it and making it better thanother products that are out
there.
And you know they might tell you, yep, that sounds fantastic.
(17:43):
Or they may be like, yeah, Idon't really care about that.
And then getting those samplesand actually having them try it
and say, hey, I love this aboutit or I don't love that, which
is a ton of work that you know Ithink a lot of brands don't do
up front.
Which is why they have kind ofmixed results when they launch
products is because you know atthat point you're just kind of
guessing.
You know what your customersthat you've built in your brand
(18:06):
wants, and sometimes you'reright and sometimes you're wrong
.
And when you're wrong, that'swhen you know your product
launches end up falling flat.
You end up investing a lot ofmoney into product that you know
doesn't really move the needlein the long run.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Well and I hate to step in here because I kind of
would like to give Matt a chanceto talk but I think it's
important to point out on thatis that one you'll talk to a lot
of Amazon sellers who, sure,once you get good at this, you
can kind of get a sixth sense alittle bit about the kind of
(18:43):
products that may succeed orfail.
But it's still just that it'sstill a guess at the end of the
day, and in that you really haveto be a lot more careful with
the launch in terms of how muchyou spend on it, in terms of how
much inventory you buy andthings of that nature, because
(19:04):
there's at least an averagechance that the product does not
succeed to nearly the levelthat you expected it to or hoped
it would, because it's based ona guess, whereas if you have
tested this out with an audience, if you talk to your audience,
what product would you want?
If you talk to them about whatfeatures they might want, if you
(19:26):
talk to them about what theydon't like, about the features
of other products, you know whatcolor do they want, what you
know like we spend, we'll spendmonths, you know, in that
conversational process with ouremail audience about a new
product, letting them know,number one, that we think this
is what we want to come out with.
Is that something you'd beinterested in?
(19:46):
And going through all of that,but then also, okay, we have it.
You know, does anyone want toprototype it?
You want to beta test?
You know, here's what theresults were.
You know we're going back tothe drawing board to fix these
things.
You know and I've said thisbefore but by the time it comes
time for a launch, that audiencefeels like it's their product,
(20:08):
like they developed it, and inthat you gain a lot of
confidence that the launch isgoing to go well, because one
you already know.
You're selling a product that awhole bunch of people in that
space that represent your avatarhave already said they want.
They like the features that youcreated.
They've tested it and it workswell.
The features that you'veinvested in are actually
performing the way they expectedthem to, and so now, then, you
(20:28):
also have this large audiencethat you get to launch it to,
generally speaking, at a muchlower discount than to people
who don't know anything aboutthe product or anything about
your brand, so you can launchmuch more profitably.
What that also means is you caninvest in more inventory on the
front end.
And that is what I think is thenext critical piece of this, and
(20:49):
that is you cannot afford tostock out either during or after
your launch.
You know, especially if you'veseen success with that launch
and you stock out, you screwedthe whole thing, and so it's way
more of a risk to order toolittle inventory than too much.
(21:10):
Too much inventory is a scenariowhere you can probably still
rectify that, because even ifthe launch didn't go great, you
can always liquidate theinventory.
You can almost always sell theinventory, at least at cost, and
come out break even.
So that to me is the worst casescenario from buying too much
inventory.
But the worst case scenario ofbuying too little inventory is
(21:32):
you invest a lot of time andeffort and money in that launch
and then you stock out and nowyou don't know if you're going
to be able to regain thoserankings, and that's a huge risk
that I think it's not worthtaking.
And if you already know on thefront end, this is 90% likely to
be a really strong successbecause I know what my audience
thinks and I know they're goingto buy it.
It makes it a lot easier tospend that money on the front
(21:54):
end and buy a lot more inventoryup there, knowing that it's
likely to be a success.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
If you've done everything that we, if you've
gone through all of these stepsand you haven't guaranteed your
product launch and things aregoing really well and you end up
running out of inventory andnot paying attention to this
piece, I my best launch to date.
I ran out of inventory Now,covid did play a part in that.
(22:20):
But my best launch to datenever recovered after ran out of
inventory.
Now, covid did play a part inthat.
But my best launch to datenever recovered after running
out of inventory that first time.
Now that doesn't happen withall products and there are ways.
Now this was a brand.
Not only was this a brand newproduct, but it was a brand new
brand.
So I didn't have an audienceyet.
I did have kind of a tangentialaudience that I could point
there and I did, but it wasn'tanything like you know my other
(22:41):
brands where I had a big, youknow big giant Facebook group.
So it it can't be stated enough.
I mean you might knock theinitial launch out of the park,
but if you don't have thefollow-up inventory to replenish
after, I personally have gonethrough my best launch and not
been able to recover, I spent alot of money trying.
I tried PPC.
(23:02):
I tried all the things that Idid initially to get the launch
out of the gates and I mean itwas screaming out of the gates
but not only did it ruin thelaunch but it essentially put
that brand in a really, reallybig hole right out of the gate
by not just initial I did haveinitial inventory.
Now the launch went sosuccessfully that I blew through
(23:26):
three months worth of what Ithought was going to be
inventory in about three weeksbut I didn't have the follow-up
inventory to replenishafterwards and that was very,
very, very detrimental to notonly that product launch but
also the brand in general.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, I think inventory is one of those
underrated things for newproducts.
I would say the other thing,too, is that, even if all those
things do go well, making surethat you have again within
Amazon terms of service whichwe've talked about before but a
way of asking for those reviewson the product, because that is
one of the biggest.
We started looking at reviewson your listing.
(24:00):
I mean, when we were talkingabout Amazon, that probably is
one of the strongest kind ofbarometers that you have for
brand of.
Not only you know what is yourrating, but how many total
reviews do you have on thatlisting?
Because the reality of it is,if we look at the conversion
rate for, you know, a productthat has two reviews and a
five-star listing, versus aproduct that has 1,000 reviews
(24:23):
and a four-point, even if it's a4.4 rounded up to a four and a
half stars the product with1,000 reviews is going to
convert better.
And it just boils down to whatthat social proof is of every
customer when they're looking atit, saying is this product
going to work for me?
I think the other thing thatmaybe gets underrated that we
(24:44):
haven't talked about yet, ifwe're looking at hey, guaranteed
product launch or failed launchis, you know, not having
something, especially when westart looking at those search
query results that looksdifferent, or, excuse me, the
search results to even get theclicks to the listing.
Because I think now you know,in a lot of categories, a lot of
(25:07):
products look really, reallysimilar and the problem with
that is is that if you're thenew kid on the block, you have
to look different and you haveto say something different in
that first 80 characters to yourtitle in order to get people to
click into your listing.
Because that is half the battlewhen we look at, especially for
a new product, of being able tomake a sale, is just getting
somebody to click on yourlisting and, at least from my
(25:30):
experience, especially in 2025when we're recording this, you
really have to look and sounddifferent from everybody else
that's on those search resultsin order to see some success
with that.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I think it's probably also important to pay attention
, just from a psychologicalperspective, on what that looks
like, because you know yourclick through is determined by
your image and your title.
I mean, that's a send up andprice and deliver.
You know how soon can it bedelivered.
So those are things too likedistribution of your inventory.
You know how soon can it bedelivered, so those are things
too like distribution of yourinventory.
You know is is going to be afactor in terms of you know how
(26:04):
how short is your deliverywindow.
That's going to affect your CTR.
But let's, but let's look atthe, the, the things that you're
paying attention to.
So when somebody's scrollingthrough the, through the
listings, the very first thingthat's going to get them to stop
and pay attention as you said,john, is the image, like the
(26:26):
title is not what's going tostop them.
They're not reading titles asthey scroll, they're scrolling
through images, and when theysee an image that interests them
, then they read the title andso, in that, recognize that no
matter what you have in yourtitle, if your image does not
give them a reason to stopscrolling, then you've already
lost the battle.
And so I think that's a keypoint that you know as you're
(26:47):
optimizing that to get that bestclick through, make sure that
that image is going to stop them.
By the same token, you have tomake sure that you're not going
to that you're not going tocreate a bunch of clicks that
don't convert.
So you could create an imagethat will get really good click
through, but if you haven'tcreated a listing that ties into
(27:10):
that image and into the title,so that when they click through,
what they're seeing is whatthey expect to see, or what
they're seeing is better thanwhat they expect to see when
they look at that image and thattitle, then you're going to pay
a lot for clicks and you'regoing to get really low
conversion rate, and then you'restill screwed.
So it's not just about clicks,it's also about conversion.
(27:31):
But you have to get both.
If you don't get any clicks,then your conversion rate's
irrelevant, and if you get awhole bunch of clicks and no
conversion rate, then you justspend a boatload and you don't
make any money, so you got topay attention to both ends of
that.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, I think that's such a good point, especially
around the, you know, looking atthe clicks, and it's not a
clicks or conversion rate, it'sclicks and conversion rate,
cause I do see this, you know,fairly often, especially when
you know a client that we'reworking with might have a
product that you know they,quite frankly, they have an
emotional attachment to.
It's maybe their third orfourth product that they've
(28:01):
launched and they're like, wow,I think this thing is really
great.
And we look in there andthey're like, oh, my conversion
rate is, you know, is fantastic.
And then you know they've hadlike 100 sessions in the last 30
days and they're like, yeah, myconversion rate is 20%.
I'm like, okay, well, if I 10xyour sessions, what does that
conversion rate look like?
And I think that's the importantthing to look at is that, once
(28:23):
you start really amping up thevolume, does that conversion
rate drop down dramatically?
And in a lot of cases it does,because the only people that are
coming through are the absolutehottest leads that are
interested in that product, eventhough you know the main image
(28:46):
doesn't make the most sense, thetitle doesn't necessarily make
the most sense, but they knowthe brand or you know there
could be a million differentreasons, but you know they're,
they're kind of that.
You know 1% of buyers thatyou're you're serving, that are
at the absolute hottest leads,but you're missing out on the
other 99 percent that you couldhave if you had that listing set
(29:07):
up properly for that product.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
I think another thing that you can do to guarantee a
failed product launch is not payattention to all of these
numbers that we're talking aboutand just launch and sit back
and hope that sales are comingin and you're just checking your
bank account.
If you're not checking yourclick-through rate and you're
not checking your conversionrate and you're not looking to
see the search query performancereport, then you don't know
what the baseline is.
(29:29):
Yeah, you can do a lot ofresearch in the beginning, but
things very rarely are going togo exactly how you thought that
they were going to go once youactually start selling, to go
once you actually start selling.
So, paying attention to all ofthese stats and watching what
your click-through rate does asyou change out your main image
and split testing your mainimage with manage your
experiments or a tool likePickFu or product pinning or
(29:50):
something like that I think thatis also.
Yes, that's part of optimizingas your product becomes a lot
more mature, but that's also alot of the product launch also
is paying attention to thosenumbers and watching what they
do.
I think building that muscleearly on during your product
launch is going to set you upfor success.
And if you aren't payingattention to that, then set you
(30:12):
up for a potential failure.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, I would build off that.
Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
John.
Well, I was going to say tobuild off that a little bit, you
know we talked quite a bitabout, you know, the product
itself and to go a little bitmore tactical, you know, and
some of those products, some ofthose you know, some products
hit, some don't.
And I think the same thing istrue when you talk about what
you expect to be your herokeywords as well, in the sense
that you know typically for aproduct and again, it depends on
(30:38):
how many resources you have,what category you're in and how
competitive it is.
But just say, for example,you've got three to five kind of
hero keywords where you're like, hey, I think these are going
to drive the majority of mysales.
I think it's really important topull apart that data and why
ads are so important in thatearly phase, especially for
those exact match keywords, toreally see what does that look
(30:59):
like.
Because you know, I thinkthere's there's been enough
times where we've seen, you know, maybe one or two of those
keywords where the click throughrate and the conversion rate is
dramatically better than theothers, and looking at okay, how
do we double down on thosekeywords that are working for us
, rather than trying to, youknow, push hero keywords that we
kind of wish or hoped orthought were going to be
(31:21):
successful for us.
And I think getting reallygranular with the data,
especially on the ad side, givesyou, you know, full visibility
into that sales funnel to seewhat keywords are working for
you.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, for sure it's.
You know nothing is ever goingto work out the way that you
expected it to work out.
Hopefully, the best that youcan hope for is that you're
directionally accurate and thenlean into the aspects of that
that end up being the mostsuccessful portions of the
campaign and really push on that.
You know, down the road you canalways push on some of those
(31:56):
other keywords that you reallythought were going to be.
You know drivers that maybeweren't during the launch, but
it doesn't mean they can't beafterward.
But during the launch, payingattention to what is working and
leaning into you know thoseaspects to really keep that
launch moving forward, I thinkis a critical piece.
I also think it's probablyimportant to point out that,
(32:16):
depending on the size of yourteam, there's only so much that
you can pay attention to all atonce.
So one of the things that Iwould recommend and there's a
fine line here, and I've saidbefore that we've, as ProTough,
I think we have sometimes erredon well, I don't want to say the
(32:37):
wrong side of the line, but we,you know, instead of riding the
line, we kind of pulled backfrom it.
What I mean by that is youreally should be consistently
launching products.
It is the best way to guaranteelong-term success and
increasing revenue numbers andprofitability and profitability.
(33:00):
So, you know, because, for alot of reasons, one of which is
the more products you have, themore cross-sell and upsell
opportunities you've got, themore you know backend selling
you can do.
If you're building a list, youknow like there's all sorts of
reasons why having you know thatlarger list of products is
useful, but the big thing is,though, your team is still only
so big, and so I would recommend, first of all, that you do,
(33:22):
within reason, as much of thework before the launch as you
can.
So, because once the launchhappens, then everything is just
this.
You know churning chaos.
You know trying to make surethat you're managing everything
and getting it all right.
If you're well prepared forthat launch, though, and you've
(33:42):
done all the research up front,you really have optimized the
listing.
You've created numerousdifferent versions of your main
image so that you can be testingthose during launch.
You've created numerousdifferent versions of your title
so that you can maybe testthose during your launch.
You know like the more youprepare before the launch, the
easier the launch becomes andthe fewer people it requires to
(34:05):
be able to manage and payattention to all these things
Like we're talking about.
You know monitoring yourkeyword, performance and
monitoring.
You know all of these thingsabout the launch.
If it's just you, that can be alittle bit tough to manage,
especially if it's a high volumeproduct and there's other
things going on.
So just I think, before thelaunch, decide on what are the
most critical aspects that youneed to pay attention to as the
(34:30):
launch is progressing.
That will help you determine isit moving in the direction of
success or is it moving awayfrom success.
Success or is it moving awayfrom success, and what are you
going to do about it?
Because you can't focus oneverything.
You're not going to have thetime, unless you've got a
decent-sized team.
You can't focus on every singlelittle KPI, but if you focus on
the main ones what's your CTR,what's your CVR, what's your
(34:50):
sales numbers per day?
Are they increasing?
Are they decreasing?
Whatever, then at least you'vegot a chance of being able to
make the adjustments that needto be made when they need to be.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, and I think so this might be a good place to
wrap, because I think you bringup a couple of good points there
that I think are a couple of mytakeaways, which is the first
is that I think, first of all,you know, when we talk about
mistakes, probably the biggestmistake is not launching a new
product.
Like if you, you know, if youjust said, hey, I'm not going to
launch a new product, you knowthat is probably the biggest
mistake for a brand long-term.
And then what I would add ontothat is is that you know, don't
(35:29):
bet the farm on a new productlaunch, cause, especially if
you're not doing these on aregular basis or you haven't
done one in a while, you'reprobably, you know, gonna miss a
couple of important steps inwhat we've just covered today.
And sometimes that's okay,cause, if you know, maybe you're
a one person team, you know,maybe you're still just a one
person wrecking crew, you canonly get out, you know, one new
(35:49):
product a year.
Well, going through thatprocess at least once a year is
going to be a make you 10 timesmore effective than if you just
don't do it at all.
Because I have talked to youknow I can think of one client
right now that you know hasn'tlaunched a new product in
probably three or four years andhe is deathly afraid of
launching a product that's notgoing to work out.
(36:09):
And the reality of it is isthat even if you do all
everything perfect, there's no,you know, guaranteed magic
formula that your product launchis going to be perfect.
And you know, sometimes justgetting in and doing it and
learning from that process andcontinuing to evolve is going to
give you more, better result inthe longterm than trying to
(36:31):
make one product launch perfectand never getting off the launch
pad.
So I'd say that's my biggesttakeaway.
I'll, I'll, I'll leave it toyou guys to kind of share maybe
one or two of the biggest youknow kind of mistakes that you
guys see and that you would, youknow, want listeners to take
away from this conversation.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yeah, I mean I think the biggest thing that we've
talked about and something thatwe talked about a lot actually
just with ProTip not too longago is inventory.
Inventory plays a really bigpart of this.
Again, there's tools out therethat tell you that kind of walk
you through what yourcompetitors are and what they're
doing in terms of salesvelocity.
Over ordering, I think, iswe've talked about in here and
(37:09):
defined that that's less of arisk than under ordering.
So I think inventory, payingattention to inventory, crafting
the right plan in the verybeginning and making sure that
you have enough and making surethat you never run out of
inventory I think is the biggesttakeaway for me.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
I think one of the things that I want to mention is
just failure isn't fatal, youknow, learn from it.
But also, in specific to alaunch, I think it's probably
also important to recognize that, technically, just because you
fail a launch doesn't mean thatthat product has to be a failure
(37:45):
.
And in my opinion, it may besuch that if a launch starts
going sideways and you feel likethis is not really going the
direction that you want it andit looks like maybe there's not
a good way to pull out, you know, and when I say pull out, I
mean really kind of pull up,let's say, and turn what is
looking like a failed launchinto a success.
(38:05):
Maybe the better solution is topull out and try again.
You know, remove that inventory, restructure, whatever it is
that you're going to do.
You know in terms of what the,you know what went wrong, what
didn't you do right, what didyou miss.
You know what were the piecesthat didn't happen.
And you know, and maybe make adecision to to relaunch.
(38:27):
Now you're going to have tomake the decision before you go
removing inventory because youknow again, like we said earlier
, you could always liquidate andthat's another option.
You know like, okay, the launchdidn't go well, I'm going to
liquidate this inventory insteadof removing it and trying to
relaunch, figure out what wentwrong, because if I still think
(38:52):
this is you know, if I stillthink this is a product that
should have succeeded right, butI know the errors that I made
and I'm really sure that thelaunch didn't succeed because of
those sure that the launchdidn't succeed because of those.
Then, whether I remove theinventory and try again, or
whether I liquidate theinventory and then restructure
things, create, a new listingand do it again.
You know.
Order the inventory up again,maybe change the product If
there was something about theproduct that was the problem and
try again.
(39:13):
You know there's no reason youcan't do that.
I'm not saying you have to.
Some products are a failurebecause the product itself is a
failure and there's really noway that you're going to rectify
that.
But if you really can see wherethe errors were and you think
there's a way to make that asuccess, you can always try
again.
You know, like, and you learneda lot from the first launch.
Hopefully the second launchwill go better because you
(39:33):
learned those things and youfixed them.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
So Before you wrap it up, John, and to bring it full
circle, if you didn't definewhat success looked like at the
very beginning, then you have noway of judging if it was a
failure or not.
So, full circle again you haveto define what success looks
like at the very beginning.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Absolutely, matt, and you know what I think that's a
great place to wrap for today.
So thank you for bringing usaround full circle.
Thank you, everybody forlistening to another tactics
Tuesday.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.