KPIs to Monitor for Product Launch Success – Part 1: The pre-launch phase

Several elements must be considered to ensure a seamless and successful launch of a new product, and we discussed all of those in the prior articles in our product launch series.

In this series of three articles, we’ll go through how to keep track of your product launch data, which is just as crucial for product launch success. 

In addition, we’ll go over the most critical criteria that signal the success of your product launch at various stages.

 

The importance of tracking KPIs.

 

When launching a new product, the odds of success are approximately 25 to 1. According to Harvard Business School, about 95% of the 30,000 new products released each year fail.

The most dangerous product launch mistake is failing to establish relevant, realistic, and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). Instead, businesses must set clear, reasonable, and quantifiable goals for revenue, price point, total sales required to reach revenue targets, the number of needed prospects, leads, and conversions, and the percentage of sales expected from new vs. recurring customers.

Setting and monitoring the correct metrics is critical for measuring your progress and ensuring you’re on track with your product launch strategy.

They allow companies to: 

  • Keep track of progress
  • Improve internal communication throughout the organization.
  • Specify the objectives of your product launch.
  • Assess marketing initiatives and overall strategy.

If the measurements show that you’re still a long way from meeting your objective, it’s an indication that you should probably revise your strategy to get closer.

It’s vital to note that metrics aren’t goals in and of themselves but rather an assessment of goals and objectives.

Because every product is different, the product marketing metrics used to measure the success of a launch will most certainly differ depending on the company, industry, and stage of the product launch strategy.

As a result, in this and the following three articles, we will discuss metrics for pre-launch, launch, and post-launch companies.

 

1. Engagement and interaction on social media for Product Launch Success

Social media can help you raise visibility and attract new clients through your content, which is critical during this stage. You can also track such marketing KPIs throughout the launch process.

Social media marketing should be vital for any business, with over 4.5 billion active users worldwide and an average ROI of 95 percent. It’s no secret that social media is one of the most powerful marketing mediums accessible today.

Here are some key metrics to consider:

  • Views 
  • Engagement 
  • Reach 
  • Click-through-rate (CTR)

The engagement rate quantifies how effective your posts – or your profile in general – are and how engaged/interactive each follower is with your content.

 

2. Website traffic and page views for Product Launch Success

The traffic to a website is a metric that most companies keep track of generally, but it can be especially beneficial for those preparing for a new launch.

You may get a fair notion of how interested people are in your future launch by looking at how many people visit your website monthly.

Organic traffic refers to users who arrive at your website or landing page through unpaid channels such as search-engine-optimized content. In contrast, sponsored traffic refers to people who visit your website through paid marketing activity.

Aside from tracking how many people visit your website, it’s critical that you also keep track of their location and how long they remain.

Their location may be especially relevant for future targeted marketing efforts, but website traffic may be a remarkable statistic for determining your product’s appeal to your target demographic.

 

3. K-factor for Product Launch Success

The K-factor is a referral marketing metric that shows the overall number of registrations per inviting user, also known as the Viral Coefficient. In viral marketing, the K-factor can describe the growth rate of websites, apps, or a customer base. For example, a product that grows on its own, powered by customers who bring in new customers, is said to be “becoming viral.”

The Social K-factor measures how popular a website is when content from the website is shared on social media. It is determined by the Social Coefficient, which defines how quickly content spreads through social sharing, and the Sharing Ratio, which determines how frequently your content is likely to be shared. 

When visitors share content from your website on social media, the content can spread virally since the social media posts attract more visitors who share additional content. The Social K-factor quantifies the benefit of social sharing.

 

It is defined as follows:

k = I * c, where 

I represents the number of invitations sent by each customer and

c is the number of “conversions,” or the number of invitations that react. 

As you can see from this calculation, a product with a k-factor larger than one is “viral” or spreading exponentially. The faster the growth, the larger the k-factor. A K-factor of 0.15 – 0.25 is considered satisfactory.

 

Conclusion

That was our guide to the three most important product launch KPIs for the pre-launch period of and why they are important.

As previously said, each industry has its unique set of metrics; nonetheless, the ones we presented covered a wide range of scenarios and should surely be taken into account.

We’ll review the KPIs to track during the launch phase in greater depth next week, so follow us. 

Tina Janeva

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