3 Things to Do Before a Product Launch

Over the past few years in life science marketing, I have prepared several product launches. In the last 6 months alone, I have prepared 4 of them.

We are talking about investments of hundreds of thousands dollars (if not millions) that culminate in a product or new service that took years to develop.

The context is usually the same:

• CXOs are under a lot of pressure from investors

• Their mindset is “I need to get it out there as soon as possible.”

Suddenly everybody needs marketing. And they need it quickly. Each launch comes with its 3-to-4-month campaign (emails, posts, webinars, paid ads, etc.).

After all those efforts, the last thing you want is to see the campaign flop and the product/service being ignored.

So here are my top 3 pieces of advice to make your product IRRESISTIBLE from the day it launches:

(1) Get the data first

Run the validation internally or give the product to 2-3 key clients.

What I mean by this is that you need to go beyond the basic “proof of concept.”

Invest in creating a complete case study. For example, instead of testing an off-the-shelf inhibitor or activator, take over a real project and test real drugs. Go further.

It will pay off by shortening the sales cycle considerably.

At launch, several marketing efforts will go out at once, such as sending an email newsletter, making LinkedIn posts. Without data, none of them will convince a scientist.

There are a few extra tricks like (1) Creating case studies in PDF format so your sales team can share them with their prospects or (2) Uploading them to the website so people can find them through Google search and AI search engines.

(2) Clearly define the problem your product solves

Selling your product as an upgraded version or a high-throughput system does not state the problem you are solving. The problem might look obvious to you, but it is not to your potential clients.

These are the types of sentences that convert readers:

“Reduce false positives by 31% on DNA samples.”

“Reach 20% liver editing at a 15-fold lower RNA dose.”

“Process 96 samples in 4 hours instead of 2 days.”

“Lower cost per sample by 35% at the same sequencing depth.”

“Shorten iPSC differentiation into neurons from 6 weeks to 12 days.”

“Keep enzyme activity above 95% after 12 months at 4°C.”

I know, I know, I know. It is not that easy. Not every product is life-changing.

But being specific and using numbers makes a big difference. Even if the improvement is only 10%.

(3) Decide who it is for

That decision will shape the entire marketing strategy, from the message to the medium.

Message: If you are aiming at academia, high throughput might not move the needle. What matters more may be whether they can reuse the disposables or need new ones for every experiment.

Medium: LinkedIn may work better than email for academic researchers. For people in industry or big pharma, email may give you better chances (this is just an example).

That is all for today,

Alejandra Carreira

Read more about my marketing work. And if you are here for the science, I share weekly updates on CGT, RNA therapeutics and organoids on LinkedIn.

Working on a scientific product and not sure how to sell it? Have a question about marketing? Let’s connect