Product Launch Marketing Plan

Here's the 1 shift you need to make for any marketing launch (after running launches for dozens of tech/ai brands): Treat creators like your new PR channel Fact: Your next product launch doesn't need a press release. It needs 30 creators in a room. If an event is worth inviting press to, it's worth inviting creators to. The 6 moves to run creators as your PR channel (tied to a case study with LinkedIn launching their new Creator Marketplace): #1 - Source for the network, not the name. Add one line to your interest form: "Who else should be here?" You're buying the intros, not the seat. #2 - Brief them like press. Embargoed data. A clear narrative. A hard embargo time. When a creator breaks your news first, you become the source, not the sponsor. And their audience follows for exclusive updates/data. #3 - Engineer the 48 hour window. Creator content decays fast. Reach is won in the 2 days after, not the week of. Photographer delivers the album in 24 hours. One pager of facts and FAQs the same night. Hire for turnaround, not the shoot. #4 - Put execs on camera. 15 minutes of an exec's calendar = your highest performing asset of the launch. The keynote clip looks like marketing. The unscripted one looks like access. Audiences reward access. #5 - Gift something filmable. One test: would a creator post this unprompted? Custom playing cards with a QR code. A printed newspaper of the launch. If the swag isn't content, it's landfill with your logo on it. #6 - Load paid before the event ends. Your best organic creator content is your best paid creative. Amplify inside 48 hours, not next week when the moment is dead. Start building your creator roster now. Before you need it. In tech and AI there are too many launches and not enough trusted creators. The good ones are booked. Wait until two weeks out and you're fighting six other companies for the same five people. Creators aren't a tactic you activate last min for a one-off launch. They're your new PR channel. We're running this exact playbook at Creator Match 🧩 for countless tech/ai brands. 💬 If you're a creator, ask yourself how you could get on the roster for one of these brands, and if you're a brand, how can you start building this roster? HUGE s/o to Luiza Cocito & Ali Snider for executing one of the best product launch events I've been to all year - always fun to visit the LinkedIn NYC office in the Empire State Building! Currently wearing my branded bucket hat lol. *** 🔔 Follow me AJ Eckstein 🧩 for more content on entrepreneurship, creator marketing strategies for tech brands, and tips for creators

I grew Jubilee Media to 14M subs on YouTube with $2k video budgets. 90% of brands can’t do the same with $200k budgets. Here’s how to build TV quality production on a tiny budget: Most brands overspend to make these videos because they're used to working with large-scale TV productions. But times have changed. Creating Netflix-quality content has a much lower barrier to entry. You really only need 3 basics: 1. Good audio 2. Good lighting 3. Good composition There’s a caveat to the budget of course: talent costs more than $2K. BUT… All you need to start making REALLY beautiful stuff is 1 producer (~$9k / mo) and 1 editor ~$8k / mo). That's it. They can get you 1 high-quality long-form episode every 2-3 weeks. We helped Proton scale to 100K subscribers in just 7 videos - from zero - with only a producer and editor. Cost of production is $3-5K per month… - Peerspace studio (7 hrs @ $150/hr) = $1050 - Talent (expert) = $500 - Table/Chairs (FB Marketplace) = $250 - 2x light rental (Aputure 300d) = $250 - Softbox + diffusion = $100 - C-stands rental (4) = $100 - Wireless lav system (4-channel rental) = $200 - Lunch (4 people @ $15/head) = $60 - Travel = $500 TOTAL = $3,010. You can shoot a couple episodes in one day and have a nice backlog to start. I promise you don’t need to make it complicated. I remember one time at Jubilee, we wanted to test the antithesis to this… We kept asking “what if we had a bigger budget” and eventually we tried it out. Turns out, the more we spent, the worse the content performed. You see there’s actually a tipping point with content - when things look too polished it actually hurts you because the YouTube platform and audience is built on authenticity. So beyond a certain budget, every dollar you spend on production actually makes it LESS likely to work. Now obviously, there are exceptions... Mr. Beast running trains into holes isn't cheap. But, for what most brands are trying to do... You don't need much. At the end of the day, winning with brand content isn’t about “expensive”. - You win subscribers by understanding the platform. - You gain traction by showing up consistently. - You retain viewers with quality content. This is what separates brands that grow REAL audiences, from brands that burn money on unenjoyable content. So if you have budget fears right now, reach out. I’d love to help you execute organic brand content the lean and effective way.

Ingredient-driven beauty is not a trend. When formulation leads, every decision, packaging, messaging, pricing, positioning, aligns with the science. If your hero is a molecule, your brand must prove it. Packaging shows stability, design signals authority, and messaging reflects efficacy, turning every detail into evidence of expertise and chemistry into brand value. Are you into the business? Make the ingredient the HERO. Consumers equate transparency with value, seeing the exact percentage, knowing the molecule, and sensing a clinical tone. Packaging should reflect this with bold percentages, visible INCI names, minimal imagery, and a structured, lab-like layout. Reduce decorative noise; clarity signals expertise, making the formulation a trusted asset and reinforcing scientific authority. +Percentage transparency +Specific molecule naming +Clinical tone TACTICS: +Large percentage typography +INCI names visible not hidden +Minimal imagery +Structured, lab-like layout >>BRANDING<< Use clinical design codes to signal ingredient-driven authority. Muted tones, grid layouts, sans-serif fonts, visible batch codes, and droppers or airless pumps communicate precision and trust. These cues subtly tell consumers the product is tested, controlled, and efficacious, turning design into silent proof of formulation expertise. VISUALS cues from: +Pharmaceutical packaging +Dermatology clinics +Laboratory labeling SIGNALS Key visual: +White, gray, muted tones +Grid systems +Sans-serif typography +Batch codes printed visibly +Dropper or airless pump formats SUBCONSCIOUSLY imply: +Tested +Controlled +Regulated +Efficacious >>PACKAGING<< If your product uses airless pumps, opaque bottles, aluminum tubes, or dual chambers, explain why on the pack. Statements like “Airless packaging protects retinol from oxidation” turn packaging into proof of formulation intelligence, signaling serious, well-engineered formulas and building consumer trust. If you use: +Airless pumps +Opaque UV-block bottles +Aluminum tubes +Dual-chamber systems Consumers interpret: +Technical packaging ⇒ serious formulation +Protection systems ⇒ expensive actives Concluding In ingredient-driven brands, the molecule is the hero, the formula is the story, and the packaging proves it. Every design choice signals formulation intelligence. The goal isn’t to look premium, it’s to make the science visible, building trust, expertise, and performance. Find my curated search of examples, and get ready to succeed. Featured brands: Allies of Skin Belif CeraVe Dieux Skin Good Molecules HBN Skincare Medik8 Paula’s Choice Q+A Skincare Selfless by Hyram SkinCeuticals The INKEY List The Ordinary Typology Versed #beautybusiness #beautyprofessionals #beautyformulation #beautyingredients

Packaging Takes Off. Back in school, I was the self-appointed queen of paper planes. Naturally curious, I soon realised it wasn't about throwing harder... it was all in the folds. A good crease in the right place and that scrappy bit of paper could fly halfway across the classroom (and sometimes straight into detention). Fast forward, and that same thinking is reshaping packaging. Researchers at VTT and Aalto University in Finland have taken the Miura fold, a pattern originally used to fold satellites, and applied it to paper-based packaging. They've created packs that are lightweight, durable, and just as protective as plastic or foam. Only now, without the environmental baggage. These folds do more than look good. They absorb impact, reduce material use, and even cut shipping weight. No overengineering, just smart problem-solving. Think food boxes that don't need plastic liners. Ecommerce packaging that replaces bubble wrap. Luxury products wrapped in folds that feel more couture than carton. And this isn't just a designer's dream. These structures are scalable, cost-effective, and ready to run down existing production lines. Stora Enso is already testing the approach across everything from premium goods to everyday food containers, using recycled materials and cutting waste. But packaging is just the start. Origami principles are popping up in collapsible furniture, modular buildings, even interior design. Proof that good design isn't just about how it looks. It's how it works. Sustainability and functionality don't need to fight for space. With the right fold, they move together. Sometimes, the sharpest ideas really do start on paper. Time to unfold what's next. 📷VTT Technical Research Centre

Partner enablement is often thought of as how we are enabling our partners. But sales teams are the frontline of revenue, and their success often hinges on understanding the value partnerships bring. Many organizations fail to equip sales reps with the tools and training they need to make the most of partner-driven opportunities. If you want your partnerships to truly drive impact, you must tailor enablement for your sales team. Here’s how to get started: 1. Sales reps need clarity on how to integrate partnerships into their process. Make sure your training covers: * The Partner Pitch: What’s the unique value of a partner-driven lead, and how should they position it to the customer? * Co-Sell Opportunities: How do they collaborate with partners during the deal cycle? Define roles and responsibilities for seamless execution. * Engagement Process: What’s the step-by-step process for involving a partner? Whether it’s looping them in for a demo or escalating technical questions, clear guidelines prevent delays and confusion. 2. Provide Easy-to-Use Tools: Sales enablement shouldn’t feel like homework. Create resources that are quick to access and easy to use, like * Quick-Reference Guides: Summarize partner value propositions, key metrics, and FAQs in a single document. * Cheat Sheets for Objections: Offer pre-written responses to common challenges when selling partner-driven solutions. * CRM Templates: Use CRM workflows to automate the partner engagement process, keeping it simple and repeatable. 3. Integrate Training into Sales Routines Don’t overwhelm your sales team with one-off workshops. Instead, embed partnership enablement into their day-to-day routines: * Add partner updates to weekly sales meetings. * Offer bite-sized training videos or guides they can review on-demand. * Celebrate wins from partner-driven deals to reinforce the value of collaboration. 4. Pair new sales reps with a “partnership ambassador” on your team to provide hands-on guidance during their first partner-driven deals. When sales teams understand how partnerships drive value, they become powerful advocates for partner-driven growth.

For many devs, marketing and selling their game isn’t something they’re passionate about. However, getting your game seen is just as important as building it. To cover the basics of games marketing, I invited Justin La Torre, a marketing specialist for over 6 years and content mercenary for over 10 years, to share his experience. The guide is massive and it'll make promoting your game feel less like a chore. Here is the TL:DR of Justin’s guide: 1. Game marketing is about telling the story behind your game and building anticipation. ↳ Create a narrative that players can connect with, like behind-the-scenes videos or a compelling origin story for your characters or world. 2. Identify where your audience hangs out online—whether it's specific subreddits, Discord groups, or Twitter.  ↳ Engaging in these communities can build you a following before your game even launches. 3. While tried-and-true marketing tactics are important, don’t be afraid to try new things. ↳ Think beyond simple gameplay streams. Work with influencers on custom challenges, co-created content, or sponsored tournaments. 4. Invest in quality key art, logos, and in-game screenshots to use across multiple platforms—on your website, digital storefronts, social media, and in press kits.  ↳ They should be instantly recognizable and convey the essence of your game in one glance. 5. Collect emails and regularly update your most engaged fans on progress, release dates, and exclusive content to build launch excitement. 6. Allow players early access through a demo or beta build to create hype and gather valuable feedback. 7. Incentivize sharing by allowing players to invite friends and make the demo time-limited to create a sense of urgency. 8. Encourage players to add your game to their Steam wishlist well before launch. ↳When your game is wishlisted, it becomes visible to more users and Steam will notify them upon release or during a sale. 9. Don’t rely on a single launch announcement - Create a multi-step launch strategy that includes countdown teasers, trailers, influencer campaigns, and press outreach.  ↳ Build momentum in the weeks leading up to the release, so by launch day, there’s already a buzz in the community. 10. Use limited-time events and bonuses to keep players engaged post-launch, like seasonal events, exclusive skins, and time-sensitive offers to bring back lapsed players. 11. Encourage your community to share fan art, memes, or Let’s Play videos to deepen connections and expand your game's visibility organically. Marketing might not be the most exciting part of game development, but it’s just as important as the game itself. Even if promotion feels tedious, promote your game well so players can experience what you've built. Check out the guide in the comments if you want to take a deeper look 👇

𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗩𝗥? 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱—𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁! 🕶️✨ Convincing a customer to back a new Virtual Reality project isn’t just about slick demos or bold promises. It’s about walking them, step-by-step, from “curious” to “committed.” Here’s what I’ve found works best: 1️⃣ 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 Start with the client’s world, not the tech. What’s their top challenge or biggest gap? Unpack where they’re losing time, money, or opportunity. VR stands out when it’s a clear fixer—not just a shiny toy. 2️⃣ 𝗣𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗽𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 Show what success looks like, with clear and simple language. Think: “Imagine your training is twice as fast, or your remote team walks a site from anywhere.” A real-life use case, or even a quick sketch, goes a long way. 3️⃣ 𝗣𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸, 𝗹𝗼𝘄-𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸 Pitch a small, focused pilot—minimal investment, tight timeline, obvious goals. Remove the fear of wasted spend by keeping early stakes low, and the feedback loop tight. 4️⃣ 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 Don’t just show generic VR. Let your client (or their team) experience a hands-on demo that mirrors their real needs. Letting them “feel” the impact is a huge level-up for belief and buy-in. When you walk clients through these four steps, you build understanding, reduce the sense of risk, and set up small wins that open the door for bigger investment. Have you cracked the code for getting clients excited about VR? What’s your best “first step” tip? Share your approach or biggest lesson below—let’s help more teams experience the value of immersive tech, one real step at a time! 💡👇

Handling promotional approaches for New Product Introductions (NPIs) without historical data, here are a few strategies: Approach for NPIs without Historical Data: 1. Analogous Products: Look for similar products in your portfolio or the market. Analyze their performance during promotions and use that data as a proxy. Identify key characteristics like price, target market, and promotional strategies. 2. Market Research: Conduct market research to understand potential customer response. Surveys, focus groups, and competitive analysis can provide valuable insights into expected demand and price sensitivity. 3. Pilot Testing: Run a small-scale promotion in a limited market or with a select group of customers. This will help you gather initial data and refine your promotional strategy before a full-scale launch. 4. Expert Judgment: Leverage the expertise of your sales and marketing teams. Their experience with similar products and market conditions can provide valuable input for estimating PED and expected sales uplift. 5. Baseline Sales Estimate: Establish a baseline sales estimate using the above methods. Apply different promotional scenarios and monitor the actual performance to adjust your strategies in real-time. 6. Dynamic Pricing Models: Use dynamic pricing models that adjust prices based on real-time demand and market conditions. This can help optimize sales and gather data on customer responsiveness. 7. Customer Segmentation: Identify target customer segments and understand their behavior and preferences. Tailor your promotional strategies to these segments to maximize the impact. Example: - Analogous Product Analysis: Suppose a new product has similar features to an existing product (Product A) but is positioned at a higher price point. Use the historical PED of Product A as a starting point, adjusting for price differences and market positioning. - Pilot Testing: Launch a limited promotion in a specific region or customer segment. Gather sales data, customer feedback, and adjust the PED estimate accordingly. - Market Research: Conduct a survey to gauge interest in the new product and willingness to pay at different price points. Use this data to inform your promotional strategy. By combining these strategies, you can develop a more accurate promotional approach for NPIs and refine it as you gather more data. #RecursiveVidya

We're all trying to get more visibility on our product updates, and a handful of companies do it really well, but most don't. I think it comes down to two things that separate the two: 1/ having a hook for each update, and 2/ how you present that update. 1/ The hook. Your update can go out anywhere - email, LinkedIn, social, in-app, ads — but realistically the two places where you actually get visibility are your own customer list over email and what you put out on social. That's the 80/20 of any update. And if that's your 80/20, then you need a good hook to get someone to open the email or to stop scrolling and look at your exec's post on LinkedIn. Without that, the rest of it doesn't really matter. 2/ How you present the update once you've got their attention. Show the thing itself, immediately. People don't want a build-up video or an animation - they just want to see the thing, and they want to see it in about five seconds. That's the attention span you're working with. Some will want to explore further, and they can, but most won't. You've got a five-second window to land it. So what do you do with that window? You make your interactive demo the primary way to deliver the feature update. Take a new feature and show how it works in under five steps. It doesn't need to show every detail of how it functions, and it doesn't need to be technically complete - it's a glimpse, in five steps. Be comfortable with that. Build a simple interactive demo, and then offer a few distribution options: - share the interactive demo link directly - export it as a video with the cinematic zooms and clicks and animations that make it shine - turn it into a PDF that can be shared as a carousel here - share it as a GIF (it's all possible in Storylane btw) The interactive demo sits at the center of the launch asset, and around it you offer four distribution options to use in whatever way works for the channel where the update needs to be promoted. IMO this will get you far more coverage than what most of us are doing today. We're going to start adopting this on our own launches to see how it plays out, but I thought it's worth sharing!

Don't schedule a shoot to end up with one video. Live action shoots are a huge, expensive investment. If you build content with a modular approach, you'll get way more value out of the shoot. Here are a few ways I've done it: 1. Capture lifestyle vignettes Instead of capturing one "day in the life" style shoot, I made a week long shoot where we captured a ton of lifestyle footage. We cast three different families, along with a group of individual talent. We found ways to intersect their stories, so that we could make a variety of videos that featured one person, or could build narratives that showed their relationships together. And we found ways to insert the product into each of these narratives, in multiple different ways. 2. Build a scalable setup Find ways to use one location to capture as much content as possible. • Find one location that has very different looking rooms • Use a stage / set that you can get different looks out of • Shoot with greenscren or virtual production For a campaign around distracted driving, we built a greenscreen setup that let us film a ton of different "distracted driving" moments with an array of actors. We had a catalog of visual effects backgrounds for different driving environments, so we knew how to light each scene and could film at any angle. This let us capture enough content for an entire campaign in one day. 3. Build for social Don't make social content your afterthought, build a framework that optimizes for social. When we had a day to film with NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, we captured a bunch of greenscreen footage with moody, dramatic lighting for race day promos and other sports-oriented content. And we had more traditional "spokesman" content, explaining our product. But we also took time with him to capture social-specific content, like him rating people's driving behavior. Sure, you can just film stuff with a phone in between takes, but you can be so much more creative with your production if you think about social from the beginning. The more you plan, the more value you can get out of your production.