Event Launch Strategies

I’ll touch on the stuff that we’ve already covered before this launch sequence was published, so that you have a better feel for our pre-launch plans.

In March 2008, we launched our brochure website, video and squeeze page to capture names and email addresses of interested prospects. We also kicked off our domain optimization work, under a 6 month optimization roadmap.

In April 2008, when the brochure website was all set up, we began working on our social networking presence to build contacts. This social networking aspect has been a constant work in progress to date and will continue all the way up to launch and beyond.

This work includes: Link baiting and networking within social media platforms to introduce a softer pre-launch campaign without any fan fair and without drawing unwanted attention. Our aim has been to add one prospect at a time into our pre-launch customer list. These prospects emerge from our conversations, followings, friending & fanning strategies, on the online social networks. The idea is to approach them as you would network in actual gatherings and parties. Except that this gathering has millions of global attendees and has multiple rooms that you can walk into to find the early adopters that you need to win over to launch our site. There isn’t any magic wand here - its all about taking time for introductions, meetings, conversations and so on.

We’ll continue with this regular social networking aspect of our launch for 3 months, attracting one new pre-launch customer at a time.

In May 2008, we launched two of our blogs on Social Media & Launch Strategies and started posting content on them daily to give our social media presence some credibility throughout the networks that we have built in the past month.

The blogs touch upon explorative and informative topics in event marketing and event launch domains. The idea is to keep the content flowing with consistent quality.

In June 2008, we launched the Event Launch Guidelines blog and began to add structure to our overall blog content. We added some web 2.0 cutting edge “tactics, tools and tips” presented in an event launch step by step manner. The aim of this blog is to position our niche as social media, internet launch and online event marketing specialists and not event planning or management specialists.

In July 2008, we are following the Event Launch Guidelines blog closely by turning our Launch Strategies blog into an ongoing case-study that follows our own launch. We want our community to learn from looking at our launch, and feel like a part of our launch. At the same time we are cementing our credibility by showing that we put our money wherever we put our mouth.

In August 2008, we will launch our Joint Venture partner campaigns to a get a rush of targeted traffic to the site. We will target JV partners who are leaders in the event planning and promotions industry with a view to turning their subscribers into our early adopters - we will increase the perceived value of the application by offering these early adopters early access to the site before the public which is only available to our JV partner list members and our own subscribers placing an application full sign at the front door.

At this stage all early adopters or pre-launch customers / members will be able to invite new members onto the application but no outside member will be able to gain access without an invitation from one of the existing members.

In September 2008, with the run into Christmas on our side, this is the month we start our official public launch campaign. The campaign will run over 3 weeks and will include video testimonials from the early adopters and pre-launch users who will provide us the social proof we need to convince the public the application is the real deal.

This phase in the launch will coincide with our SEO campaign hitting its straps, by this time our page rankings should be on the top pages of the search engines bringing lots of organic traffic to the site where they will learn that to get in they must visit one of our existing members event pages & request for them to accept them as a fan.

Around this time our activity in the social networking domains should also be peaking at 10,000 fans or followers ready to be invited into our official product launch.

The launch will be covered with intense Public relations campaigns over 4 weeks. I’ll discuss more details of this phase later.

In October 2008, we launch the Official product launch. During October, we will also relaunch our super promoter campaign where we immortalize our early adopters and bigger customers by giving them their own classification, privileges and financial incentives and rewards as their own classification within the application hierarchy.

In November 2008, we will run the product post-launch campaigns where we bring everyone up to speed with the hectic past few months and outline our plans to provide services & training platforms for members.

Finally, in December 2008, around the time of Christmas, we’ll launch our official product launch campaign. Thereafter, we’ll always be post launching, pre-launching or relaunching something within the company at all times to keep the momentum moving forward.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Social Traffic - The Book

Today’s tip! If you want to source the best JV partners in your niche, you need a software that sources those selling the most product’s in your niche!

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