Tell me about the best PRE LAUNCH STRATEGIES to build hype.

[drooza]

I am officially launching in 10 days.

modernloftinteriors.com

I know it's a short time, but I'd like to build as much hype as possible.

I've got 1,000 Instagram followers. 

I've got a bit of a LinkedIn audience.

I don't have much of an email list.

I tried SEO but so far we're barely ranking.

Should I do pre-launch Facebook/Instagram ads?

Should I connect with Instagram influencers to promote me?

Should I offer a discount?

What has worked for others?

[PageFly-Richard]

Hi @drooza, this is Richard - CRO expert at PageFly - Shopify Advanced Page Builder. 

First of all, congrats on the upcoming launch. 

Since you have a very small time window, I would advise that you stay away from SEO - it's rather a long-term game. 

To build hype, the best approaches are: 

- Send out mass promotion emails. You can use Hunter.io or Skrapp.io to bulk collect email, then use Mailchimp or some other Shopify app to send out mass emails, introducing about your brand, what you do and most importantly, have something in there for your recipients - preferably a gift card - check out how you can create Shopify Gift Card HERE. 

- Run Facebook Ads - the goal here is to build hype so opt for the awareness goal when setting up your Facebook Ads campaign- check out how you can run Facebook Ads here. 

- Having influencers endorse your brand is a good idea - just be mindful of the ROI since personally, I'm not a fan of influencer marketing. 

Let me know if my answer is of any help to you with a like or a thumb-up. 

Cheers, 

[drooza]

This sounds good.

About sending out mass emails: I barely have an email list. Are you
suggesting buying email addresses? Isn't that spammy?

[JuliusT]

Hi @drooza,

Firstly, your website looks nice and clean. Nice work on the design.

There are a number of different growth strategies you could undertake. Like you mentioned, Facebook/Instagram ads could be a good option, especially because your products are photogenic. Just make sure to really hone in on your target audience otherwise your ROI on ad spend may be low.

Using influencers to help promote your product will depend on what your budget is. The higher the number of followers the more they will charge. With that said, the ROI is difficult to measure.

I wouldn't recommend offering a discount from the beginning. This cheapens the product and since it looks like you are going for a more high end customer, I'd avoid this for now.

Some other growth ideas to consider:

• Find some email newsletters related to the furniture industry. See if you can do a guest post or pay for an ad in one of their newsletters. You can also offer them an affiliate link.
• Offer to guest post on popular furniture/design blogs. As @PageFly-Richard mentioned, SEO isn't recommended for you because that's more of a long term strategy, however, you could target some established blogs to generate short term traffic
• Post on furniture/design Facebook groups without looking too spammy
• Cold call interior designers to see if they'd be interested in pre-ordering your products for a bulk discount

Those are just some ideas but there are many others you could experiment with.

Hope that helps and if you have any other questions, let me know.

Good luck with the launch!

Julius