How to Host a Product Launch: An Essential Playbook

We love a good corporate events calendar, and whilst we don’t make a habit of picking favourites, there’s no denying that product launches are amongst some of the most exciting types of events to attend. Not only are the event activities typically fascinating and the exclusive branded gifts and giveaways to die for, but the occasion itself is so exciting – especially if the product is innovative, inventive, or just already highly anticipated.

Product launches are, however, just as much an opportunity for brand promotion as they are for building interest in a new market offering. So before hosting any product launch, brands should ask themselves how they can utilise that opportunity as best as possible.

Thankfully here at Canvas House, we’re in the business of planning successful corporate events. We use our decades of experience to curate event itineraries that deliver streamlined logistics and positive attendee feedback, and work directly with our hosts to make sure their events perfectly align with their goals and vision.

Alongside all this hands-on work, we’re genuinely passionate about elevating Melbourne’s events scene, which is why we’ve shared a few of our industry trade secrets and top tips to help you revolutionise your product launches. Without further ado, here’s our essential playbook for hosting product launches that go off with a bang.

Preliminary Preparation: Goals, Budgets, Values, Venues

Begin your product launch planning by first outlining the core objectives behind your launch event. Are you looking to encourage immediate sales, to educate your target audience on how best to utilise your product/s, or to simply create shareable content and build buzz on social media? Answering these questions can help inform not only your event itinerary, but the look, feel, and layout of your event space.

This in turn, will help you find the ideal venue and vendors (i.e. suppliers, caterers, event staff, entertainment, etc.) for your event. For instance, if you know that you’d like to host a panel discussion with a few guest speakers, you’ll need to find a seminar venue with a good AV system that can accommodate multiple mic speakers.

Pro tip: book your venue with confidence, with our guide on 5 questions to ask when looking at seminar venues in particular.

With these considerations made, this is also an ideal time to define your event budget. Make sure your budget aligns with your venue and vendors, as well as with the goals and objectives of your event. Think too, on what scope of design you’ll need for your event space and event itinerary to cater to your target audience, as this can also help inform your budget.

To sum up, at this phase of the planning journey, you should:

• Outline the core objectives behind your product launch (sales, education, social engagement, etc.)
• Establish the budget for your event
• Refine your event messaging and values in accordance with your defined target audience
• Find your ideal venue (to align with budget and audience)
• Create a planning timeline for your event

Planning Your Product Launch: Get the Wheels in Motion

With a clear timeline and budget in place and your venue booked, now is the time to start getting into the particulars of your event itinerary. Map out the flow of the day/s for your event, including buffering or set-up times at the beginning and end of the day to get an accurate estimate of staffed hours.

With your event itinerary laid out, you can then pinpoint what you’ll need and when – this is referring not only to staff, but also to AV equipment and other technologies, as well as stage setups, chair and table layouts, and any other equipment needed for activities. We also recommend considering network connectivity testing, especially if you’re planning to include hybrid conference elements to your event (that will involve maintaining an active livestream and catering to a high volume of connected devices).

So at this phase of your product launch planning, here’s what you should hope to achieve:

• Plan your event itinerary
• Estimate and calculate event staffing requirements
• Finalise staff contracts and vendor agreements
• Source event technology and equipment

Promoting Your Product Launch: Drum Up Anticipation!

With all the foundational logistics sorted, it’s finally time to get into promotion for your product launch. Marketing campaigns and promotional materials for corporate events are a vital component of boosting ticket sales. Finalising your ticket tiering and pricing nice and early is also a great way to take the stress out of planning for-profit events. With a robust pricing model and strong incentives for early bird ticket sales, you won’t have to keep on ‘guesstimating’ as much about whether your event is on track to break even.

Once your ticket pricing and tiering has been finalised, you can start your event promotion by soft launching the date, followed up by announcing any guest speakers and other standout selling points on social media. Monitor engagement for every announcement post and adjust your messaging accordingly if needed.

Alongside event promotion, this is also a great time to think about your social media strategy for the day itself PLUS your re-engagement strategising post-event. For the day itself, consider encouraging your attendees to share their own content on socials by providing exclusive event hashtags and perhaps even setting up a photo wall with a red carpet (if it suits your event theme!). UGC (user-generated content) under special event hashtags can make documenting your event a breeze. Plus if you do a post-event reflection post or video, attendees will surely get a hoot out of securing a cameo or two in your materials.

In summary, at this stage of your product launch planning, you should aim to have ticked these items off your to-do list:

• Finalise ticketing – tiering and prices
• Develop promotional materials
• Rollout event marketing campaign
• Set up social media plan for day-of and post-launch
• Develop UGC (user-generated content) strategy

Post-launch: Collecting Feedback and Measuring Success

Post-product launch is all about measuring your success metrics in alignment with your event goals, and determining whether the event fulfilled all the expectations set out not only by you and your event team, but by your attendees as well.

And of course, if you’re planning more creative corporate events in the future that have been inspired by the performance and experience of this product launch event, then be sure to send out exclusive invitations to your email subscriber list of previous event attendees. This re-engagement pipeline is the best way to build on your momentum following your product launch event and make sure that your brand and its corporate events calendar accrues a cult following.

To wrap up post-event, make sure you take the following steps:

• Measure event engagement on social media
• Record and review success metrics linked to event objectives
• Collect feedback from event attendees (i.e. poll links, feedback forms or guestbooks at the event, etc.)
• Rollout re-engagement campaign (i.e. special offer EDMs, giveaways, etc.)

Host Your Next Product Launch with Our Event Planners at Canvas House

At Canvas House, we love to host great corporate parties, and that includes all the excitement and meticulous experience planning of product launches. If you’d like to make your next product launch one to remember, then we reckon our venue space will provide the perfect setting. Check out our space via our website, or get in touch to schedule your own private tour of our lovingly presented venue with our in-house events team.