It’s very exciting to launch a product for the very first time. All the effort of all the teams involved or probably just yours if you’re launching a product for your personal brand, will be rewarded after all and here comes the happily ever after part.
Well that’s not accurate true… To be honest launching your product will not make you reach the goal in one day, there’s a lot of work (or rework) to do after the launch and it involves a constant monitoring phase to look at.
This is why many people get disappointed when they see their product is not working as they expected. Even or they set up high expectations or they believe that everything will be resolved after launch day and they end up dealing with tasks they didn’t consider at the beginning.
I consider this stage is composed by minimum the following phases:
- Before launch: Test your product with a prototype or in staging environment.
- After launch: Test your product after the launch, when it’s actually live
- Iterate: The feedback you collect from the testing phases and your real users.
The launching phase can be also difficult and tedious if you don’t come up with with some testing scenarios of what your product must do and the tools or systems around it.
Alongside, there could be many bugs on the release date. If the product is so “buggy” you can scary your potential customers. Your product should invite users not make them run away.
Imagine your product is an ebook of “The best Instagram hacks”. You’ll promote it on Instagram but you need a payment platform and where to host it. You also have a landing page to promote it outside Instagram. The list can continue depending on your strategy, but you have at least 3 platforms now interconnected.
But what do you need to test before announcing your ebook?
- Content (wording, copywriting, images, etc.)
- Tools and systems (how do you know payments will work on the release date? Is your ebook accessible enough after paying?)
- Links between each platform or inside your ebook
- Any other functionality tied to your product
Ideally try to recreate like if you’re going to buy your product to yourself. You’ll discover that probably a link inside your ebook is broken. Best is to invite a group of beta testers, this could be your friends or people you know in Instagram. They will help you to collect useful information that will help you to adjust your product before launching.
Here are some ways to test your product:
- Usability testing: Observe your target audience using the actual product.
- Beta launch: Before you launch it to the world, test a limited version of your product with a small amount of people.
- Internal testing: Let your own team or you test all the features of your product.
Even if you’re working with designers and engineers, is useful to invite external users to the testing phase. People that hasn’t been involved in the creation of the product will help you to know if, at the basis, your product is easy to understand for everyone.
Your product will not be perfect the first time but try to avoid a “buggy” experience for your users. The better the experience the more possibilities they’ll buy or engage with your product.