July 15, 2025
070: Tactic Tuesdays: How To Guarantee a 'Failed' Product Launch
Launching a new product on Amazon can feel like navigating a minefield—full of potential missteps that could derail your success. In this thought-provoking episode, we flip conventional wisdom on its head by exploring what guarantees a failed product launch.
By inverting the success model, we uncover critical insights that can transform your approach to introducing new products. Our conversation dives deep into the psychology behind defining success metrics before you begin, revealing how unclear goals almost certainly lead to disappointing outcomes. We examine why competitive research isn't just helpful—it's essential for identifying your unique position in the marketplace and crafting messaging that resonates with your target customers.
The episode delivers surprising revelations about inventory management, with one host sharing a cautionary tale of their "best launch ever" that ultimately failed due to stocking out at the critical moment. We explore why having an established audience creates an unfair advantage for sellers, allowing them to generate initial velocity without deep discounting while collecting valuable feedback throughout the development process.
Perhaps most valuable is our discussion of differentiation in today's crowded marketplace. Your main image and title must stop the scroll, but your entire listing needs to deliver on that promise with conversion-optimized content. We break down why monitoring metrics during launch allows you to double down on what's working rather than stubbornly sticking to your initial assumptions.
Ready to transform your product launch strategy? Listen now to discover why the biggest mistake isn't launching a product that fails—it's not launching at all. Your next successful Amazon product might be closer than you think.
🚀 Transform your brand on Amazon by building a powerful customer list with the After Purchase Funnel Blueprint course. Click here to get the full course for free.
➡️ Ready to go deeper into your Amazon FBA journey to accelerate your success? Get your hands on ALL of the Brand Fortress HQ resources, mentorship, and knowledge base by visiting us at BrandFortressHQ.com
⭐️ Want to help our show grow so we can continue bringing you the very best of guests and actionable content for your Amazon FBA business? We'd greatly appreciate if you took two minutes to give us a five star rating and review. Thank you!
00:00 - Introduction to Inverted Launch Thinking
04:23 - Defining Success Before Launch
10:04 - Competitor Research and Differentiation
17:12 - Pricing Strategy and Audience Building
21:41 - Creating Standout Listings
28:18 - Inventory Management
35:01 - Tracking Critical Metrics
WEBVTT
00:00:00.441 --> 00:00:04.892
Welcome everybody to another Tactics Tuesday for Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:17.132
Today we're going to talk about something a little bit different and kind of an exercise around launching new products, since they are so important to growing a brand, and what we're going to look at is, you know, how do you guarantee a failed product launch on Amazon?
00:00:17.579 --> 00:00:43.408
Because we want to walk through that process as a mental model and this is something that actually comes from, I believe you know, Charlie Munger kind of popularized this idea of how do you take something that's successful and how do we invert it, so that way we can see those things that we want to avoid, and I think this is really important, as we think of things that we want to make sure that we're addressing in that launch process to give ourselves the best chances for success.
00:00:43.408 --> 00:00:56.953
So, you know, we were talking a little bit before this and I guess the first thing is Mike, you had a really good comment before we hit record on kind of that first step of how you guarantee you know failed product launch on Amazon starts with what does success look like?
00:00:56.953 --> 00:01:06.430
So tell me a little bit more about how you think about you know success for a product and how you'd invert that, if we're looking at you know, a failed product launch.
00:01:07.612 --> 00:01:12.953
Yeah, I think, first of all, it's hard to know what failure looks like if you haven't defined what success looks like.
00:01:12.953 --> 00:01:13.959
So you know.
00:01:13.959 --> 00:01:16.605
Otherwise you don't know whether you missed the mark or not.
00:01:16.605 --> 00:01:29.034
And I also would say that not defining success is the first step to a failed launch, because if you don't know what you're looking for, then you know ultimately there's no way you're going to hit that target.
00:01:29.034 --> 00:01:36.183
So you know, I would say you know, when you're looking at the idea of you know what does a successful launch really look like?
00:01:36.183 --> 00:01:49.614
To some degree, that's dependent upon the product you know, and how much market share are you trying to get, you sorts of things, what type of a product is, is it a hero product, is it a loss leader, something like that.
00:01:49.614 --> 00:02:00.072
But ultimately there's a number of things that probably you need to be dialing in on and also setting actual goals for to determine what that success looks like.
00:02:00.072 --> 00:02:17.530
So, in other words, you should be setting some sales targets as to how many units or how much revenue, or you know, whatever the number is that you're going to shoot at, you know how many units should you hit within 30 days, you know, or within two weeks, within 90 days?
00:02:17.530 --> 00:02:24.193
You know the first few weeks after the product goes live.
00:02:24.193 --> 00:02:33.878
Because if that's all you're paying attention to, chances are when you get through that first few weeks, you know you're going to start losing ground because you don't have a longer term strategy.
00:02:33.878 --> 00:02:35.180
For what does that launch look like?
00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:45.155
Because you have to carry that trajectory out for a ways before Amazon really understands your product well, begins to recognize, you know, that it's a valuable competitor in that space, whatnot?
00:02:45.155 --> 00:02:51.483
So you really can't look at just that first two or three weeks.
00:02:51.483 --> 00:02:53.868
So what are your sales targets going to be after, say, two weeks, 30 days, 90 days?
00:02:53.889 --> 00:03:01.075
What keywords do you want to secure ranking for and what level of ranking do you think you can secure?
00:03:01.075 --> 00:03:03.361
Do you think you can hit number one on page one?
00:03:03.361 --> 00:03:06.228
Do you think you can hit number three or number four on page one?
00:03:06.228 --> 00:03:07.811
Like, what are you shooting for?
00:03:07.811 --> 00:03:16.163
Because, again, depending on the size of the market, being number three in that category could be a super good place to be in terms of sales.
00:03:16.163 --> 00:03:20.563
You know, in other cases maybe you really kind of are shooting at I need to be at the top of page one.
00:03:20.563 --> 00:03:21.425
So what are the?
00:03:21.425 --> 00:03:31.643
What are the keywords you want to rank for what ranking do you think would be a success?
00:03:31.643 --> 00:03:32.807
And again, how are you going to hold those rankings?
00:03:32.807 --> 00:03:33.631
Are you, how are you going to earn?
00:03:33.631 --> 00:03:37.866
You know, or did you earn, we'll say, in terms of defining success a steady stream of positive reviews and ratings.
00:03:38.229 --> 00:03:48.403
If you didn't have anything in place, then you're probably not going to get a whole lot of reviews and ratings out of that launch, and I would consider that a failure, because even if you were to get some ranking, you don't have any reviews on that.
00:03:48.403 --> 00:03:50.850
Then you're going to have a hard time maintaining that.
00:03:50.850 --> 00:03:59.449
Also, were you able to maintain healthy margins, or at least some profit margin, on that launch, or was the launch itself an actual loss?
00:03:59.449 --> 00:04:00.824
I don't think it has to be.
00:04:00.824 --> 00:04:05.650
Most people walk into a launch assuming they're going to lose money on it and hopefully they're going to make up for it on the back end.
00:04:05.650 --> 00:04:07.520
I don't think that has to be the case.
00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:15.006
And then again, how are you building a foundation for long-term and repeatable sales growth that's going to be able to continue long-term?
00:04:15.006 --> 00:04:17.379
I think those are the ways that I would define success.
00:04:17.379 --> 00:04:19.261
Maybe you guys have some things you'd like to add to that.
00:04:20.261 --> 00:04:24.422
Yeah, I think there's a couple of great things that I hear out of what you said that I just want to break down a little bit.
00:04:24.422 --> 00:04:27.824
I mean, I think the first thing is, you know, defining what success looks like.
00:04:27.824 --> 00:04:35.386
And you know I think this is kind of an extension of you know discussion that we had last week of you know what is the role of that product?
00:04:35.386 --> 00:04:36.786
Is that going to be a hero product?
00:04:36.786 --> 00:04:40.146
Is it going to be a tripwire product where it introduces people to your brand?
00:04:40.146 --> 00:05:17.439
Is it, you know, maybe something complimentary to one of your hero products, where it's kind of an add on that adds to, you know, customer lifetime value, like identifying what that strategy up front I think is going to give a much better idea of what that launch playbook should look like, in the sense of you know, if it's a, for example, if it's a complimentary product, well then you probably don't need, you know, a super aggressive launch with, you know, a whole bunch of ad spend and stuff like that, when you're looking at, hey, this is going to be a product that well, may only have incremental sales, maybe you have really good margins on that complimentary product.
00:05:26.139 --> 00:05:32.312
So I think, yeah, starting with you know what that strategy is is is super important, and if you don't have a strategy, then that's one of the best ways that you can ensure that you're going to say you're going to fail is because you don't know what good looks like right out of the box.
00:05:32.312 --> 00:05:33.595
So that makes it really hard to know.
00:05:33.595 --> 00:05:40.000
You know, make these kind of you know, tactical decisions that we're talking about around how to execute that strategy.
00:05:41.281 --> 00:05:43.642
Once you define what success looks like.
00:05:43.642 --> 00:06:09.620
I think a lot of what Mike said success looks like is give you x-ray vision into the category, all of the competitors, where they're getting their sales from.
00:06:09.620 --> 00:06:18.949
I mean, there's a wealth of information that these tools give you that really direct your launch on where, what keyword, you're going to go after, where you know.
00:06:18.949 --> 00:06:33.728
Once you decide and determine where your top competitors are getting most of their sales from which keywords, then it's a fairly easy to build a map of what keyword you're going to go after in terms of PPC and where you're going to put them in your listing.
00:06:33.728 --> 00:06:44.988
So I mean, it all really starts with competitor research on Amazon using the tools that are available to you, and if you're not, then I think that's a really good way to guarantee a failed product launch.
00:06:44.988 --> 00:06:49.632
Is it not really not understanding not only who they are but where they're getting their sales from on Amazon?
00:06:50.740 --> 00:07:05.708
Well, I think, the other part of that, in terms of that competitive research portion, and I think absolutely you guarantee failure if you haven't done that, because it's not just about keywords, it's also, you know, pricing analysis.
00:07:05.708 --> 00:07:07.540
How am I going to price the product?
00:07:07.540 --> 00:07:10.488
You know well, you kind of need to know what the market is.
00:07:10.488 --> 00:07:13.283
You know what's the low end, what's the high end, what's the median.
00:07:13.283 --> 00:07:23.461
You know, like, you need to know what, what are the features that your competitors are offering in their product and do customers care about those features?
00:07:23.461 --> 00:07:25.939
One and two do they like you and two do they like them?
00:07:25.939 --> 00:07:29.105
You know, like, do they think that your competitors are actually nailing those?
00:07:29.105 --> 00:07:40.492
You know particular features Because, again, you know, another really good way to likely fail in a launch is to not differentiate enough.
00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:45.387
Now, again, it may be that, you know, depends on the type of product it is.
00:07:45.387 --> 00:08:12.125
You know, maybe you don't need a lot of differentiation, maybe you have a strong brand, this is just a complimentary product, in which case differentiation isn't necessarily the key, it's just hey, this is another product that we can sell to that same customer, and so you know you don't have to, but you still have to do the research on the front end, it's always if you can, if there's an easy way to differentiate yourself, whether that's in the product itself or even just in the listing, then you should do that.
00:08:12.125 --> 00:08:22.524
And again, it takes research to know what that differentiation looks like and how to do it, what things to highlight on your listing that maybe competitors aren't highlighting, those sorts of things.
00:08:22.545 --> 00:08:26.432
So yeah, I would say you know, just to piggyback off of what you might.
00:08:26.692 --> 00:08:52.600
What you said, mike, about pricing I think that's so important and something that a lever that isn't pulled enough, and so a couple of things to think about with that when you think about pricing is and we talk about failed product launches and that is making sure that you have you know some source to get those initial sales on your product, whether that's you know using, you know a list that you have pre-built, or you know ads or something like that.
00:08:52.620 --> 00:09:15.388
Cause I think what a lot of people who maybe haven't launched a product in a while don't realize is that you know if you're planning on offering some sort of discounts or something like that on your product, you have to have a reference price to start with, and if you don't have any sales right out of the gates, you may want your like, say, you want to sell the product for a hundred dollars, like you want that to be your reference price, but you're on the higher end of the market.
00:09:15.427 --> 00:09:21.347
Well, if you don't have any reviews and you don't have any sales velocity, it's going to be really hard for you to get those.
00:09:21.347 --> 00:09:57.283
You know, first few reviews and first few sales if you don't have some sort of list for your brand or some other resource in order to drive traffic and so having a failed product launch where, if the only thing that you have in order to get visibility for that product is ads from Amazon, it's going to be really tough and really expensive to get any sort of velocity on that product if you are on the higher end or you're a premium end product and trying to price yourself accordingly, when you don't have the ratings or the other social proof that people would expect from a higher end product and not listing on Amazon.
00:09:59.187 --> 00:10:11.880
I definitely suggest selling at the high end of the price point, no matter what category you're in, and a big part of that commanding a higher price point and giving a premium feel is also your listing.
00:10:11.880 --> 00:10:25.306
I mean, if you're not showing in your main image and you're not helping the consumer to understand why your product is the one to choose and you don't get very many opportunities to do that, especially in very crowded search results.
00:10:25.306 --> 00:10:42.048
So I think another way to guarantee a failed product launch is to not spend the resources whether that be time or money to really make your main image and your copy and the rest of your images really really stand out.
00:10:42.048 --> 00:10:52.208
You know, I think that the amount of time that people spend reading copy has decreased pretty significantly, so that means that our images are more important now than they've ever been.
00:10:52.208 --> 00:11:04.549
So I think another way to guarantee a failed product launch is to not put the necessary resources into having really really stand out images, and now there's starting to be less and less of an excuse for that.
00:11:04.710 --> 00:11:17.524
I just the other day was touching up some images using chat GPT's image generating tool, and I mean it did things that I was getting ready to have to send to a graphic designer and it did it in a couple of prompts.
00:11:17.524 --> 00:11:19.712
So, especially if your product like with.
00:11:19.712 --> 00:11:26.809
There's a couple of different types of products that I think AI are still having a hard time with, like pool cleaning tools, for example.
00:11:26.809 --> 00:11:35.969
For the life of any, no language model understands what a pool brush or a pool skimmer are, so I think in some categories it's not as prevalent.
00:11:35.969 --> 00:11:56.092
Using AI tools like that at least your main image and making sure that that is better than your competitors and running split tests and really knowing that it's going to convert at least as good as your competitors, is really important in the beginning, and if you don't, then you're going to have an uphill battle.
00:11:57.320 --> 00:12:00.409
Yeah, I would say you know, just going back to what both of you said.
00:12:00.409 --> 00:12:07.113
So, john, essentially you know the thing that I think is critical there.
00:12:07.113 --> 00:12:19.408
You know, like you were talking about, you know, trying to get some of those initial sales at, at the price point that you want to be a reference point, it's it's going to be a whole lot easier to get those sales from individuals that already trust you.
00:12:19.408 --> 00:12:33.690
So, you know, maybe you can get friends and family, maybe you know something like that, but honestly, but honestly, it's good to be able to get that from an audience, a community that you have built or that you are piggybacking on.
00:12:33.690 --> 00:12:38.731
You know, so it's always best to have your own audience, as you can.
00:12:38.731 --> 00:12:48.106
But when you don't have one, then the time it takes to build an audience can be considerable, especially if you're not very good at lead gen and things like that.
00:12:48.106 --> 00:12:51.764
If you have that background, then you can probably do that and you probably understand what you're doing.
00:12:51.764 --> 00:13:12.543
But if you don't, then piggybacking on somebody else's community if they're the right avatar for your product and we've talked about this a billion times but that is the simplest, easiest, quickest way to find an audience that's going to trust you based on your association with the person that they already trust, which is the person that built the community.
00:13:12.543 --> 00:13:24.663
And so in that case, when you don't have reviews on your product, if you can gain that trust through another source and access their community, then you have that opportunity to sell at full price.
00:13:25.004 --> 00:13:27.889
You can always do a little bit of a rebate on the back end, you know, if you do.
00:13:27.889 --> 00:13:47.815
You know like you don't want to publicize this and make it a big thing, obviously because you know Amazon doesn't like it but on a small scale, for a limited number of orders in a private community or something like that, it's not really that difficult of a thing to be able to sell some full price orders at your reference price and maybe give a rebate on the back end.
00:13:47.815 --> 00:13:50.708
Or maybe it's not even a rebate, maybe it's some other freebie that they get.
00:13:50.708 --> 00:13:54.770
You know, like you've created something that they get as a result or something.
00:13:54.770 --> 00:13:59.231
It doesn't have to be a discount but to get those reference price purchases.
00:13:59.231 --> 00:14:14.538
But also, again going back to this and it's not like we haven't harped on this for ages but if you have that audience, it's not just useful for getting those reference price purchases, it's also useful for actual launch purchases.
00:14:16.102 --> 00:14:22.585
Like when we launch a product having an email list of 45,000 people that already trust our brand, that is gold for a product launch.
00:14:22.585 --> 00:14:25.080
And as long as you have a pattern to make sure that you trust our brand, that is gold, you know, for a product launch.
00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:35.085
And as long as you have a pattern to make sure that you can sustain sales after that and try to maintain ranking and whatnot, which is not easy, but at least it gives you the opportunity to get a lot of sales up front.
00:14:35.085 --> 00:14:49.315
Again, a lot of reviews on the front end, because those people who actually trust you and like your brand are going to be far more likely to go give you a review, especially if you ask them on the front end hey, do me a favor, go buy this product and then leave us a review.
00:14:49.315 --> 00:14:50.883
You know you're going to have a much better.
00:14:50.883 --> 00:14:54.543
You know conversion rate, let's say, to reviews from those orders.
00:14:54.543 --> 00:14:58.029
So that launch audience is really incredibly important.
00:14:58.530 --> 00:15:05.254
And then, on the back end of that, the product listing you know, matt, you mentioned.
00:15:05.254 --> 00:15:09.485
Hey, make sure that you're actually dialing in on and optimizing that listing.
00:15:09.485 --> 00:15:14.946
Well, one of the things that I think is important for our audience to know and to remember.
00:15:14.946 --> 00:15:23.052
And again, not like we don't harp on this all the time, but if you don't know who you're selling to, then how do you know how to optimize your product listing?
00:15:23.052 --> 00:15:26.570
You know like you can optimize it for keywords, you know, and things like that.
00:15:26.671 --> 00:15:38.691
Sure, but one of the things that Matt's talking about is not just getting the keywords right and all of those sorts of things and making sure you highlight specific, you know benefits in your images and that sort of thing.
00:15:38.691 --> 00:15:41.543
But part of it is what is the feel of the imagery?
00:15:41.543 --> 00:15:44.289
You know, and it doesn't have a cohesive feel.
00:15:44.289 --> 00:15:46.014
And is that feeling?
00:15:46.014 --> 00:15:52.703
Is that emotion that it evokes, the emotion that you want it to evoke for the person that you actually want to sell to most?
00:15:52.703 --> 00:16:03.923
And if you don't know who that avatar is, if you don't know who that person is, then you really don't know how to engender that specific emotion through your imagery, because you don't know who you're speaking to.
00:16:03.923 --> 00:16:17.085
So if you haven't taken the time to analyze who it is you're selling to, then again you're guaranteeing, if not a failed launch, you're certainly guaranteeing a far more expensive launch and a much more difficult road to success.
00:16:18.488 --> 00:16:34.683
Yeah, and I want to circle back to something that, mike, you've talked about in the past and comes from having that list as well that almost back to the beginning, which is, as you look at Because most of the brands that are listening to this, you probably are selling already some product.
00:16:34.683 --> 00:16:46.407
You have a hero product or products on Amazon that you've got about leveraging your audience as to you know what should that next product be?
00:16:46.407 --> 00:16:53.229
You know, I think is something that is incredibly powerful, that when we look at you know how do you guarantee a failed product launch?
00:16:53.229 --> 00:17:01.162
Part of that is you know just, you know sticking to, you know horse blinders on looking at products.
00:17:01.162 --> 00:17:19.618
And maybe you know just looking at keywords and saying, okay, this is going to be you know that next year product, rather than saying, okay, here's what I think that product is going to be, and then going to a portion of your list and saying, hey, you know, we're thinking about developing product day, product B and product C, which one of these interests you the most?
00:17:19.618 --> 00:17:22.433
Okay, getting some information from there.
00:17:22.473 --> 00:17:40.417
So now you have a little bit of actual data from your customers and then taking that extra step to say, maybe even get on a call with somebody or Zoom or something like that, to say, hey, here's the benefits or features that we're thinking about really focusing on and here's how we're differentiating it and making it better than other products that are out there.
00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:43.743
And you know they might tell you, yep, that sounds fantastic.
00:17:43.743 --> 00:17:45.554
Or they may be like, yeah, I don't really care about that.
00:17:45.554 --> 00:17:57.233
And then getting those samples and actually having them try it and say, hey, I love this about it or I don't love that, which is a ton of work that you know I think a lot of brands don't do up front.
00:17:57.233 --> 00:18:03.683
Which is why they have kind of mixed results when they launch products is because you know at that point you're just kind of guessing.
00:18:03.683 --> 00:18:10.030
You know what your customers that you've built in your brand wants, and sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong.
00:18:10.030 --> 00:18:15.063
And when you're wrong, that's when you know your product launches end up falling flat.
00:18:15.063 --> 00:18:20.518
You end up investing a lot of money into product that you know doesn't really move the needle in the long run.
00:18:21.559 --> 00:18:44.732
Well and I hate to step in here because I kind of would like to give Matt a chance to talk but I think it's important to point out on that is that one you'll talk to a lot of Amazon sellers who, sure, once you get good at this, you can kind of get a sixth sense a little bit about the kind of products that may succeed or fail.
00:18:44.732 --> 00:19:23.710
But it's still just that it's still a guess at the end of the day, and in that you really have to be a lot more careful with the launch in terms of how much you spend on it, in terms of how much inventory you buy and things of that nature, because there's at least an average chance that the product does not succeed to nearly the level that you expected it to or hoped it would, because it's based on a guess, whereas if you have tested this out with an audience, if you talk to your audience, what product would you want?
00:19:23.710 --> 00:19:44.278
If you talk to them about what features they might want, if you talk to them about what they don't like, about the features of other products, you know what color do they want, what you know like we spend, we'll spend months, you know, in that conversational process with our email audience about a new product, letting them know, number one, that we think this is what we want to come out with.
00:19:44.278 --> 00:19:46.236
Is that something you'd be interested in?
00:19:46.236 --> 00:19:49.176
And going through all of that, but then also, okay, we have it.
00:19:49.176 --> 00:19:51.134
You know, does anyone want to prototype it?
00:19:51.134 --> 00:19:52.098
You want to beta test?
00:19:52.098 --> 00:19:53.836
You know, here's what the results were.
00:19:53.836 --> 00:19:56.855
You know we're going back to the drawing board to fix these things.
00:19:57.395 --> 00:20:11.742
You know and I've said this before but by the time it comes time for a launch, that audience feels like it's their product, like they developed it, and in that you gain a lot of confidence that the launch is going to go well, because one you already know.
00:20:11.742 --> 00:20:17.613
You're selling a product that a whole bunch of people in that space that represent your avatar have already said they want.
00:20:17.613 --> 00:20:19.778
They like the features that you created.
00:20:19.778 --> 00:20:22.133
They've tested it and it works well.
00:20:22.133 --> 00:20:40.375
The features that you've invested in are actually performing the way they expected them to, and so now, then, you also have this large audience that you get to launch it to, generally speaking, at a much lower discount than to people who don't know anything about the product or anything about your brand, so you can launch much more profitably.
00:20:40.375 --> 00:20:44.884
What that also means is you can invest in more inventory on the front end.
00:20:45.412 --> 00:20:55.276
And that is what I think is the next critical piece of this, and that is you cannot afford to stock out either during or after your launch.
00:20:55.696 --> 00:21:09.663
You know, especially if you've seen success with that launch and you stock out, you screwed the whole thing, and so it's way more of a risk to order too little inventory than too much.
00:21:10.210 --> 00:21:19.005
Too much inventory is a scenario where you can probably still rectify that, because even if the launch didn't go great, you can always liquidate the inventory.
00:21:19.005 --> 00:21:23.320
You can almost always sell the inventory, at least at cost, and come out break even.
00:21:23.320 --> 00:21:29.239
So that to me is the worst case scenario from buying too much inventory.
00:21:29.239 --> 00:21:43.240
But the worst case scenario of buying too little inventory is you invest a lot of time and effort and money in that launch and then you stock out and now you don't know if you're going to be able to regain those rankings, and that's a huge risk that I think it's not worth taking.
00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:51.112
And if you already know on the front end, this is 90% likely to be a really strong success because I know what my audience thinks and I know they're going to buy it.
00:21:51.112 --> 00:21:57.796
It makes it a lot easier to spend that money on the front end and buy a lot more inventory up there, knowing that it's likely to be a success.
00:21:58.817 --> 00:22:15.959
If you've done everything that we, if you've gone through all of these steps and you haven't guaranteed your product launch and things are going really well and you end up running out of inventory and not paying attention to this piece, I my best launch to date.
00:22:15.959 --> 00:22:20.497
I ran out of inventory Now, covid did play a part in that.
00:22:20.497 --> 00:22:24.155
But my best launch to date never recovered after ran out of inventory.
00:22:24.155 --> 00:22:24.838
Now, covid did play a part in that.
00:22:24.838 --> 00:22:26.645
But my best launch to date never recovered after running out of inventory that first time.
00:22:26.645 --> 00:22:29.377
Now that doesn't happen with all products and there are ways.
00:22:29.459 --> 00:22:30.482
Now this was a brand.
00:22:30.482 --> 00:22:33.032
Not only was this a brand new product, but it was a brand new brand.
00:22:33.032 --> 00:22:34.919
So I didn't have an audience yet.
00:22:34.919 --> 00:22:44.819
I did have kind of a tangential audience that I could point there and I did, but it wasn't anything like you know my other brands where I had a big, you know big giant Facebook group.
00:22:44.819 --> 00:22:47.534
So it it can't be stated enough.
00:22:47.574 --> 00:23:01.102
I mean you might knock the initial launch out of the park, but if you don't have the follow-up inventory to replenish after, I personally have gone through my best launch and not been able to recover, I spent a lot of money trying.
00:23:01.102 --> 00:23:02.432
I tried PPC.
00:23:02.432 --> 00:23:20.155
I tried all the things that I did initially to get the launch out of the gates and I mean it was screaming out of the gates but not only did it ruin the launch but it essentially put that brand in a really, really big hole right out of the gate by not just initial I did have initial inventory.
00:23:20.155 --> 00:23:36.711
Now the launch went so successfully that I blew through three months worth of what I thought was going to be inventory in about three weeks but I didn't have the follow-up inventory to replenish afterwards and that was very, very, very detrimental to not only that product launch but also the brand in general.
00:23:39.898 --> 00:23:43.813
Yeah, I think inventory is one of those underrated things for new products.
00:23:43.813 --> 00:23:58.041
I would say the other thing, too, is that, even if all those things do go well, making sure that you have again within Amazon terms of service which we've talked about before but a way of asking for those reviews on the product, because that is one of the biggest.
00:23:58.041 --> 00:24:00.576
We started looking at reviews on your listing.
00:24:00.576 --> 00:24:08.738
I mean, when we were talking about Amazon, that probably is one of the strongest kind of barometers that you have for brand of.
00:24:08.738 --> 00:24:13.337
Not only you know what is your rating, but how many total reviews do you have on that listing?
00:24:13.337 --> 00:24:33.255
Because the reality of it is, if we look at the conversion rate for, you know, a product that has two reviews and a five-star listing, versus a product that has 1,000 reviews and a four-point, even if it's a 4.4 rounded up to a four and a half stars the product with 1,000 reviews is going to convert better.
00:24:33.255 --> 00:24:41.278
And it just boils down to what that social proof is of every customer when they're looking at it, saying is this product going to work for me?
00:24:42.359 --> 00:25:03.218
I think the other thing that maybe gets underrated that we haven't talked about yet, if we're looking at hey, guaranteed product launch or failed launch is, you know, not having something, especially when we start looking at those search query results that looks different, or, excuse me, the search results to even get the clicks to the listing.
00:25:03.218 --> 00:25:19.436
Because I think now you know, in a lot of categories, a lot of products look really, really similar and the problem with that is is that if you're the new kid on the block, you have to look different and you have to say something different in that first 80 characters to your title in order to get people to click into your listing.
00:25:19.436 --> 00:25:41.792
Because that is half the battle when we look at, especially for a new product, of being able to make a sale, is just getting somebody to click on your listing and, at least from my experience, especially in 2025 when we're recording this, you really have to look and sound different from everybody else that's on those search results in order to see some success with that.
00:25:43.076 --> 00:25:52.153
I think it's probably also important to pay attention, just from a psychological perspective, on what that looks like, because you know your click through is determined by your image and your title.
00:25:52.153 --> 00:25:55.642
I mean, that's a send up and price and deliver.
00:25:55.642 --> 00:25:57.172
You know how soon can it be delivered.
00:25:57.172 --> 00:26:00.038
So those are things too like distribution of your inventory.
00:26:00.038 --> 00:26:02.763
You know how soon can it be delivered, so those are things too like distribution of your inventory.
00:26:02.763 --> 00:26:05.470
You know is is going to be a factor in terms of you know how how short is your delivery window.
00:26:05.470 --> 00:26:07.032
That's going to affect your CTR.
00:26:07.032 --> 00:26:11.913
But let's, but let's look at the, the, the things that you're paying attention to.
00:26:11.913 --> 00:26:27.233
So when somebody's scrolling through the, through the listings, the very first thing that's going to get them to stop and pay attention as you said, john, is the image, like the title is not what's going to stop them.
00:26:27.253 --> 00:26:43.156
They're not reading titles as they scroll, they're scrolling through images, and when they see an image that interests them, then they read the title and so, in that, recognize that no matter what you have in your title, if your image does not give them a reason to stop scrolling, then you've already lost the battle.
00:26:43.616 --> 00:26:52.605
And so I think that's a key point that you know as you're optimizing that to get that best click through, make sure that that image is going to stop them.
00:26:56.690 --> 00:27:01.499
By the same token, you have to make sure that you're not going to that you're not going to create a bunch of clicks that don't convert.
00:27:01.499 --> 00:27:28.476
So you could create an image that will get really good click through, but if you haven't created a listing that ties into that image and into the title, so that when they click through, what they're seeing is what they expect to see, or what they're seeing is better than what they expect to see when they look at that image and that title, then you're going to pay a lot for clicks and you're going to get really low conversion rate, and then you're still screwed.
00:27:28.476 --> 00:27:31.611
So it's not just about clicks, it's also about conversion.
00:27:31.611 --> 00:27:32.433
But you have to get both.
00:27:32.433 --> 00:27:41.263
If you don't get any clicks, then your conversion rate's irrelevant, and if you get a whole bunch of clicks and no conversion rate, then you just spend a boatload and you don't make any money, so you got to pay attention to both ends of that.
00:27:41.650 --> 00:27:59.827
Yeah, I think that's such a good point, especially around the, you know, looking at the clicks, and it's not a clicks or conversion rate, it's clicks and conversion rate, cause I do see this, you know, fairly often, especially when you know a client that we're working with might have a product that you know they, quite frankly, they have an emotional attachment to.
00:27:59.827 --> 00:28:04.352
It's maybe their third or fourth product that they've launched and they're like, wow, I think this thing is really great.
00:28:04.352 --> 00:28:08.490
And we look in there and they're like, oh, my conversion rate is, you know, is fantastic.
00:28:08.490 --> 00:28:14.772
And then you know they've had like 100 sessions in the last 30 days and they're like, yeah, my conversion rate is 20%.
00:28:14.772 --> 00:28:19.685
I'm like, okay, well, if I 10x your sessions, what does that conversion rate look like?
00:28:20.147 --> 00:28:30.195
And I think that's the important thing to look at is that, once you start really amping up the volume, does that conversion rate drop down dramatically?
00:28:30.195 --> 00:28:54.676
And in a lot of cases it does, because the only people that are coming through are the absolute hottest leads that are interested in that product, even though you know the main image doesn't make the most sense, the title doesn't necessarily make the most sense, but they know the brand or you know there could be a million different reasons, but you know they're, they're kind of that.
00:28:54.676 --> 00:29:09.113
You know 1% of buyers that you're you're serving, that are at the absolute hottest leads, but you're missing out on the other 99 percent that you could have if you had that listing set up properly for that product.
00:29:09.133 --> 00:29:21.881
I think another thing that you can do to guarantee a failed product launch is not pay attention to all of these numbers that we're talking about and just launch and sit back and hope that sales are coming in and you're just checking your bank account.
00:29:21.950 --> 00:29:29.463
If you're not checking your click-through rate and you're not checking your conversion rate and you're not looking to see the search query performance report, then you don't know what the baseline is.
00:29:29.463 --> 00:29:41.571
Yeah, you can do a lot of research in the beginning, but things very rarely are going to go exactly how you thought that they were going to go once you actually start selling, to go once you actually start selling.
00:29:41.571 --> 00:29:53.413
So, paying attention to all of these stats and watching what your click-through rate does as you change out your main image and split testing your main image with manage your experiments or a tool like PickFu or product pinning or something like that I think that is also.
00:29:53.413 --> 00:30:04.383
Yes, that's part of optimizing as your product becomes a lot more mature, but that's also a lot of the product launch also is paying attention to those numbers and watching what they do.
00:30:04.383 --> 00:30:09.623
I think building that muscle early on during your product launch is going to set you up for success.
00:30:09.623 --> 00:30:13.739
And if you aren't paying attention to that, then set you up for a potential failure.
00:30:15.323 --> 00:30:16.165
Well, I would build off that.
00:30:16.165 --> 00:30:16.666
Sorry, go ahead.
00:30:16.686 --> 00:30:16.847
John.
00:30:16.847 --> 00:30:29.329
Well, I was going to say to build off that a little bit, you know we talked quite a bit about, you know, the product itself and to go a little bit more tactical, you know, and some of those products, some of those you know, some products hit, some don't.
00:30:29.329 --> 00:30:41.949
And I think the same thing is true when you talk about what you expect to be your hero keywords as well, in the sense that you know typically for a product and again, it depends on how many resources you have, what category you're in and how competitive it is.
00:30:41.949 --> 00:30:50.346
But just say, for example, you've got three to five kind of hero keywords where you're like, hey, I think these are going to drive the majority of my sales.
00:30:50.445 --> 00:31:00.080
I think it's really important to pull apart that data and why ads are so important in that early phase, especially for those exact match keywords, to really see what does that look like.
00:31:00.080 --> 00:31:22.484
Because you know, I think there's there's been enough times where we've seen, you know, maybe one or two of those keywords where the click through rate and the conversion rate is dramatically better than the others, and looking at okay, how do we double down on those keywords that are working for us, rather than trying to, you know, push hero keywords that we kind of wish or hoped or thought were going to be successful for us.
00:31:22.484 --> 00:31:32.284
And I think getting really granular with the data, especially on the ad side, gives you, you know, full visibility into that sales funnel to see what keywords are working for you.
00:31:33.688 --> 00:31:34.750
Yeah, for sure it's.
00:31:34.750 --> 00:31:40.170
You know nothing is ever going to work out the way that you expected it to work out.
00:31:40.170 --> 00:31:53.135
Hopefully, the best that you can hope for is that you're directionally accurate and then lean into the aspects of that that end up being the most successful portions of the campaign and really push on that.
00:31:53.135 --> 00:31:58.107
You know, down the road you can always push on some of those other keywords that you really thought were going to be.
00:31:58.107 --> 00:32:02.634
You know drivers that maybe weren't during the launch, but it doesn't mean they can't be afterward.
00:32:02.634 --> 00:32:12.573
But during the launch, paying attention to what is working and leaning into you know those aspects to really keep that launch moving forward, I think is a critical piece.
00:32:12.573 --> 00:32:22.604
I also think it's probably important to point out that, depending on the size of your team, there's only so much that you can pay attention to all at once.
00:32:22.604 --> 00:32:41.892
So one of the things that I would recommend and there's a fine line here, and I've said before that we've, as ProTough, I think we have sometimes erred on well, I don't want to say the wrong side of the line, but we, you know, instead of riding the line, we kind of pulled back from it.
00:32:41.892 --> 00:32:46.192
What I mean by that is you really should be consistently launching products.
00:32:46.192 --> 00:33:00.922
It is the best way to guarantee long-term success and increasing revenue numbers and profitability and profitability.
00:33:00.922 --> 00:33:05.346
So, you know, because, for a lot of reasons, one of which is the more products you have, the more cross-sell and upsell opportunities you've got, the more you know backend selling you can do.
00:33:05.386 --> 00:33:28.153
If you're building a list, you know like there's all sorts of reasons why having you know that larger list of products is useful, but the big thing is, though, your team is still only so big, and so I would recommend, first of all, that you do, within reason, as much of the work before the launch as you can.
00:33:28.153 --> 00:33:33.075
So, because once the launch happens, then everything is just this.
00:33:33.075 --> 00:33:35.221
You know churning chaos.
00:33:35.221 --> 00:33:38.330
You know trying to make sure that you're managing everything and getting it all right.
00:33:38.330 --> 00:33:45.903
If you're well prepared for that launch, though, and you've done all the research up front, you really have optimized the listing.
00:33:45.903 --> 00:33:52.872
You've created numerous different versions of your main image so that you can be testing those during launch.
00:33:52.872 --> 00:33:57.765
You've created numerous different versions of your title so that you can maybe test those during your launch.
00:33:58.205 --> 00:34:09.132
You know like the more you prepare before the launch, the easier the launch becomes and the fewer people it requires to be able to manage and pay attention to all these things Like we're talking about.
00:34:09.132 --> 00:34:12.168
You know monitoring your keyword, performance and monitoring.
00:34:12.168 --> 00:34:14.300
You know all of these things about the launch.
00:34:14.300 --> 00:34:20.945
If it's just you, that can be a little bit tough to manage, especially if it's a high volume product and there's other things going on.
00:00:00.441 --> 00:00:04.892
00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:17.132
00:00:17.579 --> 00:00:43.408
00:00:43.408 --> 00:00:56.953
00:00:56.953 --> 00:01:06.430
00:01:07.612 --> 00:01:12.953
00:01:12.953 --> 00:01:13.959
00:01:13.959 --> 00:01:16.605
00:01:16.605 --> 00:01:29.034
00:01:29.034 --> 00:01:36.183
00:01:36.183 --> 00:01:49.614
00:01:49.614 --> 00:02:00.072
00:02:00.072 --> 00:02:17.530
00:02:17.530 --> 00:02:24.193
00:02:24.193 --> 00:02:33.878
00:02:33.878 --> 00:02:35.180
00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:45.155
00:02:45.155 --> 00:02:51.483
00:02:51.483 --> 00:02:53.868
00:02:53.889 --> 00:03:01.075
00:03:01.075 --> 00:03:03.361
00:03:03.361 --> 00:03:06.228
00:03:06.228 --> 00:03:07.811
00:03:07.811 --> 00:03:16.163
00:03:16.163 --> 00:03:20.563
00:03:20.563 --> 00:03:21.425
00:03:21.425 --> 00:03:31.643
00:03:31.643 --> 00:03:32.807
00:03:32.807 --> 00:03:33.631
00:03:33.631 --> 00:03:37.866
00:03:38.229 --> 00:03:48.403
00:03:48.403 --> 00:03:50.850
00:03:50.850 --> 00:03:59.449
00:03:59.449 --> 00:04:00.824
00:04:00.824 --> 00:04:05.650
00:04:05.650 --> 00:04:07.520
00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:15.006
00:04:15.006 --> 00:04:17.379
00:04:17.379 --> 00:04:19.261
00:04:20.261 --> 00:04:24.422
00:04:24.422 --> 00:04:27.824
00:04:27.824 --> 00:04:35.386
00:04:35.386 --> 00:04:36.786
00:04:36.786 --> 00:04:40.146
00:04:40.146 --> 00:05:17.439
00:05:26.139 --> 00:05:32.312
00:05:32.312 --> 00:05:33.595
00:05:33.595 --> 00:05:40.000
00:05:41.281 --> 00:05:43.642
00:05:43.642 --> 00:06:09.620
00:06:09.620 --> 00:06:18.949
00:06:18.949 --> 00:06:33.728
00:06:33.728 --> 00:06:44.988
00:06:44.988 --> 00:06:49.632
00:06:50.740 --> 00:07:05.708
00:07:05.708 --> 00:07:07.540
00:07:07.540 --> 00:07:10.488
00:07:10.488 --> 00:07:13.283
00:07:13.283 --> 00:07:23.461
00:07:23.461 --> 00:07:25.939
00:07:25.939 --> 00:07:29.105
00:07:29.105 --> 00:07:40.492
00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:45.387
00:07:45.387 --> 00:08:12.125
00:08:12.125 --> 00:08:22.524
00:08:22.545 --> 00:08:26.432
00:08:26.692 --> 00:08:52.600
00:08:52.620 --> 00:09:15.388
00:09:15.427 --> 00:09:21.347
00:09:21.347 --> 00:09:57.283
00:09:59.187 --> 00:10:11.880
00:10:11.880 --> 00:10:25.306
00:10:25.306 --> 00:10:42.048
00:10:42.048 --> 00:10:52.208
00:10:52.208 --> 00:11:04.549
00:11:04.710 --> 00:11:17.524
00:11:17.524 --> 00:11:19.712
00:11:19.712 --> 00:11:26.809
00:11:26.809 --> 00:11:35.969
00:11:35.969 --> 00:11:56.092
00:11:57.320 --> 00:12:00.409
00:12:00.409 --> 00:12:07.113
00:12:07.113 --> 00:12:19.408
00:12:19.408 --> 00:12:33.690
00:12:33.690 --> 00:12:38.731
00:12:38.731 --> 00:12:48.106
00:12:48.106 --> 00:12:51.764
00:12:51.764 --> 00:13:12.543
00:13:12.543 --> 00:13:24.663
00:13:25.004 --> 00:13:27.889
00:13:27.889 --> 00:13:47.815
00:13:47.815 --> 00:13:50.708
00:13:50.708 --> 00:13:54.770
00:13:54.770 --> 00:13:59.231
00:13:59.231 --> 00:14:14.538
00:14:16.102 --> 00:14:22.585
00:14:22.585 --> 00:14:25.080
00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:35.085
00:14:35.085 --> 00:14:49.315
00:14:49.315 --> 00:14:50.883
00:14:50.883 --> 00:14:54.543
00:14:54.543 --> 00:14:58.029
00:14:58.530 --> 00:15:05.254
00:15:05.254 --> 00:15:09.485
00:15:09.485 --> 00:15:14.946
00:15:14.946 --> 00:15:23.052
00:15:23.052 --> 00:15:26.570
00:15:26.671 --> 00:15:38.691
00:15:38.691 --> 00:15:41.543
00:15:41.543 --> 00:15:44.289
00:15:44.289 --> 00:15:46.014
00:15:46.014 --> 00:15:52.703
00:15:52.703 --> 00:16:03.923
00:16:03.923 --> 00:16:17.085
00:16:18.488 --> 00:16:34.683
00:16:34.683 --> 00:16:46.407
00:16:46.407 --> 00:16:53.229
00:16:53.229 --> 00:17:01.162
00:17:01.162 --> 00:17:19.618
00:17:19.618 --> 00:17:22.433
00:17:22.473 --> 00:17:40.417
00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:43.743
00:17:43.743 --> 00:17:45.554
00:17:45.554 --> 00:17:57.233
00:17:57.233 --> 00:18:03.683
00:18:03.683 --> 00:18:10.030
00:18:10.030 --> 00:18:15.063
00:18:15.063 --> 00:18:20.518
00:18:21.559 --> 00:18:44.732
00:18:44.732 --> 00:19:23.710
00:19:23.710 --> 00:19:44.278
00:19:44.278 --> 00:19:46.236
00:19:46.236 --> 00:19:49.176
00:19:49.176 --> 00:19:51.134
00:19:51.134 --> 00:19:52.098
00:19:52.098 --> 00:19:53.836
00:19:53.836 --> 00:19:56.855
00:19:57.395 --> 00:20:11.742
00:20:11.742 --> 00:20:17.613
00:20:17.613 --> 00:20:19.778
00:20:19.778 --> 00:20:22.133
00:20:22.133 --> 00:20:40.375
00:20:40.375 --> 00:20:44.884
00:20:45.412 --> 00:20:55.276
00:20:55.696 --> 00:21:09.663
00:21:10.210 --> 00:21:19.005
00:21:19.005 --> 00:21:23.320
00:21:23.320 --> 00:21:29.239
00:21:29.239 --> 00:21:43.240
00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:51.112
00:21:51.112 --> 00:21:57.796
00:21:58.817 --> 00:22:15.959
00:22:15.959 --> 00:22:20.497
00:22:20.497 --> 00:22:24.155
00:22:24.155 --> 00:22:24.838
00:22:24.838 --> 00:22:26.645
00:22:26.645 --> 00:22:29.377
00:22:29.459 --> 00:22:30.482
00:22:30.482 --> 00:22:33.032
00:22:33.032 --> 00:22:34.919
00:22:34.919 --> 00:22:44.819
00:22:44.819 --> 00:22:47.534
00:22:47.574 --> 00:23:01.102
00:23:01.102 --> 00:23:02.432
00:23:02.432 --> 00:23:20.155
00:23:20.155 --> 00:23:36.711
00:23:39.898 --> 00:23:43.813
00:23:43.813 --> 00:23:58.041
00:23:58.041 --> 00:24:00.576
00:24:00.576 --> 00:24:08.738
00:24:08.738 --> 00:24:13.337
00:24:13.337 --> 00:24:33.255
00:24:33.255 --> 00:24:41.278
00:24:42.359 --> 00:25:03.218
00:25:03.218 --> 00:25:19.436
00:25:19.436 --> 00:25:41.792
00:25:43.076 --> 00:25:52.153
00:25:52.153 --> 00:25:55.642
00:25:55.642 --> 00:25:57.172
00:25:57.172 --> 00:26:00.038
00:26:00.038 --> 00:26:02.763
00:26:02.763 --> 00:26:05.470
00:26:05.470 --> 00:26:07.032
00:26:07.032 --> 00:26:11.913
00:26:11.913 --> 00:26:27.233
00:26:27.253 --> 00:26:43.156
00:26:43.616 --> 00:26:52.605
00:26:56.690 --> 00:27:01.499
00:27:01.499 --> 00:27:28.476
00:27:28.476 --> 00:27:31.611
00:27:31.611 --> 00:27:32.433
00:27:32.433 --> 00:27:41.263
00:27:41.650 --> 00:27:59.827
00:27:59.827 --> 00:28:04.352
00:28:04.352 --> 00:28:08.490
00:28:08.490 --> 00:28:14.772
00:28:14.772 --> 00:28:19.685
00:28:20.147 --> 00:28:30.195
00:28:30.195 --> 00:28:54.676
00:28:54.676 --> 00:29:09.113
00:29:09.133 --> 00:29:21.881
00:29:21.950 --> 00:29:29.463
00:29:29.463 --> 00:29:41.571
00:29:41.571 --> 00:29:53.413
00:29:53.413 --> 00:30:04.383
00:30:04.383 --> 00:30:09.623
00:30:09.623 --> 00:30:13.739
00:30:15.323 --> 00:30:16.165
00:30:16.165 --> 00:30:16.666
00:30:16.686 --> 00:30:16.847
00:30:16.847 --> 00:30:29.329
00:30:29.329 --> 00:30:41.949
00:30:41.949 --> 00:30:50.346
00:30:50.445 --> 00:31:00.080
00:31:00.080 --> 00:31:22.484
00:31:22.484 --> 00:31:32.284
00:31:33.688 --> 00:31:34.750
00:31:34.750 --> 00:31:40.170
00:31:40.170 --> 00:31:53.135
00:31:53.135 --> 00:31:58.107
00:31:58.107 --> 00:32:02.634
00:32:02.634 --> 00:32:12.573
00:32:12.573 --> 00:32:22.604
00:32:22.604 --> 00:32:41.892
00:32:41.892 --> 00:32:46.192
00:32:46.192 --> 00:33:00.922
00:33:00.922 --> 00:33:05.346
00:33:05.386 --> 00:33:28.153
00:33:28.153 --> 00:33:33.075
00:33:33.075 --> 00:33:35.221
00:33:35.221 --> 00:33:38.330
00:33:38.330 --> 00:33:45.903
00:33:45.903 --> 00:33:52.872
00:33:52.872 --> 00:33:57.765
00:33:58.205 --> 00:34:09.132
00:34:09.132 --> 00:34:12.168
00:34:12.168 --> 00:34:14.300
00:34:14.300 --> 00:34:20.945