Launching a new website is a big project. Like renovating a physical property, it requires a lot of coordination and communication between different parties. And like so many things, creating a website launch marketing plan requires intentionality, forethought, and flexibility.
It’s not uncommon for website launches to generate more traffic than usual. Part of it is that people are curious: They want to see what the new website looks like. Part of it might also be that you’re offering more value in coordination with your new website launch or you’ve created some hype around your website launch.
Regardless, creating a marketing plan for your website launch can help you take advantage of these extra eyes on your website. And hopefully, you’ll be able to convert some of these new visitors to leads or clients.
In this post we’re covering why you need a marketing plan to launch your website and the elements that should be part of any website launch plan. You can even use this as a template for your next website launch!
Table of Contents
So let’s dive in…
Why You Need a Website Launch Marketing Plan
Winging your website launch is akin to taking the “if you build it, they will come” approach. Yes, you might be able to count on some extra traffic due to people’s curiosity—but people may also be less curious than you assume.
Creating a marketing plan for your website launch can help you create additional buzz around your business, which can be a catalyst for positive momentum.
Website launches have a lot of moving pieces, which is another reason that you’ll want to create a plan. If your website launch includes others sharing about it, you’ll want to make sure that you give people plenty of notice so they can work the launch into their marketing calendars. Even if it doesn’t include others, you’ll still need time to create the social graphics, captions, email sequences, and other collateral needed for the launch to happen.
Tips for Creating a Website Launch Marketing Plan
Here are a few things to keep in mind before you get to planning your website launch marketing strategy:
- Start thinking about your website launch during the website build. If you’ve waited until after your website is ready to launch, you’ve probably waited too long. As you’ll read, there are a lot of things you’ll want time to organize.
- Set tentative dates and build-in margin. You’ll want to soft-launch your website before you announce it to the world and give yourself time to make any necessary updates based on the soft launch. Giving yourself some margin will help make for a far less stressful launch.
- Set specific goals for your launch. If things went perfectly, what would that look like? For most businesses, we highly recommend figuring out a way to capture leads.
- Don’t confuse hype for a strategy. Definitely figure out ways you can hype up your launch, but don’t think that running a giveaway is the strategy.
- Realize that launching your website is just the beginning. Website launches can be big momentum builders, but it’s important to realize that website marketing is not a once-and-done activity. In many ways this should take the pressure off! Even if your launch doesn’t go as planned, that doesn’t mean it was a waste of time. A business’s success or failure (usually) doesn’t hinge on a successful launch; it hinges on everything that comes next!
So with that said, here’s how to create your own website launch plan…
How to Create a Website Launch Marketing Plan (Use this as a website launch template)
What follows are generally the steps we would recommend someone taking when planning their website launch marketing strategy. You could easily take these steps and turn them into a template for creating your own marketing plan.
We’ve written at length about many of these steps, so be sure to check out the links to access related resources that will help you as you plan your website launch.
1. Determine Your Launch and Website Goals
This is step 1 and it should drive your strategy. We typically recommend that people have some sort of lead generation strategy in place for their launch. That way, they’re able to follow-up and nurture that traffic that visits their website.
This step is twofold…
What are your goals for your website? Having a “pretty new website” isn’t enough. It has to be intentional and functional. If the goal of the website is to drive more inquiries, the website should be built to lead visitors to that end.
What are your goals for your launch? If done right, you’ll probably have more eyes on your website than normal. How are you planning on engaging people? Are you hoping to get a certain amount of traffic to your website? How do you get them to come back? Are you capturing leads using your email list?
2. Offer Value Now—don’t promise to offer value later
Much of your launch strategy will revolve around getting as many visitors as possible to your new website when you launch.
But how do you keep them coming back?
Offer value. Lots of it.
When you launch, try to make sure that you have a few pieces of content ready for your visitors. Don’t just have one blog post about what will come in the future. It would be like Chick-fil-a opening a new store, but only to pass out cards saying what will be on the menu eventually. Serve your audience today.
This value can come in the form of blog posts, vlogs, tutorials, or guides. Or, a combination of those things. Don’t promise to offer value later. Don’t talk about all the cool stuff that will eventually be on your website. Provide it now.
We’ve already said it, but the best way to ensure people come back is to have a lead capture strategy on your website.
3. Brainstorm Ways to Create Hype Around Your Website Launch
If you’ve been intentional about coordinating your launch, there’s a good chance you’ll have more visitors than normal. A thoughtful giveaway or promotion can help continue to generate exposure for your new website beyond the day of your launch.
It’s also an effective way to capture leads. We used a giveaway tool to run a giveaway the last time we launched our website, and we grew our mailing list by 25%. Try creating a giveaway or promotion that encourages others to share about it.
Need ideas for the launch? Here are a few ideas how to create hype around your website launch.
Remember, hype isn’t the same thing as strategy. A strategy concerns itself with what it’s going to do with all that hype.
4. Create a Launch Schedule with Your Team
The schedule should be created with everyone involved with building the new website.
If you’ve hired a copywriter or photographer to help with content, be sure that you connect them with your web designer. This ensures that everyone understands their responsibilities, what they need to provide and when it’s due.
Write these things down so everyone’s clear on what was agreed upon, but remember to be flexible if certain things take longer than expected. When creating your launch schedule, work backwards from the launch date. You’ll want to make sure that you include these things in your launch schedule:
- Reaching out to people who will help you promote your new website (see below for tips).
- Time set aside for testing and feedback.
- Soft launch (to further test that everything works).
- Giveaway/promotion start/end dates.
- Content/social schedule (social media, email blasts, etc.)
- Are paid ads a part of your launch? If so, remember you’ll need time to create ads, landing pages, etc.
- Create swipe copy and graphics that make it easy for others to share about your launch.
The launch schedule should have enough margin in it to account for delays and testing. We wouldn’t recommend giving people specific dates until closer to the end of your website build. While you might not be able to give people specific dates, you should still reach out to people who you’re asking to share in advance.
5. Create Social Graphics and Swipe Copy for Your Launch
If you’re asking others to share about your new website, then be sure to create swipe copy and graphics that they can use. This will save them time and make it much more likely they share about your website. It’s good practice! You might also offer affiliate revenue if it makes sense for your business.
Regardless of whether you’re asking others to share, you’ll want to get those graphics and posts created far in advance of your launch. This will ensure that you have time to focus on other things when it comes to actually launching your website, like testing it.
The most stress free launches are always those where as much as possible is done in advance.
Grab our free Canva graphics »
6. Ask others to Share about Your New Website
If you have relationships with other non-competing business owners in your industry, consider asking them to share about your new website with their audience. These asks are always much easier if you’ve done something similar in the past for the person you’re asking.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when you do ask:
- Give people advanced notice so they can plan accordingly. The bigger the ask, the more advanced notice you should give. For a website launch, try asking at least a month in advance.
- Someone promoting your stuff when they could be promoting their own is a big deal. Respect them and their audience by making sure your website is working and offers value.
- Honor their time by sending them copy, images, and directions for sharing. Creating that stuff takes time!
- Offer to return the favor in the future (and keep that promise!).
Relationship building is an important piece of this. Spending time on relationships outside of launches will make it more likely you’ll get support when you do launch.
7. Set-up Your Website Analytics Tools
(Here’s a good place to start: Google Search Console & Google Analytics)
These are the kinds of things that people often wait to take care of after their launch. But make sure these things are setup correctly before your launch. Both of the suggested tools will give you valuable insights into your website and visitors.
Wouldn’t you want to know if there are any indexing issues before you launch your website?
And on launch day, wouldn’t it be nice to know where most of your visitors are coming from—social media, email, a friend’s website?
If you’ve set measurable goals for your launch, these tools will help you track your success.
8. If it hasn’t been tested, it doesn’t work
If you work under this assumption, you’ll vastly increase the chances of a stress-free launch.
Adequate time for testing the new website should be built-in to the launch schedule. This is more than just clicking the links in the top-level navigation to see if they work.
This also includes…
- Checking for broken links (there are tools that do this) and making sure links behave appropriately.
- Being sure pages and posts have been optimized for search engines.
- Having others go through your website to give you feedback.
- Testing various integrations such as lead catchers, payment gateways, and contact forms.
And making sure all these things are done on both the desktop AND mobile versions of the website.
We always recommend soft launching your website if possible to make sure that everything is working as expected before sending people to your website. There’s nothing worse for a launch than coordinating it, having others promote it to their audiences, and then finding out it doesn’t work.
Don’t let testing your website stress you out! Use our Website QA Guide.
9. Have a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)
Don’t just say, “Check out my new website!”
When people get to your new website, what do you want them to do? The CTA should be tied to the goals you created for your launch. If it’s to get more leads, direct people to your contact form or lead catcher.
Whatever it is, make sure it’s clear to visitors. Do your best to ask people to do ONE thing when they land on your website, and make it easy to complete. If you ask too much or make it a complex task, it’s less likely people will complete it.
Are you ready to launch your website?
Prepping for a website launch takes a lot of time and energy, but we’re doing our best to make it as straightforward as possible.
That’s why we’ve created these absolutely free Website Launch Graphics. Customize them in Canva and use them for your next launch!
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