How to use Instagram Stories for a Successful Product Launch

Do you have a big launch coming up? Launching a new product or service is exciting, but it can also be overwhelming. You have to plan ahead to ensure a successful launch.

Meet Instagram Story, your new marketing best friend. This article explains how to make Instagram Stories work for your launch. I’ve had some great experiences with using Instagram Stories for launching new products, so I’m going to share with you how to make it work for your business too!

The key to creating buzz is to give yourself enough time to do it

If you’re planning a product launch and want to use Instagram Stories for it, then giving yourself enough time to create buzz and excitement is crucial. If you rush a product launch, it can be a disaster–and if you don’t have enough time to build up excitement around the new product before its launch date (which can be difficult), then your results will suffer as well.

The best way to make sure that doesn’t happen is by setting aside ample time beforehand so that all aspects of this process are done right from start-to-finish.

• Planning your launch day 
• Planning the content leading up to launch day
• Creating the content

You get the point! Have a plan and plot it out step-by-step.  I’ve created a launch planner and content prompts for your launch, and you can grab that right below.

Create a Launch Plan for Instagram Stories

Use Story features strategically and plan your calendar to ramp up to launch day. To help you out, I’ve outlined what I would do during a month before launch. 

30 Days before launch

This is where you want to start sharing content that builds product demand and awareness. Introduce the product, the problem and the obvious solution (the product!)

• Give a sneak peek at the product itself, show off the process of making it and share details about it.
• Ask your audience questions that make it easy for you to identify your product or service as the clear choice (example: confidence coach might ask “Have you ever Wanted to be more confident?”)
• Be sure to ask those open-ended types of questions too and not just polls. You can do that with Question and Quiz stickers to get your followers involved in the conversation and really tease your upcoming product and what problems it solves with the detailed answers you give.

Need some ideas? Check out these FREE 500 poll and question ideas and these 48 canva story poll templates included inside the membership.

14 Days before launch, offer early access or early discounts

• Educate your audience on the products benefits, the features that need to be explained, and the ones that differentiate it from the competition.
• Consider offering early discount codes and early access to ONLY people on your mailing list. That means you must promote this mailing list on your stories with lead magnets, a wait list or other things like coupon codes. (but also remember to send along a product announcement to your email list who are already subscribed)
• Ask more fun and product specific questions about your product using the Poll sticker with multiple choice answers like: “which ebook cover do you prefer?” Or “Do you prefer video or audio for course lessons?” Things like this help your audience feel involved in the process and that you’re really listening to their feedback. 

7 Days before, start your countdown

• If you’re starting your countdown one week or a few days before launch day, post the same Countdown sticker every day until it’s over. When users engage with countdown stickers, they’ll receive a push notification from Instagram reminding them about your launch! Nice!
• Do more Q&A to answer more specific questions to help people on the fence about purchasing.
• Consider reserving some product for a Giveaway either ahead of launch to contribute to buzz, or after launch upon selling out if you anticipate that happening.
• Give any affiliates you have some instructions for their content. Let them know when to begin posting about the product when it launches and what info they need to share. If you have affiliates or customers sharing in their stories, be sure to repost their stories and continue the buzz! 

Launch day, hype up your launch with curated stories

• You can direct traffic to your product link directly using your Stories LINK sticker.
• Use curated stories, testimonials, and professional images and videos to hype up your launch day. (use the Stories that sell and Launch Canva templates from Ivory Mix to help!)
• You can reward customers and followers who mention your product by reposting their posts or mentioning them in your stories.
• Above all, celebrate! It’s your launch day!

Use the above as a guideline for launching your product using an Instagram Story strategy! By incorporating Instagram Stories into your launch, you will be able to create more fun, engaging, and personalized content!

Remember to utilize Instagram’s stickers to increase engagement throughout your launch

Stories on Instagram come with nice features like stickers, music, and gifs! Using these features can give your stories a boost in engagement and give your launch an advantage.

Use the Poll sticker to engage your audience in the product creation process! The Poll sticker is a great way to get feedback from your audience. You can create polls about the product you’re creating and use it as a way to collect data about what people want in your product.

Use the question sticker to ask your audience questions about their needs and wants. Then, use the data from these polls to inform your product creation process. The question sticker is a great way to get feedback from your audience without them feeling like they’re being surveyed.

Use the countdown sticker to get your audience excited about the product you’re creating. The countdown sticker is a great way to build up excitement around your new product and keep people engaged in the process with a visual reminder. You can use this sticker as a way to give your audience updates on what they can expect from your product creation process, or simply as a way to create hype around the release date of the finished product.

Use the link sticker to get your audience to take action on exactly what you want. Whether you want to grow your email list, host a giveaway, or sell more of your product on launch day, the link sticker will get your audience exactly where they need to go.

As you can see, the features on Instagram stories are a great way to help you build up hype around your new product or service.

Use this Example ‘Product Sneak Peek’ Story to Get You Started:

When you post this type of story, don’t forget to add the link to your wait list! It’s a simple trick, but it works to generate buzz.

You know what’s better than posting a sneak peek of your upcoming product launch? Having 14 different types of story templates to help you sell!

Skip the story creation and use my templates proven story templates that sell!

Creating engaging and effective Instagram stories that sell was never easier. I’ve created 14 sets of canva templates you can use for engaging stories to share with your audience and get them buying and signing up straight from your stories!

 

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A post shared by Ivory Mix™ | Kayla – Canva Templates & Stock Photos (@the_ivorymix)

Conclusion

I hope this guide has helped you understand how to use Instagram Stories to launch your product or service. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and let me know!

What Next? Check out our other blog posts on the subject of Instagram Stories and Launches! 

• 120 Poll Ideas for Instagram Stories (and Templates)

• 12 Content Ideas to Post When Launching Your First Digital Product, Course, or Service

• 9 Content Ideas To Help You Sell Your Digital Products

• Here’s why you need 2 types of sales funnels (evergreen and launches)

• Content ideas for a launch