The Marketer’s Guide to Product Launches

When launching a new product, there's a laundry list of components that go into making it a success - R&D, focus groups, product iterations, scheduling, marketing campaigns, and much more. As an ecommerce business, the most important aspect to consider is content. The content you serve is the gateway between the brand and consumer. It’s the catalyst that turns an unacquainted prospect into a loyal customer. And today’s digital channels, such as websites, marketing emails, social media, advertisements, and third-party retailers, require tons of high-performing, relevant content. 

For Tom Carberry, the VP of Merchandising + Design at Hemp Black, content is a powerful differentiator: 

“Content gives context. With so many brands and stores competing for the same share of wallet you must have a point-of-view on why your product will resonate with your targeted consumer -- the easiest way to do that is through rich, visual content that reflects your ethos and aesthetic.”

Hemp Black invents technologies to benefit people and better the world. They do this through their cutting edge hemp-based textiles that are consciously crafted and honestly sourced to enhance performance, comfort, and style. After perfecting a number of game-changing products, they knew they needed a firehose of rich, visual content to have a successful launch. Hemp Black came to Cohley to generate the different types of creative assets they needed to connect with consumers and bring their brand to life on digital.

You need sophisticated, high-resolution imagery to highlight everything your new product has to offer. This type of content adds a layer of sophistication and professionalism to your channels. Typically, brands create their marquee professional content via in-person photoshoots to properly execute their creative vision. The challenge lies in the logistical and monetary headaches that come with traditional photoshoots. Studio rentals, photographer fees, and professional models can take a major stab at your marketing budget. Far too few marketers understand that there’s a better way to produce highly-curated, professional content with less effort, less budget, and less headaches. Hemp Black turned to Cohley to do just that. 

With the need to act quickly due to tight timelines and social distancing in place (a trend that will continue as more businesses adopt remote operations), they turned to Cohley to produce the highly-curated, professional content they needed for their product detail pages (PDPs), website, and PR campaigns. They ran a Cohley Professional Photography Campaign to source professional photographers that matched their vision, brand aesthetic, and were geographically located near their ideal landscapes - lush forests, mountains, and cityscapes. 

Hemp Black worked with two Cohley photographers who provided their own roster of models to choose from. By working with two photographers with different skill sets, geographies, and models, Hemp Black was able to develop a diverse collection of professional photographs. 

Content Rights in Perpetuity

Not to mention, Cohley grants brands full content rights in perpetuity, meaning the content produced via the remote photoshoots belongs to Hemp Black forever. Negotiating content and model rights can be an expensive and time-consuming process, and can come back to hurt a brand down the road when the rights expire. Cohley avoids that by including full content rights across the platform.

Hemp Black didn’t have to sacrifice any of their creative vision by turning to Cohley photographers:

Customers are 270% more likely to buy a product with five reviews than one with no reviews. And it’s no surprise the strongest metric to determine the success of a new product launch is sales. Today, evaluating purchase decisions by reading product reviews is the norm for almost every consumer. The problem is that generating enough product reviews to make an impact on conversions can take months after launch to generate organically.

“We don't even send the email asking for a review until 14 days after the purchase. So we could run an entire review campaign [on Cohley] before we would normally expect to get the first trickle of a review back.”

Like many fast-moving and fast-growing brands, Hemp Black didn’t have the time to sit around and wait for the product reviews to roll in, especially for their new Ability Pant. The pants feature cutting edge pocket technology that cleans your phone in under 20 minutes and a tummy control antimicrobial waistband. Hemp Black knew they needed social proof displayed on their website as soon as the products were released to the public.

Product reviews on demand

Hemp Black ran a Cohley Product Review campaign to generate textual and visual reviews for the Ability Pant. They used the platform to connect with 25 product reviewers instantly and provide them with free product in exchange for an honest review. Over the course of 11 days, Hemp Black generated 25 authentic reviews directly on the Ability Pant’s product page on their website. They tapped into Cohley’s Yotpo integration to automatically send the written and visual reviews directly to their ecommerce site.

The value and impact that product reviews have on conversion rates is undeniable, but Hemp Black also found immense value in the actual content of the reviews themselves: