Your website is often the first impression potential customers and clients have of your brand. A website is the primary way you communicate your brand identity to the world, as it details your services, philosophy, and the people who make your business exceptional. If you’re planning on creating and launching a new website, it’s a BIG DEAL—especially for your current clients and customers. Don’t let your site go live quietly without fanfare—take full advantage of this big marketing opportunity and announce your new site to the world!
Following are five website launch announcement tips to help you grow your brand and take full advantage of the opportunity:
1. Create an email campaign
If you have a mailing list, an email series announcing your new website is an excellent way to get the word out to your current customers or client base. If you don’t do regular emails, consider making it a part of a monthly newsletter. Letting people know in advance that a new site is coming will help ensure the sudden change doesn’t jar them, and they’ll know they’re in the right place—especially if you’re doing a significant brand overhaul.
Also, if you have a list of people who have recently engaged with or made purchases on your website, consider creating an email campaign tailored specifically to them. Make sure to let these customers or clients know that a new site is coming and reassure them that this change is designed to make your site easier to navigate, more user-friendly, and so on.
2. Blog about your launch on your current website
A blog about your new website is an easy way to announce it to the world—while speaking directly to your customers and clients about why you’re making such a big change. Discuss why you need a new website: discuss your growing business, a new product line, or why you’re going in a new visual direction. People respond to authenticity and openness, and letting them in on your goals behind a new website can help you build up your brand’s identity and help your customers and clients feel part of the process.
3. Tease your website launch on social media
The simplest and most cost-effective way to announce to the world that you’ve created a new website is to tease it on social media. Let the social world know you’ve built a new website and mention how it will benefit them directly. Talk about any new features on the site and highlight how this new site will be an improvement over your current site, such as enhancing the client experience, navigating to products or services quicker, etc.
You should post about your new site regularly, so your followers know the launch is coming. For example, you could post about the site once a week for a month before the website is live, a day before launch, and a big announcement the day of. Make it exciting by using a countdown to the launch! However, this will only work if you have a hard launch date you can stick to; otherwise, keep the date vague to a season or a month so you don’t confuse your followers.
Make sure you customize your posts, even if it slightly depends on which platform(s) you use. If you’re teasing your launch on Instagram, you may want to change the imagery on your grid to match your new site’s look and feel. If on LinkedIn, perhaps share a short write-up of your new site’s features and benefits. Building excitement for your new website is a great way to refresh your social media presence, engage with current followers, and gain new ones!
4. Consider tying in a contest.
If you want to get people excited about your new site, pair a contest with your announcement! One idea would be to ask your followers on social media to comment on what they’d most like to see in your new website, whether it’s a new feature, a better search bar, a more comprehensive array of products, incredible visuals, and so on. Let them know that for every comment they leave, they’ve gained one entry to win a prize of your choice. You can then take the usernames and pick one at random. Better yet, give them more incentives to engage. Offer multiple prizes or say that for every friend they tag in their comment, they’ll get an additional entry to win. This is a great way to get people interested in your website and expose your brand to a broader audience.
5. Take Full Advantage of PR
You may not realize it, but a website launch can be newsworthy! Look into business journals, online publications, and podcasts around your industry to see if they’d be interested in talking to you about your website launch. You can even announce the interview and use that for content on your social media accounts and email campaigns.
This can work exceptionally well if the new website is paired with the announcement of a new brand, as a part of a new campaign, or a complete brand refresh. By engaging with the media, you can expose your brand to an audience you wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise—which can significantly impact your business!
Creating a website takes a lot of hard work, planning, and time, so don’t let your accomplishment go unnoticed. If you need assistance creating a unique and engaging new website, rebranding your business, or making the buzz surrounding your website launch, we invite you to contact the marketing professionals and web designers at Threaded Marketing Group. We’d be thrilled to promote your new site before it launches and help your brand reach new heights!
