Summary: <p>2019 is quickly coming which has us thinking about product lines for the new year. So, April and I decided to chat about the strategies that we use for promoting our new products and product lines. We both worked on trying new things this year and have had great results. Here are our favorite, and most successful, strategies:</p> <h2>You want to build hype before you release products</h2> <p>April and I both admit that we used to stay quiet about the products we were working on. We were worried if we mentioned it someone else would swoop in and steal the idea. But, I’ll be honest—getting your audience excited about what you’re going to be releasing can really help.</p> <p>In the past, it would take 6 months to a year for our new products to really start gaining traffic. But, it’s because we were just posting them to our TpT sites and leaving it at that. It’s good to get traffic eventually, but that’s not what you want when you’ve spent time on a product line. Some of the things that I released this year were year-long resources that took me a year to work on. I wanted them to do well right off the bat. That means uploading the resource and hoping for the best wasn’t going to cut it.</p> <h2>Survey your audience</h2> <p>April has experienced a lot of success with surveying her audience before creating resources. There are a few ways that she’s done this. The first is by sending a survey to her email list. For example, she created a 5 question survey and asked what standards her audience was interested in. When she got the results back she started making resources for the top 3 replies.</p> <p>By surveying her audience she knows that she’s creating resources that her audience wants to buy. It also helps with the opposite. In one survey she had a list of ideas that she was thinking of creating and asked what people were interested in. A few of the ideas didn’t get any votes. If she would have created them, there wouldn’t have been interest in them and it would have been a waste of her time.</p> <p>Here are a few examples of questions that she has asked:</p> <ul> <li>Which of these options would you prefer…</li> <li>Digital vs. print</li> <li>What standards do you want to see included?</li> </ul> <p>You can use Survey Monkey to create a free survey to start getting ideas from your audience. Once you have the product or product line ready to go you can email them with the link. You already know they’re interested in it because they told you in the first place.</p> <h4>Do you need to entice your audience to respond to a survey?</h4> <p>April has done a drawing for a gift card as a way to entice people to complete the survey but found that it wasn’t necessary. When she polls her audience on what they are looking for they want to give their opinions because it means that products will be created that they are interested in. This is motivation enough.</p> <h2>Discounting products</h2> <p>Another strategy that we like is offering a discount on products for a limited time. For example, you offer 1/2 off for the first 48 hours. If you let all your followers know about the discount it’s a great way to get a jump start on traffic to your new resource.</p> <p>I also like this strategy because it helps to get some quick sales and feedback. Then when people show up to your site there are reviews from people that have already purchased it and love it.</p> <p>Another way to benefit from this strategy is to include a link for people to join your email list if they like the product so they can be notified when the next one comes out. April used this idea and around 10% of the people joined her list, which was around 500 people. She made around 30 products in this resource line. Each time she released one she was able to notify this list and they bought the products.</p> <h2>Provide a sneak peek</h2> <p>Another strategy that I like to use is providing a sn</p>
