For small businesses, adding new services is an important part of long-term growth. Perhaps your business has finally reached the point where you have the resources available to offer an added service. Maybe you have seen the need for a particular service in your local area, and now you are ready to meet that demand.
However, to make sure that your new service launch is a success, you need to back your strategy with a well-formed marketing plan. Your initial marketing strategy will play a critical role in the success of your service launch. Without a marketing plan, customers will be unaware of the new service you offer, causing you to miss out on important leads.
If you are getting ready to launch a new service, check out our complete marketing guide to launching a new service successfully.
Understand Your Target Audience for the Service
Before you start marketing a new service, make sure you understand who your target audience is for the service. This might be the same group of people you already market to, or it might be an entirely new segment of customers.
It is important to understand not only the basic demographics of the audience for your new service but also how this new audience will make purchasing decisions. This will help ensure that as you build out new marketing materials and ads, you are matching your messaging to the customers most likely to convert.
As you research your audience, it’s helpful to also analyze your competition. A new service launch might change what businesses are considered direct competition. Pay attention to how these brands are already messaging their services and what channels they are using to reach customers. This can help you understand where you need to invest in marketing and provide you with the chance to find untapped areas of opportunity.
Build an Optimized Service Page
For every service your business offers, you should build out a dedicated service page on your website. This service page serves a few of the following key purposes:
- It improves your organic visibility. Before building your service page, research keywords to understand what phrases customers are using when they search for the service online. Never assume that you already know how a customer looks for a particular service. Often, when you are an expert in your industry, you might describe your service in a technical manner. However, customers might search for your service using different terminology. The goal is to understand the most common phrases customers use to look for a particular service. Using these keywords, you can build out the content for your service page, helping to boost your organic visibility.
- It answers questions. Customers will have questions about your new services, and a well-written service page can help answer these questions. Take the time to think about what details a customer might want to know before they schedule a service. Build out a frequently asked questions section to provide key insights into how your service works.
- It provides you with a place to send potential leads. When you start promoting your new service, you’ll need a dedicated service page where you can send customers to find out information about your new service. Rather than simply sending customers to your website, where they might not be able to quickly find the information about your new service, having an optimized service page will ensure that you don’t lose potential leads. This page should include a clear call to action which makes it easy for a customer to schedule the new service.
Run a Promotion or Giveaway
When you first launch a service, you will need to find a few early adopters to try it out. To entice customers to give this newly launched offering a chance, consider running a promotion or giveaway.
Social media is a great platform for running a promotion. Through your social media channels, you can give customers the opportunity to win a free or discounted service. Ask customers to comment on your posts, follow your account, and repost your promotion to their own page. Get creative with your ideas and think about how to engage with existing and new customers. The goal is to help spread the word about your new service while also offering customers the chance to give it a try.
Send Out an Email
Emails are an effective tool for informing existing customers about your newest service. This is a particularly powerful marketing strategy if the service you added is in direct response to customer demand.
As you create a service launch email, make sure you include all of the following components.
A Compelling Subject Line
When a customer opens up their inbox, the first thing they will see is a series of email subject lines. To increase your open rates, you need to grab a customer’s attention through an eye-catching subject line.
Subject lines should be short — generally fewer than 15 words — and need to incentivize customers to open up the email to read more. For a new service launch, aim for a subject line that clearly indicates that the email is announcing something new. This can be as simple as stating “new” followed by the service. Other options include “now offering” and “available now.”
A Short Greeting
Once a customer opens your email, you want to get straight to the point. Start your email right away with your service announcement. Greet your customer by name when possible and provide a quick snapshot of what the new service entails.
An Overview of Your Service
After you have made your initial service launch announcement, transition into an overview of your new service. This is a good place to answer questions your customers might have about the service and to point out any specifics about the service.
Benefits of Your New Service
After you explain what your new service is, provide your customers with a few of the key benefits of your service. This is a great spot in your email to include a promotional video or to point out what makes your new service a better pick than the competition.
A Clear Call to Action
Finally, finish your email with a clear call to action. Make sure that a customer knows exactly what they should do next and make the path to conversion simple. For example, your call to action could be to schedule the service with your team, and you could include a button that immediately takes a customer to your online scheduling tool.
Example of a New Service Launch Email
The following is an example of a new service launch email for an HVAC company.
Subject Line: Now Offering Contactless HVAC Services – ABC HVAC Company
Hi [Customer Name],
Big news! You asked, and we listened. We now offer contactless HVAC services. Our HVAC technicians can perform the HVAC services you need, all without requiring a face-to-face visit.
How it works:
- We communicate with you via text or FaceTime.
- Our HVAC technician shows up at your house in protective gear, including fresh gloves and shoe coverings.
- You can choose to remain in another part of your home — or you don’t need to be at the house at all. It’s up to you!
- We submit pictures and updates via text.
- We will disinfect everything we touch during our visit.
- At the end of our visit, we will call you to share an update and talk through the photos we took.
Contactless visits not only keep you and your family safe but are also convenient. Even if you are able to be present for our HVAC visit, we can do the work and provide you with real-time updates. To schedule a contactless visit, simply let your technician know!
(CTA Button: Schedule a Contactless Visit)
To learn more about writing quality marketing emails, check out our guide to the Anatomy of a Winning Email.
Build Content Around the Service
In addition to a dedicated webpage that explains your new service, it is also important to build out additional content around the service. This content can be used throughout your marketing campaign.
Examples of content you might want to include for a service launch include the following:
- A promotional or explanation video: This can be helpful when explaining a service that customers might not be familiar with or even know they need. For example, if you can now install a new style of whole home air filters, a video can help visually showcase how this air filtration system will improve the quality of indoor air.
- A series of blog posts: During the first few months of a service launch, you should continually publish new articles to your website that help showcase the value of your new service. These articles can be built around common questions customers might have and should contain important keywords. Link these blog posts back to your service page to help build your organic reach.
- Social media posts: In addition to running a promotion when you first launch your new service, continue to talk about the service on your social media pages. You can also use your social media channels to cross-promote your blog posts and videos.
Gather Customer Feedback
After your first customers sign up for your new service, take the time to gather their feedback. This is important for a few reasons. First, it helps you know how well your team is doing. When you launch a new service, there might be additional training that your service team needs. Customers can let you know in areas where employees might still need a little extra help.
Second, satisfied customers will be critical in helping you build social proof around your new service. Ask happy customers to leave Google reviews and ask to include customer testimonials on your service page. This can help establish you as a trusted provider of the new service in your area.
Work With J&L Marketing to Launch Your New Service
Launching a new service is a great way to open up an additional revenue stream for your small business. However, promoting your new service is critical to the success of your service launch. At J&L Marketing, we will be happy to work with you to build out a marketing strategy around a new service launch. From start to finish, we can help with everything from building out a new service page on your website to promoting your services through email, texts, and digital ads. Contact our team to learn more about how we can help.
