Website Launch Strategy

Financial Backbone

A smart website launch strategy is the financial backbone of a successful website project. Although it will not guarantee the website will be a success, it will, however ensure that it is executed via the lowest possible cost with no funds wasted on items that were never incorporated. Consider it somewhat of an insurance policy in case the idea behind the website is not ready for the market and fails to find enough paying customers or clients.

Launch Phases

The launch strategy needs to take into account all features that are defined during the website planning phase. It should separate them into sets of features and then reveal a sequence of feature releases. The initial phase and core phase should basically cover only those features that will meet the immediate needs of the target audience the website is being built for. It aims at building a solid foundation for future releases to come while gauging an initial interest from the targeted audience group. Our project manager will meet with the client to discuss possible scenarios and to address potential problems. Our goal is to ensure everyone is always on the same page and questions such as, “How are you going to launch it?” are answered in a comprehensive way throughout each phase.

In an ideal launch strategy execution, each of the phases and releases are a complete success and allows the stake holders to move forward with subsequent phase implementations and releases. The entire launch strategy is being put together assuming a coordinated unfolding of the project, whereas the separation into phases assumes the worst case scenario, which, of course includes a release of certain feature sets where no one is using it, thereby declaring it unsuccessful and forcing the stakeholders to abort the project.

Intellectual Property

Another reason, and maybe the most important one, for approaching a website launch in phases is to ensure the competition is not exposed to instant and full access. Although it cannot be prevented, we can at least prevent competitors from walking in through an open gate and gaining instant access.

Approach

Perhaps most difficult is our advice to our clients that a healthy dose of self discipline and reality will serve him well. We encourage our clients to look at the project as a whole with a critical eye. This allows him to define those reasons why his business idea might not be successful while also allowing him to identify flaws. Frankly, the more reasons that are identified as potential reasons for failures, the better prepared all of us are to react to these flaws and hopefully, prevent them from happening.

We are not serving our clients’ needs if they discover they are wasting money due to a failure to anticipate potential flaws. We recognize the option always exists to abandon the project, but we work to ensure it is not due to ill-spent funds.