Harnessing the Power of Anticipation Marketing

October 25, 2023 Stan

Anticipation marketing is a strategy that focuses on building curiosity, excitement and yes, anticipation, within a targeted group of potential customers. It’s used to generate “buzz” prior to a certain date, drive customer engagement, and if executed successfully, generate immediate success upon launch. In addition to hyping up a product or service, it also can increase engagement and loyalty across the customer base. Most opportunities for harnessing the power of anticipation marketing are with product launches — including movies, flash sales, and other events where building anticipation for the product can significantly impact its success. However, anticipation marketing can also be useful in helping generate interest in a company’s target product, service or upcoming event as well as any underperforming products or services.

Anticipation Marketing Tactics

There are many different tactics that businesses can use in their anticipation marketing plans. Some of the main digital tactics include:

Teasers or Sneak Peeks: Providing glimpses of what’s to come through teaser campaigns, trailers, or content, such as imagery across all marketing channels, especially social and email.
Storytelling: Crafting compelling narratives and stories around the upcoming offering to create an emotional connection with the audience.
Countdowns and Timers: Using countdowns on websites or social media to create a sense of urgency and anticipation.
Interactive Content: Engaging the audience with interactive content such as polls, quizzes, or contests related to the upcoming launch.
Influencer Collaboration: Collaborating with influencers or industry experts to build anticipation and credibility by giving them early access to your product or service and partnering with them on promotion to their subscriber base.
Limited Availability: Creating a perception of scarcity or exclusivity by offering limited quantities or early access.
Event Marketing: Hosting launch events, webinars, or live streams to engage with the audience directly.
Feedback and Engagement: Encouraging audience participation, feedback, and discussions related to the upcoming release through online community and industry forums .

As marketers, we have all used some, or maybe even all, of the above-mentioned tactics when creating various launch campaigns. But the question remains: how can I leverage some version of them in all of my marketing efforts? If you’re not getting your audience excited about your brand, you become another company that fades from your audiences’ memory quickly. Not only are you losing clients to more engaging competitors, but you are also failing at compelling new leads to engage with you. You know your company and its products are the best, and that you have the solutions your audience needs. To get your audience to see your value as well, you must harness the power of anticipation marketing.

Moving to anticipation marketing involves a strategic shift in your marketing approach. The tried and true “build an offer and they will come” approach will not suffice. You will need to think about building and sustaining excitement across all marketing channels, and creating and utilizing content in ways most digital campaigns ignore. Only then can you carry your audience with you and keep them engaged until the big reveal.

First things first; you should ensure that you truly understand anticipation marketing. Make sure you do your research and familiarize yourself with its concepts and principles. It is all about using the psychology of anticipation to help promote and sell products or services before they are even launched. By leveraging anticipation-building strategies like the ones above, marketers can create more hype and visibility around brand activities like product releases and launches, live events, and flash sales.

Developing Your Anticipation Marketing Plan

With a basic understanding on board, you are now ready to create your anticipation marketing plan. Here are the steps you will need to take in order to be most successful:

Define Your Audience
This seems like such an obvious step in a marketing plan, but it’s one that many marketers gloss over. Take the time to identify your target audience and anticipate their needs, preferences, and pain points. Anticipation marketing depends upon knowing your audience well. Ask yourself:
- Who will be your early adopters that you can turn into influencers?
- What industry or industries will gain the most benefit from your product or services?
- Take a critical look at your buyer personas; are you targeting decision makers, or will your product or services best be adopted through groundswell among the employees of a company?
Develop your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Clearly define what sets your product or service apart from the competition. These become the components that make up your unique features and benefits in your anticipation marketing strategy.
Create Teasers
Generate anticipation by creating teasers, sneak peeks, and campaigns that provide glimpses of what’s coming. Use social media, email marketing, and other channels to build excitement. You may even consider pre-orders, VIP early access, and discounts to generate pre-sales buzz.
Utilize Storytelling
Be sure you are crafting compelling narratives around your product or service that aid in generating emotional connections with your audience and increase their anticipation.Think about the pacing of the information you are releasing so that each post, email, and advertisement heightens the anticipation for launch day.
Build a Launch Plan
It is of utmost importance to develop a detailed launch plan that outlines the timeline, marketing channels, and strategies you’ll use leading up to the launch date. You can have the best content in the world, but if you deliver information haphazardly or sporadically, the launch will not generate the results you want. As with storytelling above, consider the cadence per marketing channel so that you don’t end up with a content “hole” where your audience expects the next piece of content and nothing gets delivered.
Leverage Social Buzz
In your launch plan, be sure you are including ways to share testimonials, reviews, or endorsements from early adopters or influencers to build credibility and anticipation. Leveraging the power of community and “word of mouth” recommendations can grab the attention of those in your audience who are on the fence, and help escalate the sales process.
Interactive Content
Consider using interactive content like polls, quizzes, or contests related to your upcoming launch to engage with your audience. Interactive content not only helps to augment your audience members’ data profiles, but also engages them with fun content that will bring them back to your website multiple times leading up to your launch.
Countdowns and Timers
Leading up to the big day, try using countdowns on your website or social media to create a sense of urgency and anticipation. These provide a visual reminder that your launch is imminent and encourage your audience to set a mental reminder to return and join in the launch activities.
Consistent Communication
Above all else, don’t ease up on the communication stream! Keep your audience informed and engaged throughout the anticipation phase. Regularly update them on progress, new developments, or behind-the-scenes insights.
Monitor and Adapt
Once your plan is underway, it is important to continuously track the performance of your efforts. Determine what constitutes the minimum acceptable range or number of engagement activities, and analyze what is working. Then, adjust your strategy accordingly. Being nimble and having alternate content and engagement strategies available is key to understanding what works best to generate the desired results for your audience.
Deliver on Promises
It can’t be said enough: Do what you say you are going to do, when you say you’re going to do it. Ensure that your product or service lives up to the expectations you’ve built up in your audiences’ minds, so that you can deliver an exceptional experience to your customers.
Post-Launch Engagement
Launch day is here! You can relax now, right? Well, no, not really. Make sure that your launch plan includes strategies to maintain the excitement post-launch. Always be thinking, “what’s next?” Use all the marketing channels at your disposal to continue nurturing customer relationships, collecting feedback, and offering ongoing value. That feedback can then be used as testimonials, and those relationships can become advocates for your brand in future promotions.

Wrapping Up

Remember that harnessing the power of anticipation marketing is an ongoing process, and building anticipation takes time and effort. It is about creating hype and excitement that keeps your audience engaged and eager for what’s next. Additionally, these same concepts and strategies can be used for any marketing campaign efforts, not just a launch or release. Think about ways to utilize these strategies to breathe new life into an underperforming product or service. Or, use these methods to promote that high-touch event that your company is organizing. Getting your audience excited about your brand, products, and services is a great way to increase sales while building a strong, loyal advocate base.

Need some help strategizing ways to jumpstart your marketing? Give us a shout. We are here to help!

Thank you for subscribing!