online product launch tools

In part one of this series, we looked at creating a smaller version of your larger product, without all the bells and whistles.

In part 2, we looked at figuring out who has the problem you are trying to solve with your product (or service) by talking or surveying your ideal client.

In part 3 we looked at an example of a minimal viable product launch.

In this final post of the series, we will look at the tools and apps you can use to create and launch your product.

Start with a survey

Survey Tools

 1. SurveyMonkey Free account includes up to 10 questions and 100 responses.  online survey tool

 2 .Google Forms: (free) Access with your gmail account.

 3 .Pop Survey (60 day free trial)

Use the feedback to validate your assumptions and identify the core problem.

Prioritize features. You don’t need everything in your first product. We’re at iPhone 5 (5S, 5C?..I can’t keep up) aren’t we? And I’m pretty sure they cut out a lot of features in the first version!

Stick to solving the core problem and save the bells and whistles for later.

Creating and Packaging Your Product

Product Idea: Member-Only Content

 You may decide that you want to offer a membership component to your product or service.

Some options are:

4. Password-Protected Page: You can create a password protected page on your website and only give access to paying members. This is what a Password Protected Page would look like on a WordPress site (password: test).  Note:  branding, pages, widgets are all still visible!

5. Create a Secret/Closed Facebook group where members only get added after they have paid for access. Pretty simple, eh? Cost: Free!

6. Ning is pretty much as out of the box as it gets. I’ve used this platform for several years problem-free and found it easy to get started. It’s easy to customize and has all the familiar social network features. They offer the mini- plan at  $19.99/year for up to 150 members. At this level, domain mapping is not included so you would have a url with yourbizname.ning.com.  I don’t see that as a negative though, considering you could link to your Ning network from within your site or share the link to members after they sign up and pay.

WordPress Specific

7. Optimize Press:   Optimize Press provides a lot of value. You can easily setup your membership site using the templates and divide the content into sections, modules etc. and display a navigation menu and/or side bar that makes it easy to access the content and understand how it is organized. Bonus: You can but choose from many templates and create sales pages as well! You can also install OptimizePress on multiple sites that you own.

I haven’t personally used the next two but they come with rave reviews as well:

8. Buddy-Press: Everything you need to start your own self-hosted and WordPress-powered social network.   (Opensource)

9. Wishlist:   Easy enough to use that you really don’t need to be a techie to build a great membership site with it. The plugin allows you to build a high quality membership site that looks sleek and is easy to manage as an admin. (single site license:  $97)

As you can see there are several to choose from depending on what is you need to do!

Product Idea: Video or Audio Recording

If you want to offer an interview-based product you can use Skype combined with a call recorder to record the audio or video. skype audio video calling free

10. Call Recorder for Mac: ecamm call recorder

11. Call Recorder for PC: VodBurner

Editing Software:

12. Camtasia I’ve been a long time user of this software, first on PC and now on Mac. There are a lot of tutorial videos and you’ll be up and running in no time.

13. ScreenFlow (Mac) I hear great things about ScreenFlow and had I not already invested in Camtasia I would have used it.

14. Jing  Is a great free alternative to both Camtasia and ScreenFlow by the folks at TechSmith (who make Camtasia) and you can record up to to 5 minutes.

15.  iMovie (Mac) Got a Mac? Well this comes with and is easy to edit video.

16. Audacity: Edit your audio recordings- a wealth of tutorials available online if you get stuck.

17. GarageBand (Mac)

18. Windows Movie Maker (PC) If you’re on PC you can download it for free, if you don’t have it already. While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the higher end products like Camtasia, it gets the job done.

Upload Your Audio/Video

19. online file sharing serviceAfter you’ve created your video or audio content, you can upload it to your site directly or use a site Dropbox and then share/embed a link. I love Dropbox and the fact that I can seamlessly share and access files from anywhere.

20. For video you can upload your content and make it private on Vimeo and then embed on your site.

Product Idea: Email Course

email marketing mailchimp

21. Mailchimp:  Want to create an email course (for example a 7 day challenge?) Sign up for Mailchimp and use the autoresponder series. I tell you that Mailchimp monkey has a special place in my heart..an email marketing that has a sense of humor and easy to use? Win in my books!

Outsourcing

Don’t have a creative  or techy bone in your body? Or need help formatting and putting together your ebook (or anything for that matter?) Outsource, baby! You can use sites like

22. Elance Submit your project needs and sit back while the proposals flood your inbox. 

Warning: You can potentially get a lot of bids and probably don’t need to look at them all before you make a selection. If it’s a one-off project be sure to look at past work, references, portfolio. If it’s for an ongoing project, I recommend starting with a small test project to get a feel for how you work together.

23. Odesk: Same as above.

24. Fiverr As the name implies, five bucks will get you pretty much anything. It can be hit or miss but there are a lot of things you can get done at this price that can save you tons of time (and headache).

Graphics

Need graphics for your product? Stockphotos to the rescue!

Screen Shot 2013-09-18 at 6.01.20 PM25. istockphotos (paid)

26. 123rf  (paid)

27. Pixabay (free)

Or create and edit your own graphics

28. Pixlr

29. PicMonkey: Seriously, LOVE this site. You can jazz  up pretty much anything and have fun while doing it. I did a post that walks you through a few different sites that help you create image posts.

Selling Your Digital Goods And Services

30. Show me the money!

Fortunately, sites like Paypal,make it super-easy for you to start offering your services and get paid for them! Paypal is widely used and online payment service paypalpretty straight-forward to setup. Once you’ve created your account, add your products/services and choose the type of buttons you want to create (e.g Buy Now or Add to Cart). Paypal will generate the code you need to embed on your webpage. You can also take recurring monthly payments using Paypal.

31. E-Junkie

Now that you’ve created that ebook but need a way to deliver it? While Paypal is the go-to site for sending/receiving money, they don’t offer product delivery. So unless you want to manually email each person that buys your product, you’ll need to use a site like E-junkie to deliver your product. E-Junkie integrates with Paypal and provides the code necessary to add to your webpage.

Create An Interest List

Start building an interest list before your product is ready. Use out of the box landing page apps and drive people to sign up to your early-bird list.  This should be done in parallel to your product creation. You don’t have to wait for it to be on sale to get the word out and start promoting it.

Recommend Tools:create landing pages easily

32. SeedProd: Lets you collect email address and work in maintenance mode on your website. WordPress plugin. (one time fee).

33. LaunchRock: Set up landing pages in minutes, either on your own self-hosted website or directly on Launchrock.

Build Buzz

Use social media to connect with your audience and get the word out about your upcoming product launch.

Recommended Tools:pay with a tweet

34. Hootsuite There is a free and pro version. The free should be perfect if you are just getting started.

35. ClickToTweet: create tweetables to help your content spread

36. Pay With A Tweet: Want to give away your content for free and spread the word? Use Pay With A Tweet to spread your content to new audiences.

And there you have it. The tools you need to take that idea to launch. Let’s do it!

I’d love to hear in the comments below what you plan on launching and if you have a favorite tool that I may have missed!

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*does not include cupcakes

27 comments

    • Mary Beth Leisen

      This is fantastic! I’m new to the digital business realm and am starting to think about my first digital product launch. In the past, every time I’ve gotten close to doing so, I get overwhelmed by the options and obstacles. I just told a friend the other day that I wished someone would hand me a curated list of the best services and tools to use. Now you have – THANKS!!!

      • Sandy Sidhu

        Hey Mary! That’s awesome! There are a lot of tools to choose from and easy to get overwhelmed by it all! What type of product are you thinking of creating? You should also check out my opt-in freebie- I walk through the steps of creating a minimal viable product and I’d be happy to answer any questions!

  4. Nick Loper

    Hey Sandy, awesome list! Some I’ve never heard of and will def. be checking out. I’ll add a couple:

    Copy — like Dropbox except w/ 15 GB free!
    Call Graph — I’ve been using this free software to record my podcasts and haven’t any issues (PC).

    Have a great weekend!

    Nick

    • Sandy Sidhu

      Hey Nick! Ooh I like the the sound of 15GB free! Will need to check that out.
      I didn’t know about Call Graph either although I’m on a Mac now but I do get asked about PC so I’ll be sure to recommend it.
      Thanks for stopping by and hope all is well with you 🙂

    • Sandy Sidhu

      Hey Nick! Ooh I like the the sound of 15GB free! Will need to check that out.
      I didn’t know about Call Graph either although I’m on a Mac now but I do get asked about PC so I’ll be sure to recommend it.
      Thanks for stopping by and hope all is well with you 🙂

  5. Ray Hiltz

    Great list, Sandy. Took notes 😉 Must check out picMonkey more as it’s heavily recommended. I use iPiccy currently (Chrome app) that’s got this non PhotoShop guy this far.

    • Sandy Sidhu

      Thanks, Ray! I love PicMonkey! Super easy to use for those of us that are design-challenged 🙂 Never tried iPiccy- must check it out! Thanks for stopping by!

      • Tom

        Note to self – bookmark this post.

        Question…what if I want to use ‘Gumroad’ – the sales platform – to accept payments…but I want to create a membership site. Not necessarily a monthly payment one, but a one time payment and have several modules (5) with videos, audio, downloadable PDFs etc.

        What do you recommend as the cheapest, best route for that?

        Wishlist + optimizepress? I am already planning on buying optimize press…curious if I need to shell out another 300 for wishlist to get a decent ‘sign in’ module website going.

        Thanks!

  6. Julie Gohring

    Ok where was this email 3 years ago when I was trying to figure out all things online? This is really such a great article packed with information that can help you focus your ideas and streamline lots of the tedious, and overwhelming type parts of the online biz world. And to speak to its resource power it is still helpful today! Great resource, Sandy!

    • Sandy Sidhu

      Thanks, Julie! Happy to hear you found it helpful and totally agree that the online world can be overwhelming and there is so much trial and error involved but that’s what I’m here for 🙂

  7. Mary Beth Leisen

    This is fantastic! I’m new to the digital business realm and am starting to think about my first digital product launch. In the past, every time I’ve gotten close to doing so, I get overwhelmed by the options and obstacles. I just told a friend the other day that I wished someone would hand me a curated list of the best services and tools to use. Now you have – THANKS!!!

    • Sandy Sidhu

      Hey Mary! That’s awesome! There are a lot of tools to choose from and easy to get overwhelmed by it all! What type of product are you thinking of creating? You should also check out my opt-in freebie- I walk through the steps of creating a minimal viable product and I’d be happy to answer any questions!

  8. Tom

    Note to self – bookmark this post.

    Question…what if I want to use ‘Gumroad’ – the sales platform – to accept payments…but I want to create a membership site. Not necessarily a monthly payment one, but a one time payment and have several modules (5) with videos, audio, downloadable PDFs etc.

    What do you recommend as the cheapest, best route for that?

    Wishlist + optimizepress? I am already planning on buying optimize press…curious if I need to shell out another 300 for wishlist to get a decent ‘sign in’ module website going.

    Thanks!

  9. Martin Labud

    What a great post with lots of helpful advice and tools! This post has already been bookmarked. I loved the list of video and audio recording tools. Thanks for that. I am definitely going to use some of those. As for launching a landing page, I see you have launchrock listed- but not unbounce. I checked out both before deciding on unbounce because they had more features (such as using your own domain name) and more templates. And my wife is very active on twitter so I will definitely refer her to the twitter tools. Awesome, thanks!

  10. Martin Labud

    What a great post with lots of helpful advice and tools! This post has already been bookmarked. I loved the list of video and audio recording tools. Thanks for that. I am definitely going to use some of those. As for launching a landing page, I see you have launchrock listed- but not unbounce. I checked out both before deciding on unbounce because they had more features (such as using your own domain name) and more templates. And my wife is very active on twitter so I will definitely refer her to the twitter tools. Awesome, thanks!