Ready for the worst bit of marketing advice you’ll ever hear?

“If you build it, they will come.”

That line makes for a killer movie, but an equally awful marketing strategy. The truth is that if you want new leads, you need to learn how to promote a product to maximize conversions.

That’s why we’ve created this list of 15 of the best strategies to promote your product. Using these tips and tricks, we’re positive that you’ll get more leads and higher sales in no time.

But before we dive into our product promotion techniques, let’s look at one key component of your product promotion strategy.

The Crucial Ingredient Before You Promote Your Product

In just a moment, we’re going to look at effective ways to promote a product to maximize conversions. But to do so, you need a place to drive your incoming traffic.

The secret ingredient for promotional success is a stellar landing page.

A lot of marketers spend tons of effort in learning how to promote a product effectively. Then they send all their hard-earned traffic to a general website.

For clever marketers, this is cringe-worthy.

That’s because landing pages are so much more effective at getting conversions for a specific product than a site’s general homepage.

There are three types of landing pages you need to consider, and each has its specific conversion goals:

• Squeeze page
• Pre-sell page
• Sales page

Let’s take a brief look at all three.

Squeeze Page

A squeeze page is likely a term you’ve heard before. It’s a page or campaign designed to grow your email list by capturing your client’s contact information, most often including their email address.

Here’s an example of a squeeze page from Brian Dean, CEO of Backlinko:

When done right, squeeze pages are incredibly effective at converting visitors into subscribers. And we’ve written extensively on the subject.

Check out our tutorial on how to create a squeeze page that converts.

Pre-Sell Page

Pre-sell pages are interesting because they’re a combination of two different types of content: a blog post and a sales page (which we’ll cover next).

That’s why they’re better at warming up your cold traffic: because they’re more informative by nature. They also use trust signals to build credibility as your cold traffic is likely more skeptical of your product.

A strong pre-sell page has 5 qualities:

• Strong headline
• Information related to your target audience
• Trust signals
• Calls to action that are clear
• Soft-sell approach to sales

Want to build your own? Be sure to read our in-depth guide on how to create a pre-sell page that converts.

Sales Page

A sales page is a highly targeted page with one goal in mind: get more sales. When you send your existing customers here, they should already be primed to buy (meaning they’re likely not cold traffic).

Good sales pages are usually shorter and more aggressive in their sales approach than pre-sell pages. They rely heavily on trust signals like reviews and testimonials, and they often have some video component to help persuade potential customers.

Think a sales page might be what your business is missing? You’re probably right.

To create a sales page, we recommend using SeedProd, it’s the best drag and drop page builder for WordPress.

SeedProd offers tons of professionally designed templates so you can quickly build a beautiful sales page. It also comes with pre-made landing page blocks like testimonials, star ratings, videos, and more, that you can use to build trust. Simply drag any of these elements and drop them onto your page.

SeedProd even has WooCommerce blocks like add to cart, shopping cart, checkout, and products grid to help you generate sales.

Use our guide to learn how to create a sales page that converts.

Ok, now it’s time to get into the nuts and bolts of all this. Since you have one of your landing pages created (or, ideally, all three), you’re ready to promote your product.

How to Promote a Product: 15 Strategies

Ok, so now the big question:

How do you promote a product to a customer that gets their attention, grows your audience base, and increases sales?

Here are 15 awesome strategies that will accomplish all 3 of those goals.

1. Email Marketing

As usual, we like to save the best for last. That’s because we think that email marketing is the best strategy for marketing your product and boosting conversions.

Email marketing is so effective because you can send highly targeted messages to your clients.

Plus, your email list is stock-full with people who have already shown interest in your business. After all, they gave you their contact information for a reason.

Wondering how to promote a product through email? That’s the easy part. Here’s our step-by-step guide to email marketing to help you along the way.

But what about getting more email subscribers in the first place?

When it comes to growing your email list, there’s simply no better tool than OptinMonster:

OptinMonster is more than just a lead capture software. It’s an entire conversion optimization toolkit. With OptinMonster, you can build a fullscreen landing page campaign for your product.

Then you can make shareable MonsterLinks™ to redirect your email readers to that campaign.

That’s just one of the many options for how to promote a product online with OptinMonster. With our conversion toolkit, the sky is the limit for what you can do.

From floating bars and spin-a-wheel to exit-intent popups and slide-in campaigns, OptinMonster’s got everything you need to build an email list filled with high-quality leads.

2. Social Media

Let’s start with the most obvious: leveraging the power of social media. But we’re not just talking about logging into Facebook, writing a 30-word post about your product, and blindly praying that you get some new leads.

If you want to learn how to promote your product on social media, you need a strategy that involves a few different platforms.

That means figuring out which social media platform is right for your business, fine-tuning the best time to post for each platform, and engaging with your audience consistently.

So don’t limit yourself to learning how to promote a product on Facebook alone. Do some research and see which other platforms would be valuable for your target audience.

You may find that some different platforms are more suited for different promotions. Maybe you have loads of success promoting an online course on your Facebook page. But then your product launches gain more traction with Instagram.

Research, test, and tweak. That’s the only way to fine-tune your social media marketing plan.

Need some help with your social media strategy? We’ve curated a list of 33 tools to level-up your social media game.

3. Podcast

Podcasts are excellent for building up your audience and expanding your voice within your niche. But they’re also one of the best and most unique ways to promote a new product.

If you’ve already started a podcast, then you’ve got an audience ready to go. Just continue to provide excellent content as usual, but promote your product at the beginning and end of your podcast.

But remember, don’t make your promotions too long. When people hear something that feels too salesy in a podcast, they’re quick to hit the skip ahead button. Even your loyal customers.

If you’re not even sure what a podcast is, don’t worry (and certainly don’t feel intimidated). Starting a podcast has never been easier.

Here’s a tutorial on how to break into the world of podcasting.

4. Webinar

Webinars are a cool alternative to starting a podcast. That’s because, with a webinar, you don’t need to create new content every single week.

You can simply write one webinar script and do a weekly live recording. Or if you’re in a real pinch, you can simply do one recording and let it play for the entire month.

That said, live recordings are always better and feel more natural.

The other benefit to a webinar? They aren’t just valuable tools for promoting your product. They also lead to some pretty instant sales when done well.

Make sure you check out our guide on how to sell anything with webinars.

Ready to build your webinar but not sure which software to use? Read this review of 9 of the best webinar software for WordPress users.

5. Blog

Blogs have become one of the staples of content marketing. While many other forms of content have popped up over the last decade, blogs seem to be the one that’s here to stay no matter what.

Not only are blogs great for promoting your business, but they’re also awesome for promoting a particular product or service. That’s because you can go in-depth into your buyer persona’s pain points and discuss how your product is the perfect solution for it.

But of course, if you want to learn how to start a blog, you’ll likely need to dabble in search engine optimization (SEO) to get your posts ranking on Google. For that, you’ll need our ultimate guide on SEO.

Blogs can take a lot of time to run, but they’re more fun creating than you might think. Plus, they’ll force you to deepen your knowledge about your niche.

Once you’ve built up a good-sized audience, you can start promoting new products to readers who are already interested in your content.

6. Vlog

Video is an incredibly valuable asset to product promotions. Every video marketing statistic backs up this medium’s popularity. And it makes sense because videos are engaging in so many ways.

They’re informative, visually appealing, often more entertaining, and are more highly digestible than text-based content. So why not leverage the power of video by starting a vlog to promote your product?

OptinMonster uses our YouTube channel to connect with and inform our audience:

You don’t need to overthink this, either. Simply head over to YouTube and create your own video channel. Then, hit Record and talk about your product.

Ok, maybe you should outline your content a bit first, but you get the idea.

Starting a vlog is super simple and can be a wonderful way to engage your audience for product promotions.

7. Guest Blog/Podcast

Another way of driving traffic to your landing page? Stealing traffic from someone else but in an ethical way.

Find guest posting opportunities to contribute to someone else’s blog.

Usually, the agreement works like this: you’ll write an entire piece of content that another site can publish, but you get to self-promote. In this case, that would be your product promotion with a link back to your landing page.

As a side note, guest posting is also a great way to get more backlinks, which is really helpful for your SEO efforts.

NoteHeard of guest blogging before but never dared to do it? Read this tutorial on creating the perfect guest blogging strategy.

Another strategy that is just as effective is being a guest on a podcast. Unless you have a great reputation online with a wide audience, getting invited to another platform’s podcast can be difficult.

That said, it’s certainly not impossible, and you’ll never succeed if you don’t try!

Create a strong outreach email to various podcast hosts and offer to be a guest. With the pressure on companies right now to create massive amounts of content in very little time, you’re bound to find a podcast that would love to host you.

8. Post to Google My Business

If you’re running a store with a physical location and trying to promote your product, you need to get onto Google My Business.

Google My Business is one of the best ways to get yourself ranked for search results in your area. But a lot of marketers don’t know that it’s also a great way of promoting your product. You can do this in one of two ways:

• Make a post on Google My Business and choose the promotion option
• Take photos of your product and upload it to your Google My Business Profile

That last method is more indirect promotion, but every little bit helps. At any rate, you should certainly consider posting your product on Google My Business if you have a physical location and want local customers.

9. Paid Ads

When it comes to advertising, sometimes throwing a little money at the problem can make a huge impact. So when you’re trying to figure out how to promote your product online, paid ads are a strategy you simply can’t ignore.

In the past, we’ve touched on and written about the 4 most popular platforms for paid advertising:

• Google AdWords: Learn how to increase your click-through rates (CRT) on Google AdWords
• Facebook Ads: Read this post to learn how to optimize your Facebook ads for the most conversions
• Instagram Ads: Check out how Instagram can easily drive more traffic to your promotional pages
• LinkedIn Ads: You should only run LinkedIn ads if you don’t have a business profile for customers to look at, so here’s a tutorial on how to build the perfect LinkedIn business page

Each of these platforms works a little differently and your approach should change to match. Do a little research to find out which platform would be the most effective at making paid ads.

Don’t forget to track your ad’s success, either. Use Urchin Tracking Modules (UTMs) to create a tracking system with laser-sharp accuracy for your product.

And if you want to take your marketing game to the next level, A/B split test a few different ad campaigns. Successful advertising on paid platforms is a healthy mix of creativity, cold hard data, and patience.

When done right, paid ads can be the perfect tool when learning how to promote a product.

10. Reach out to the Press

While this strategy is often overlooked, it certainly has its benefits. You can reach out to your local press to announce a product. However, that will typically get you paying for a small ad in your local paper.

Unless this fits your specific audience, that strategy is outdated.

Stick to reaching out to online news sources and PR agencies to let them know that you have a great product to promote. You can do so by creating a press release and making targeted pitches to online journalists.

Don’t get discouraged if you don’t hear back. Remember that these journalists get hundreds of pitches every day, which is why you should make your product promotion press release as personalized, unique, and engaging as possible.

One of the best tools for reaching out to the press, however, is Help A Reporter Out (HARO). This is a platform where journalists and bloggers post about PR opportunities for small businesses.

You can easily create an alert to let you know when relevant requests are made to market a product.

11. Host an Online Event/Demo

When people think of company events, they typically think of big store openings, art gallery releases, or black-tie galas. But your events can also be online.

A great event that drives traffic and can build more leads? A live demo of your product.

Create a script for a live demo that shows your target audience how valuable your product is. These online demos are similar to webinars, but with an important difference:

Online demos show the features and benefits of your product through a direct tutorial.

Whereas webinars can teach about broad topics, your online demo is limited to how your product or service solves a particular problem.

That means that online demo events are better suited for promoting a product to clients further down your sales funnel.

12. Run a Contest

One of the best ways to promote a new product is by running an online contest. Using some kind of giveaway software, you can run viral contests to drive traffic and convert leads.

We recommend using RafflePress.

RafflePress is designed to build online contests that grow your audience quickly. When it comes to giveaway plugins, there’s simply no better alternative.

But here’s a pro tip: Choose your prize wisely. Giving away a cool prize is a great way of getting traffic, but it may not be the kind of traffic you’re looking for.

Products like a free vacation or a Macbook Air are items that almost everyone is interested in. These prizes convert a whole lot of leads who will likely never become customers.

So when you’re doing a giveaway contest for marketing products, make sure you choose something that your target audience will find valuable.

That way you aren’t just getting lots of leads, you’re getting lots of the right kinds of leads.

13. Hold a Promotion

Offering a discount or promotional offer to your audience is an excellent tool for increasing conversions. OptinMonster clients have seen massive success with this.

You can run a site-wide promotion on your website.

And if you want to go the extra mile, include a countdown timer.

Countdown timers are perfect for building scarcity and a sense of urgency. They trigger a fear of missing out (FOMO) in your visitors.

Here’s an example of what a countdown timer popup campaign looks like:

This example is one of OptinMonster’s many templates that have countdown timers already embedded.

Plus, you can add countdown timers to email campaigns if you decide to send a promotion to your email list.

When it comes to promoting your new product, a popup campaign with a countdown timer is a great choice.

14. Create an Affiliate Program

If you want to figure out how to market a product effectively, creating an affiliate program is an option you want to consider.

An affiliate program is an excellent strategy for getting other marketers to become free brand ambassadors. Well, maybe “free” isn’t the right word (since you’ll pay them a small commission on sales).

A better way of looking at it is creating a team of “risk-free” ambassadors because you don’t pay anything unless you make a sale.

By creating an affiliate program around your new product, you can have dozens of experienced marketers pitching your product to their audience.

It doesn’t get much more effective than that.

To easily create your own affiliate program, we recommend using Easy Affiliate.

Easy Affiliate is the best affiliate program plugin for WordPress. It’s super simple to set up and it comes with a pre-styled affiliate dashboard that allows your affiliates to monitor their stats, download their links and banners, and view their payment history.

It also offers seamless payment and email marketing integration, a built-in affiliate application process, custom link generation, and more.

15. Start a Referral Program

Another plan similar to an affiliate program is a referral program. This is perfect for leveraging the power of word-of-mouth marketing. With this strategy, you incentivize your current customers to promote your product.

Lots of companies do this, including Airbnb, Uber, and Transferwise:

And you don’t need to offer cash for this to work. You can offer other incentives such as discounts on future purchases, 2–for–1 deals, or a month of free product use (if you run a digital service).

Whatever product you’re trying to promote, referral programs can be the perfect way to increase your conversions.

And that’s it! You now have 15 killer strategies for how you can market your new product online. So let’s pass the mic over to you.

Do you have any tips and tricks for promoting a product that we didn’t cover here?

Reach out to us on Facebook or Twitter to let us know. Or, feel free to leave a comment below.

And for even more killer tutorials, strategies, and tricks, head over to our YouTube channel.

But let’s be honest: you read this far because you’re serious about improving your business. Why not let us support you?

Join a thriving community of passionate marketers just like you and start OptinMonster today.