#MagnaCarta - How to Launch
Five lessons for launching an idea, startup, business, etc…
Lesson One: Have A-Players Behind the Wheel
JT. Frank Ocean. Beyonce. Timbaland. Pharrell. Rick Rubin. Nas.
To say MCHG launched with a rockstar line up would be an understatement. Jay-Z didn’t just go after a few key people to collaborate on his latest album, he went after and collaborated with some of the best.
In the information age, you need to have people behind you that will help cut through the noise. You’re competing with tweets, news, announcements, games and pictures and videos of cats (you’ve seen them). You need a team that understands the space you’re playing in and can help you stand out like a king. Find full-stack marketers. Full-stack designers. Full-stack everything. Stack your team for success.
Lesson Two: Offer Exclusivity to Media
The idea of providing exclusive album rights to Samsung is the equivilant to offering a reporter an exclusive on breaking the news about your launch or announcement. Samsung generated a significant increase in brand mentions solely due to this exclusive launch
Exclusives are great. Brands love them. Media loves them.
It’s a win-win situation for both parties. When you’re looking to make a big splash and generate awareness about your product; give out exclusives. For me, I like to search and reach out to young and ambitious journalists at industry relevant media outlets and give them the exclusive.
Contacting a senior editor at Mashable, TechCrunch or whatever major media outlet is in your industry will get you no where if you’re still trying to get off the ground. Look for the ambitious journalist who’s trying to make a name in their industry and get ready to build a long term relationship that will help you down the road.
Lesson Three: Your launch isn’t one day
Too many people count down to their startup, album or website launch as if it’s one grand spectacle. In reality, your launch should last more than one day. You should be launching your product into the minds and eyes of new people and potential customer every single day.
The Magna Carta launch wasn’t a one day event. It continued into the days following as Jay-Z used Twitter to run his own version of a Reddit AMA. He allowed Twitter users to send him tweets asking questions about his album, life and pretty much anything and he’d respond.
From there,Jay-Z took his album campaign from the pixels to the paint as he performed his song “Picasso Baby” at a New York Art Gallery for six hours straight. While his primary target audience wasn’t in the building, they caught wave of the action on Twitter, Facebook and every other media outlet who decided to cover the story.
Lesson Four: Traction is Greater than Hype.
The albums website released snippets of lyrics and beats to get fans excited but the biggest buzz wasn’t the lyrics and music. No the biggest buzz was linked to the idea that this was the album that went Platinum before it actually launched. The Samsung deal gave the #MagnaCarta an opportunity to claim platinum status before being released.
MGHG sold 1 million copies before it even launched.
Talk about traction. As Jay-Z once said,
Men lie. Women lie. Numbers dont.
One of the easiest ways to generate press is to show proof that you’re not going to flop. We are hard-coded to follow the psychology linked to the “herd-mentality” and respond on a primal level to behavior exhibited by our peers.When we see other people signing up for something, we want to sign up for something. When we see other media outlets writing about something, we want to write about it too.
Use a landing page to generate traction and capture emails is an easy way to generate initial traction for your launch. The more people to indicate interest in your product or service before launch, the better. It makes it easier to give the press a story and it’s a tried and tested method.
That said, trying something that’s already been done isn’t always the best approach….which takes us to our final lesson.
Lesson Five: #NewRules = #NoRules
If you want your launch to be special you need to do something that’s never been done. Think outside the box and don’t conform to the status quo of album launches, product launches or startup launches.
The lane of status quo is gauranteed to miss the exit to greatness.
Follow no rules. Create your own.
The internet is like the wild west. The wild, wild west. We need to rewrite the rules. We don’t have any rules, everybody is trying to figure it out. - Jay-Z
Now get out there and be great.
Note: Ross Simmonds is the author of the forthcoming, “The Hustle Manifesto: A Guide to Breaking from the 9-5”. You can subscribe to his newsletter for updates every other week. He’s a digital marketing strategist, entrepreneur and public speaker.
Follow him @thecoolestcool.
