What Is Brand Hype and How to Build It

Hype. Buzz. Razzmatazz.

Whatever you choose to call it, having that inexplicable thing is essential for any product or brand to be a hit.

As an ecommerce store owner, one of your main concerns before launching a new product should be how you can build product hype and brand hype around it.

You may be wondering what exactly is meant by product hype. It’s a bit difficult to define because product hype and brand hype are totally intangible. The best illustration is the classic image of customers lined up outside an Apple Store at midnight the night before a new generation of the iPhone comes onto market. 

That’s product hype at its finest.

In this case, Apple has done such a good job at promoting its products and building hype around them that its customers are willing to wait outside overnight to be some of the first to buy them.

Many ecommerce stores can learn a valuable lesson from this example.

Because ecommerce store owners are so passionate about their brands and products, they often forget to do the background work of promoting them. This can result in products taking weeks or months to elicit a sales response on the market. Or, even worse, it can be the reason they fall flat on their face.

So let’s review what product hype is in more detail and how you can inject your business with some and realize better sales conversions as a result.

​What is product hype?

You have an amazing product. You know it. Your team knows it. Even your grandmother knows it.

But do your prospective customers know about your amazing product? Are they excited and amped up to buy it?

If the answer to this last question is ‘No,’ ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘probably not,’ then you have your work cut out for you.

Because regardless of how great your products are, if you don’t build hype around them before your release date then they’re in jeopardy of flopping.

As we summarized in the introduction, this is the premise behind product hype, and, more generally, brand hype. But, in a sentence, product hype is the promotion or advertising of a product to its likely consumers before it comes to market.

​The benefits of product hype and brand hype

Other than the obvious, i.e., wanting customers to be excited about your brand, why should you make product hype a priority?

What is its business justification?

Well think of it this way: Interest operates on a curve. Excitement about a brand or product does not simply happen overnight. First, there needs to be awareness. Then, very slowly, that awareness spreads and becomes interest. Finally, if your product is successful, that interest can turn into momentum.

Brand hype is about penetrating the market before your product is actually on the market. It goes through these stages before a product is fully-developed or available. In this way, the opportunity cost of a product being available and not selling for a matter of weeks or months is avoided.

Product hype can help you to make sales on day one after your release date. Instead of letting your products sit on the shelf, so to speak, before they generate any awareness or momentum.

​How to build hype

So what are some ways that you can effectively build product and brand hype? 

Here’s a run-down of expert strategies that you and your team can employ before your product’s release date:

Create a hashtag

The power of social media is almost overwhelming. Currently, there are more than 1 billion Instagram users worldwide – and this number is still growing. If your ecommerce store has a social media presence (which hopefully it does!), consider creating brand and product awareness with a unique hashtag. 

Social media posts with strategic hashtags can have the effect of garnering your products an organic following.

Build suspense

Make some buzz about your products. Whether that means paying to get them written about in ecommerce magazines or organically starting a conversation online is up to you.

In lieu of this, you can release teasers, or short videos or posts, about your upcoming product. The goal here is to market your brand to pique interest. You don’t want to give it all away, but you want prospective customers to be intrigued.

Starting this process before your release date will make all the difference to your bottom line.

Tell an interesting story

Every product has a story. Why was it invented? Who invented it? Where was it invented? Which critical problem does it serve as a solution for?

Become a storyteller. Get creative with the story behind your products.

After all, nothing builds product hype, or hype in general, quite like a good story. A story is what gets people to line up at the movie theater every weekend or devour cult novels. People are always craving a story.

So give them one and feature your product or brand at its focal point.

Promotion via testing

If you’re selling a digital or technological product, consider using your beta testing phase as a promotion in itself. Encourage testers to comment on your pre-released products – their quality, efficiency, and other applicable attributes.

Doing so can result in free promotion and create major product hype generated by impartial, credible sources.

​Unleash the Marketing with Kliken

We’re Kliken. And we’re ready to help you take your ecommerce marketing efforts to the next level.

We’ll do so by getting your products in front of the right shoppers with our simple Google Shopping & Ads integration platform.

With Kliken, marketing your brand has never been easier. Because we do all the heavy lifting for you. That way you can focus on running your business.

As the world’s #1 Shopping and Ads marketing platform, Kliken has helped over 1,000,000 small businesses worldwide grow their sales on Google and get a return of up to 7x their original ad spend. Our proven marketing solutions can help you to unleash the potential of your ecommerce business.

​Learn more about how customers use Kliken to grow their businesses online here.

Author: Michael Arnold

Michael is a freelancer from New York City. When he isn’t writing about how Kliken unleashes the marketing, you can find him reading, writing for pleasure, or traveling the globe.