When Should You Start PR for a Product Launch?
By Jordan Baker, Founder of Fair Public Relations and former UK national journalist
If somebody asks me when they should start thinking about PR for a product launch, my preferred answer is around two months before the product goes live. That does not mean we spend two months bombarding journalists with emails about something consumers cannot buy yet. It means we have enough time to understand what the product actually is, decide whether the launch itself is genuinely newsworthy, collect the right information, prepare photographs and samples, make sure the website is ready and work out which parts of the story are most likely to interest journalists.
We can work with less time. If a client is organised, responsive and already has most of the basics in place, a month can be perfectly workable. Anything significantly shorter than a month becomes tighter than I would ideally like, particularly if we discover that the brand does not yet have photographs, confirmed pricing, samples, stock or a finished product page. That happens more often than people might expect.
Why start preparing before launch?
Because the launch date is not the starting point for PR. It is one point in the campaign. Before journalists hear about the product, the brand needs to be capable of answering the obvious questions they are going to ask. What does it do? Why is it different? How much does it cost? When is it available? Where can somebody buy it? Is it actually in stock? Can they receive a sample? Are the claims credible?
If the answer to several of those questions is still "we are working on it", PR becomes much harder. That does not necessarily mean the business has done anything wrong. Launches are complicated and there are dozens of competing priorities. But it does mean the PR timeline needs to reflect the actual readiness of the product rather than the date somebody originally wrote on a planning document.
Why brands often arrive too late
The problem usually comes from the fact that everybody inside the business has been working towards launch day. Packaging needs approving. Suppliers need chasing. The ecommerce site needs building. Retailers want information. The founder is dealing with manufacturing. Something has gone wrong with delivery. Photography is two weeks late. PR therefore gets pushed down the list until somebody suddenly realises the product launches next Friday.
At that point, the business wants immediate coverage but has not given the PR campaign the raw materials necessary to generate it. We see brands without suitable images. Some have not finalised the price. Samples are not available. There is no confirmed stock. The website is unfinished. Product claims may still be changing. Sometimes virtually the whole shebang is missing. The first part of the PR campaign then becomes preparation rather than media outreach.
Why two months is a useful planning window
Two months gives us breathing space. We can understand the product properly instead of trying to write about it after a 20-minute briefing call. We can look at the competitive landscape. We can ask what is genuinely novel. We can understand the founder story. If there are claims that need evidence, there is time to examine what exists. If photography is missing, the brand has time to obtain it.
If the website needs work, there is a realistic opportunity to improve it. Samples can be organised. Different media angles can be considered. It also allows us to separate preparation from actual pitching. Not every journalist should be approached eight weeks before a launch simply because the PR agency has started work. The journalist should be approached when the timing makes sense for their publication and the specific opportunity.
Can one month be enough?
Yes. We can move quickly when the client moves quickly. A month is often perfectly workable if the brand already understands its positioning, the product is genuinely ready and materials are easy to obtain. Responsiveness becomes particularly important. If we send the client a list of questions on Monday and receive answers that afternoon, the campaign can move quickly.
If we send them on Monday and receive half the answers three weeks later, a one-month lead time has effectively disappeared. This is why I do not like overly rigid PR calendars that ignore behaviour. One highly engaged client can achieve in four weeks what another may struggle to organise over several months.
What should be ready before a launch campaign begins?
I want reliable product information before we start making promises to journalists. The product specifications should be sufficiently final. The price needs to be correct. The launch date should be as reliable as the business can reasonably make it. The purchase mechanism needs to be understood. If there is a pre-order process, explain it clearly. If the product is entering retail, know where. Photography should exist. Samples should be available where journalists are likely to need them.
The founder or other spokesperson should be prepared to contribute. If the product has evidence-based claims, the evidence needs to be available. Stock and delivery matter too. It is incredibly frustrating to secure a journalist's interest only to discover that the product cannot actually be supplied.
Should journalists be approached before the public can buy the product?
Sometimes. Advance media access is perfectly normal where it makes sense. A journalist may receive information or samples ahead of launch so they have time to research, test or prepare an article. A publication may agree to an embargo and hold the story until a particular date. But brands sometimes misunderstand embargoes. Writing "EMBARGOED" on the top of a press release does not magically create a binding agreement with somebody who never agreed to it.
The journalist needs to understand and accept the arrangement. There are also many products where complicated pre-launch secrecy is completely unnecessary. The aim should be to make the editorial process easier, not make the launch feel artificially dramatic.
What does "new" actually mean to a journalist?
This is where I think launch PR becomes much more interesting. A product does not necessarily stop being new at midnight on launch day. Editorial newness can be more flexible than chronological newness. As a rough working guide, I may still think of something within its first six months as a relatively new product. But I would not turn six months into a hard rule.
Imagine somebody created a genuinely unusual product nine months ago but did almost no PR, received very little media coverage and barely promoted it outside their existing customers. A journalist encountering it today may still feel as though they have discovered something new. Now take another company that launched three months ago but has already emailed the same journalists repeatedly, had extensive coverage and told everybody about the product. The "new launch" story is much weaker.
So when somebody comes to us after launch, I want to know what has already happened. Has it been pitched? Has it been covered? Has the journalist seen it before? Is the product genuinely novel? Does a new editorial reason exist to talk about it? Sometimes a supposed old launch is still very fresh editorially. Sometimes a relatively recent launch already feels exhausted.
What makes the launch itself newsworthy?
Novelty is extremely important. This is particularly true in crowded categories. If a company launches another makeup palette that looks and behaves almost exactly like all the existing palettes, I do not think the words "new product launch" create a national media story by themselves. The same applies to an ordinary hairbrush, water bottle, candle, serum or kitchen product. It may be a fantastic commercial product. Commercial potential and editorial newsworthiness are not identical.
A stronger launch has something else. There may be genuine innovation in the way the product works. It could be designed for an audience other companies have overlooked. Perhaps the underlying technology is different. Perhaps there is an unusual material or format. Maybe credible consumer research revealed the need. The founder might have a compelling story explaining why the product came into existence. The product might connect to a much wider trend.
Those things give us something to talk about beyond "it is now available".
Why a press release is not the campaign
A press release is simply a format for communicating information. It is useful when there is information worth communicating. It cannot create newsworthiness from nothing. I think brands sometimes imagine there is a sequence where a company launches, the PR agency writes a press release, the release is emailed to journalists and the media coverage appears. Real campaigns are usually much less linear. The launch announcement might be one part of it.
A founder interview could create another route. Product reviews may happen. There may be relevant shopping guides. An appropriately qualified expert associated with the brand could provide commentary. Customer stories may be useful where people are comfortable participating. Seasonal opportunities can emerge. The strongest launch campaigns often contain several legitimate editorial reasons to talk about the brand.
What about product samples before launch?
Samples can be extremely useful, particularly where the journalist needs to assess the product personally. The issue is whether the product is actually representative of what consumers will receive. A late-stage prototype might be perfectly appropriate for a preview where everybody understands what it is. That same prototype may not be appropriate for an independent review if the final materials, formulation or performance could change. Brands should also think through the logistics. Do enough samples exist?
Can they be shipped quickly? Are journalists overseas? Are there sizes, colours or shades? Is the item expensive enough that a loan makes more sense? Planning these things ahead prevents the PR campaign from becoming a constant scramble.
What happens when the launch date moves?
Tell the journalist. Things change all the time. Journalists know this because their own work changes constantly. Stories are moved, deadlines shift, interviews are cancelled and news events overtake planned content. Manufacturing delays are not automatically catastrophic. The issue is accuracy. If we told a journalist that something would be available on 1st October and that date has now become 22nd October, we should update them. Perhaps the article can move. Perhaps the story still works.
Perhaps the journalist decides the delay means it no longer fits. Those are editorial decisions. What would damage trust is allowing inaccurate information to remain because the brand is embarrassed to admit the launch slipped.
What if the product already launched months ago?
We look for what is genuinely new now. Maybe the product has received little press and is still largely undiscovered. Perhaps a new retailer has taken it on. A meaningful product improvement could create a reason to revisit it. Seasonality can change relevance. A founder may now have a stronger story. Customer insight can reveal something interesting. The company may have collected credible data since launch. A current news story might suddenly make the product relevant.
The key is not pretending. If something launched three years ago, I would not pitch journalists saying it launched yesterday. There is normally another honest way into the story if the product genuinely has media potential.
Does every product need a major launch campaign?
No. Some launches are commercially significant without being particularly interesting to journalists. That is completely fine. PR is not the only form of marketing. A company might get much more immediate value from paid social, retailer marketing, ecommerce optimisation, influencer partnerships, email, events or another route. There are also products that may eventually have media potential but need stronger foundations first.
If the website is poor, evidence is missing, imagery is weak and the product itself is not sufficiently differentiated, it may be better to address those things before investing heavily in earned media. A responsible agency should be able to tell a business that.
Launch day is not the end of the campaign
This is probably the most important point in the whole article. A launch gives us one moment of newness. PR can continue long after it. Products can appear in seasonal guides. Reviews may publish later. The founder may develop into a media source. The company could produce useful data. Customer experiences might lead to stories. Retail expansion can create another angle. The broader industry can change in a way that makes the product newly relevant.
This is why ongoing PR generally works better when the brand is willing to think beyond its launch announcement. Our Gut Wealth case study illustrates this broader model. Fair PR's documented six-month product-launch campaign combined founder storytelling, customer experience, expert commentary and direct product PR, generating ten published media opportunities. The initial stock order sold out during the period, although the case study appropriately does not claim PR was solely responsible for that commercial result.
How should brands measure launch PR?
Separate what the agency controls from what journalists control. The agency controls whether positioning work happens, whether ideas are developed, whether content gets written, whether appropriate journalists are approached and whether enquiries are followed up properly. Journalists control whether they respond, interview somebody, request a sample or ultimately publish. Then there are commercial outcomes. The business may look at sales, stock, website traffic, retailer interest, customer acquisition and other measures.
Those can matter enormously, but PR is rarely the only thing influencing them. If a product sells out while PR is running, that is great. It does not automatically prove every unit was sold because of media coverage. Good reporting should preserve those distinctions.
So when should you start PR for a launch?
If everything were up to me, around two months beforehand. That provides time to get organised properly. If necessary, a month can still work, particularly with an efficient, engaged client. Anything shorter becomes increasingly dependent on the brand already having everything ready. But I would not obsess over the exact number of weeks. The real principle is to start preparing before you need the media.
Understand the story. Verify the claims. Prepare the images. Sort out the samples. Build the website. Confirm the price. Know when people can buy the product. Then pitch journalists at the moment that makes sense for them, rather than simply because the calendar says "launch day".
FAQs
How many weeks before launch should I hire a PR agency?
Around two months is my preferred planning period. A month can still work well where the brand is ready and responsive.
Can PR begin less than a month before launch?
It can, but the campaign becomes much tighter and may be limited by missing assets or journalist lead times.
Can I approach the press before my product is available?
Yes, where advance pitching, previews, testing or an agreed embargo make sense.
Is a six-month-old product still new?
Potentially. Six months is only a rough working guide. A novel product that has received little previous exposure may still feel fresh editorially beyond that point.
Do I need a press release?
No. A press release is useful when it helps communicate a genuine story, but it is not mandatory and cannot create newsworthiness.
What if manufacturing delays the launch?
Tell journalists promptly and update all relevant information. Changing timelines are common and can normally be managed.
Can a launch campaign continue after launch day?
Absolutely. Reviews, gift guides, founder PR, seasonal content and expert opportunities can continue long after the original announcement.
Does launch coverage guarantee product sales?
No. PR can contribute to visibility and credibility, but sales depend on many different factors.
Planning a Product Launch?
Fair Public Relations helps suitable consumer brands assess whether a launch has genuine media potential, prepare the materials journalists need and develop longer-term product and founder PR around it.
Written by Jordan Baker
Founder of Fair Public Relations and former UK national journalist
Jordan Baker is the founder of Fair Public Relations and a former UK national journalist with more than a decade of PR experience. He writes about product launches, media strategy, founder PR and journalist outreach.
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