If you've been involved in the "internet marketing" arena for any length of time, you've probably seen a number of big product launches. You know the ones - every list you're on is sending out pitches for the same product, each offering their own bonuses as incentive for buying through their affiliate link.

Many of these launches are following a procedure laid out by Jeff Walker in a course called the Product Launch Formula. You'll be able to recognize them by the infamous "server crash" - the site goes down shortly after launch because of the amount of traffic, which the marketer "never expected".

Frankly, I think the Product Launch Formula works extremely well, but it's been overused in the internet marketing niche. Once you see 2 or 3 of them, it gets tired fast.

But if you're in a different market where people wouldn't have seen a bunch of these launches already, it can work like gangbusters.

Interestingly, I've been following the launch of the new Apple iPhone over the last few weeks and there are a lot of parallels to Jeff's course.

Now, whether someone at Apple happened to buy the course, consulted with someone familiar with the process, or just happened to design a similar launch plan, I have no idea.

But I was extremely interested in the way it all played out.

There are a number of parallels:

1. Scarcity

One of the basic building blocks of the Product Launch Formula is to create scarcity for the product. You've seen lots of ways of doing this:

- Only 200 are available…
- Bonus #1 for the first 50 only, bonus #2 for the first 100, etc…
- Only available for 3 days…

Apple was warning people that the iPhone was going to be in short supply, possibly not even enough to meet the initial demand.

This scarcity tactic had people lining up at most Apple Stores, wanting to make sure they didn't miss out on their new iPhone.

In reality, almost every Apple Store still had plenty of stock the day after it launched. You could have gone in on Saturday morning and saved yourself an entire Friday spent in line.

2. Social Proof

Social proof is another key to a successful launch. Social proof is basically the process of making people think all their friends and peers already want/use/approve of a product.

Apple did an excellent job of this. They leveraged the success of the iPod to build social proof for the iPhone, even though it was a new product that had never been tested "in the wild".

They didn't even have to send out many review units - the journalists all praised it based on what Apple told them - more social proof for people who read and trust their columns or listen to their podcasts.

The long lines outside the Apple Stores added to the level of social proof. It's like the old trick that bars use to attract more customers - start a line outside the bar even if it's practically empty, so people passing by think "wow, look at all those people in line - must be a great place". And then join the line, of course.

3. Server Crash

The Product Launch Formula process uses a "server crash" to add to the social proof and scarcity. If the site is getting so many people rushing to buy the product that they crash the server, it must be great, everyone must be buying it and they might run out.

Incidentally, this is one of the things that I think makes it less effective in the internet marketing arena. It's happened on so many launches now that it's a little hard to accept that someone didn't prepare for the traffic when they would have had to have seen it happen to other people.

Apple (well, AT&T actually) had a kind of server crash of their own - the activation process for the iPhone didn't work as smoothly as it should and some people were stuck waiting for hours or even days for their authorization to be completed.

In all honesty, I doubt that they planned this but it's amazingly similar to the PLF process.

So what's my point in all this?

Simply that it's often helpful to look outside our own market for inspiration.

If you're involved in internet marketing, it might seem like it's a huge market with a ton of products to choose from. But the reality is that it's a fairly small market and a lot of the stuff that's sold gets sold to the same people who are always chasing the latest fad.

Compare that to the cell phone market - it's thousands and thousands of times bigger, but the basic process of launching a product is really not that much different.

Next time you're looking for ideas, don't watch the newsletters from the usual suspects. Instead, watch for successes in completely different markets and see what you can pick up from them.

If you're interested in orchestrating one of these big launches yourself, go and check out the Product Launch Formula. It's not cheap, but it's worth the money if you're launching a new product and want to go big.