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Orchestrate a product launch, end to end

From positioning to a full multi-channel launch plan with assets and a day-by-day runbook — the big one that ties every other playbook together.

advanced ~half a day

when to reach for this

A launch is where everything you've built gets tested at once: positioning, voice, channels, timing. Done ad hoc, it's a scramble of half-finished assets and a launch day where you're writing the announcement at 11pm. This system walks the whole arc — nail the message, plan the channels, draft the assets, and build a runbook — so launch day is execution, not panic. It pulls in your brand-voice and competitive work and ties them together.

gather this first

  • What you're launching: a brief, a spec, or a transcript of the product conversation in launch-brief.md.
  • Your brand-voice.md (from the brand-voice playbook) and your competitive brief (from the competitor-intel playbook), if you have them.
  • The constraints: launch date, channels you'll use, who's involved, and any hard dependencies (legal review, a webinar, a press embargo).

the workflow

  1. Nail the message before any assets

    The single biggest launch mistake is making assets before the positioning is locked. Force the message to be sharp first — everything downstream inherits it.

    you ask 
    Read launch-brief.md. Draft a positioning statement: who it's for, the problem it kills, the one-line value prop, and 3 proof points. Then give me a punchy version and a plain version. Don't write any campaign assets yet.

    what you get back A tight positioning statement plus a headline-ready value prop in two registers — the foundation every asset will inherit. Lock this before moving on.

    If the value prop isn't crisp here, no amount of clever copy downstream will save the launch. Spend your time on this step.

  2. Plan the campaign architecture

    Decide the shape before drafting: phases, channels, sequence, and the role each piece plays. This prevents a pile of disconnected assets.

    you ask 
    Using brand-voice.md, design a 3-phase launch campaign — tease, launch, sustain. For each phase: which channels, what each asset's job is, and the sequence. Give me the architecture as a table, not the copy yet.

    what you get back A phased campaign map — tease/launch/sustain across your channels, each asset with a clear job — so you draft against a plan instead of into a void.

  3. Draft the asset suite

    Now generate the actual copy, all from the same locked message and voice, so the announcement email and the X thread and the landing hero all sound like one launch.

    you ask 
    Now draft the core assets in our voice: the announcement blog post (400 words), an email (subject options + body), a 6-post launch-day X thread, 3 LinkedIn posts, and the landing-page hero (headline + subhead + CTA). All from the locked positioning.

    what you get back A full first-draft asset suite — blog, email, thread, social, landing hero — consistent in message and voice because they came from one source.

  4. Build the launch-day runbook

    Turn the plan and assets into an hour-by-hour runbook so launch day is a checklist, not a memory test under pressure.

    you ask 
    Build a launch-day runbook: an hour-by-hour timeline of what publishes when, on which channel, who owns it, and the dependencies. Add a short pre-launch checklist for the day before. One clean table plus the checklist.

    what you get back An hour-by-hour runbook with owners and dependencies, plus a day-before checklist — the document that makes launch day calm.

  5. Red-team the whole thing

    Before you commit, have Claude attack the plan. A skeptical pass now is far cheaper than discovering the gap live.

    you ask 
    Red-team this entire launch as a skeptical CMO: where's the message weak, what could go wrong on the day, what are we over- or under-investing in, and what's the single highest-risk assumption? Give me the top 5 risks and a mitigation for each.

    what you get back A prioritized risk list with mitigations — the gaps caught before launch instead of during it.

make it your own

  • **Smaller launch:** collapse to 3 steps (message → assets → runbook) for a feature release rather than a flagship launch.
  • **Use the competitive brief:** feed in your competitor-intel brief at step 1 so the positioning is explicitly differentiated, not just internally clear.
  • **Post-launch loop:** a week after, run the *performance-review* playbook on the launch metrics to capture what worked for next time.

watch out for

  • Don't skip step 1 to get to the fun part. Assets built on fuzzy positioning are fast to make and worthless to ship.
  • Every claim in launch copy gets scrutiny — **fact-check stats, names, and promises** harder than for routine content. A confident wrong number on launch day is expensive.
  • Claude drafts; it doesn't own. A human still owns final sign-off, legal review, and the actual button-press. Use it to go from zero-to-draft fast, not to remove judgment.

you'll end up with A complete launch in one workflow: locked positioning, a phased campaign plan, a full asset suite in your voice, an hour-by-hour runbook, and a red-teamed risk list — launch day as execution, not improvisation.