Marketing Launch Workflow

Marketing Launch Workflow

Douglas's end-to-end marketing launch system for Every products. Covers the full sequence from launch decision through post-launch retro: calendar entry, positioning brief, web copy, creative brief, deliverables list, social briefs, email copy, asset drill-down, approvals, and go-live.

This skill is the marketing-specific execution layer. It sits on top of the three existing launch tier skills (improvement, feature, new-product) and adds the actual deliverable sequence, web copy workflow, design brief flow, and approval process that marketing runs for every launch.

When to invoke

• When Douglas says "we need to launch X" or asks for launch planning help
• When a new product, website, or feature needs marketing support
• When building a workback calendar or deliverables list for a launch
• When someone asks Douglas's team to prepare launch materials
• When coordinating social briefs, email copy, or web copy for a launch

Tier classification

Ask Douglas or infer from context. The tier determines which phases are required.

Tier-specific scope

Feature update — Required phases: 1, 6, 7, 9, 10. Optional: 2 (if positioning changes), 8 (if assets are needed). Skip: 3, 4, 5.

Website / Rebrand — All ten phases required.

New product — All ten phases, plus launch narrative (from launches/new-product-launch), press strategy (if applicable), and multi-wave marketing campaign with workback dates.

The ten-phase sequence

Every launch follows this order. Earlier phases must complete before later ones start. Each phase produces a concrete deliverable.

Phase 1: Calendar & Timeline

Deliverable: Notion calendar entry + Creative Deliverables Timeline entry

1. Set the launch date.
2. Add to the Every Calendar in Notion.
3. Add to the Creative Deliverables Timeline.
4. Work back from the launch date to set phase deadlines.
5. For multi-product or conference launches, build a full workback with phase dates.

Phase 2: Positioning Brief

Deliverable: Google Doc — Positioning & Research Brief (one to two pages each section)

This is upstream of everything. No copy, no design, no assets until positioning is locked.

The brief has four sections:

1. Positioning one-pager — positioning statement, category language, core promise, target audience, product moments, competitive differentiation, guardrails.
2. Research one-pager — customer profile backed by evidence (Notion, testimonials, social proof), competitive landscape, market dynamics, breakthrough strategy.
3. Best-practice copy flow — what claims go where on the page (hero through closing CTA), benchmarked against Linear, Notion, Superhuman, Raycast.
4. Current site audit (for redesigns) — section-by-section analysis of the existing site against the positioning brief.

Source material: the product's Notion workspace (especially landing page redesign pages and customer evidence sub-pages), foundation/marketing-os, competitor websites, and existing testimonials.

Post the brief for review before proceeding to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Web Copy

Deliverable: Google Doc — Web copy recommendations and/or draft copy per page

Only starts after the positioning brief is reviewed.

The web copy workflow follows a specific pattern:

1. Douglas provides headline direction (e.g., "THINK OUT LOUD").
2. Push back with variants organized by approach (transformation, wordplay, imperative, personality), grounded in conversion best practices and the competitive scan.
3. Douglas refines live in a rapid-fire thread.
4. Push again with the positioning doc as reference.
5. Final copy lands in a Google Doc or Notion.

Rules: always reference the positioning brief (Douglas will ask). Never fall into category traps the positioning doc warns against. No pseudo-profound sentences. Provide variants organized by approach, not a flat list. Know what competitors say and do not accidentally write their copy.

Phase 4: Creative Brief

Deliverable: Google Doc or Notion page — Creative brief for the design team

Bridges positioning to design. Contains: what we're making, objective, positioning, target audience, competitive context, customer evidence, tone and voice, technical constraints, reference/inspiration, team, timeline, and approval chain.

Phase 5: Deliverables List

Deliverable: Google Doc — Asset deliverable list with owners and status

The granular breakdown of every asset needed for launch. Organized by category (strategic/brand, site-wide components, page-specific, video/animation, social assets, email assets, structural/UX, future/stretch). Each row: deliverable name, description, owner, status, priority.

If someone (e.g., Brandon) has written notes or feedback, parse them into structured deliverable rows.

Phase 6: Social Briefs

Deliverable: Google Doc — One social brief per launch beat

Contents: messaging architecture (primary, secondary, tertiary angles), key proof points, social proof table (person, role, quote, best use), asset needs table, draft posts for each account and platform (product account, @every, founder, GM, Douglas), posting cadence across launch day plus day two and three follow-ups, alternate copy options, day-before tease content, and success signals.

Draft actual posts, not placeholders.

Phase 7: Email Copy

Deliverable: Google Docs — One per launch beat, three options each

Load craft/email skills. Search Kit for existing product emails to match style.

Each option is a complete, send-ready email: subject line plus preheader, Kit greeting tag, 250–400 words, declarative subjects, bold-label bullet features, action-verb CTA, product-appropriate sign-off. Three options per launch, each with a different lead angle.

Do a grammar pass before delivering.

Phase 8: Asset Drill-Down

Deliverable: Prioritized asset list with specs

Consolidated from social briefs and deliverables list. Each asset: description, specs (dimensions, length), creator, deadline, where it is used.

Asset types: screen recordings, product demo videos, before/after screenshots, GIFs, feature page screenshots, social proof walls of love, email header images.

Phase 9: Approvals & Go-Live

Deliverable: Approval checklist plus scheduled sends

All copy reviewed and approved. Design assets reviewed. Kit email configured. Social posts scheduled. Product page staged. Product team confirms stability. Support team briefed. Go/no-go at T-2.

Phase 10: Post-Launch

Deliverable: T+1 check plus T+7 retro

T+1: engagement check (email opens/clicks, social engagement, site traffic). T+7: what worked, what did not, and user response patterns. Record the result with marketing-science/measurement/references/compound-from-results.md; update this skill only when the learning passes the knowledge-boundary rules.

References

references/workback-templates.md

Workback schedules for all three tiers, with actual dates from past launches. Feature update runs T-14 through T+7. Website/rebrand runs T-42 through T+7. New product runs T-84 through T+30.

references/deliverable-templates.md

Templates for each major deliverable: social brief, email options, positioning brief, and deliverables list. Each template shows the exact structure and sections, ready to populate for a new launch.

references/web-copy-workflow.md

How web copy iteration works from headline direction through final copy. Includes the hero copy structure, page-by-page copy flow, the subheadline workshop process, and rules extracted from corrections on past launches.

Reference routing

Dependencies

• foundation/marketing-os
• positioning/{relevant product} (loaded dynamically)
• brand-voice/{relevant product} (loaded dynamically)
• launches/improvement-launch (for feature-update tier)
• launches/feature-launch (for website/rebrand tier)
• launches/new-product-launch (for new-product tier)
• strategy/messaging-architecture
• craft/email/current-subscriber
• craft/email/paid-user
• craft/social/linkedin-post
• craft/social/x-post

Quick checklist

• Classify the tier (feature update, website/rebrand, new product)
• Set the launch date with Douglas
• Add to Notion calendar and Creative Deliverables Timeline
• Propose workback schedule based on tier lead times
• Positioning brief drafted and reviewed before any copy starts
• Web copy grounded in positioning doc at every step
• Creative brief posted to design team
• Deliverables list categorized with owners and priorities
• Social briefs contain actual draft posts, not placeholders
• Email copy grammar-checked before delivery
• All deliverables produced as Google Docs (never PDFs)
• Post-launch retro completed and skill updated with learnings