--- title: "Run a launch week (5 daily drops)" excerpt: "10-step playbook for a 5-day launch week with one drop per day, 5x the press cycle of a single-day launch, and an audience that watches every morning." category: "Template" --- # Run a launch week (5 daily drops) A 10-step playbook. Open in Dock and you'll get four surfaces: - **Steps** (table) — 10 gates from picking the week to writing the post-mortem - **Drops calendar** (table) — 5 daily drops with theme, channels, asset checklist, status - **Brief** (doc) — the launch-week narrative arc + per-day positioning - **Engagement log** (table) — daily reach, signups, top-converting channel, daily debrief notes Read `Steps` top-to-bottom. The week starts Monday with planning done; Sunday night is too late. ## Outcome A 5-day launch week that drives 3-5x the press attention of a single-day launch, sustains audience engagement Mon-Fri, and ships 5 distinct content artifacts that feed your evergreen library for the next 6 months. **Estimated time:** 3-4 weeks of prep, 5 days live, 1 week of follow-up **Difficulty:** advanced **For:** Founders + small marketing teams shipping a multi-feature launch. ## What you'll need Pre-register or install before you start. - **[Buffer](https://buffer.com/)** _($15/mo Essentials)_ — Cross-platform scheduling for the daily drops on X, LinkedIn, Bluesky. - **[Resend](https://resend.com/)** _(Free tier (3k/mo, 100/day) or $20/mo for 50k)_ — Daily email blasts to your launch-week list (1 per day, 5 total). - **[Loom](https://www.loom.com/)** _(Free tier (25 videos))_ — Daily 90-second video walkthrough for each drop. - **[Figma](https://www.figma.com/)** _(Free tier)_ — Design the 5 drop graphics with consistent week-branding. - **[Plausible](https://plausible.io/)** _($9/mo starter)_ — Daily traffic dashboard with UTM-tagged source attribution. - **[Notion or Dock](https://trydock.ai/)** _(Free tier in Dock)_ — Public launch-week page that updates daily with the new drop. --- # The template · 10 steps ## Step 1: Decide what's worth a 5-day launch (vs a 1-day launch) _Estimated time: 1-2 days decision_ Launch weeks are 5x the production cost of a single-day launch. They're worth it when you have: 5 distinct shippable things, an audience large enough to sustain attention across a week, and a narrative arc that builds from Day 1 to Day 5. Without those three, run a single-day launch. The fastest way to torch a launch week is to stretch a single feature across 5 days of thin content. ### Tasks - [ ] Inventory the shippable things: 5 distinct features, integrations, partnerships, milestones - [ ] Audit your audience: do you have 1000+ engaged followers / list members who'll watch for 5 days? - [ ] Sketch the narrative arc: what's the Day 1 hook, what's the Day 5 closer, how do they connect - [ ] Decide: 5-day or 1-day. If you can't fill 5 days with substance, run a 1-day launch and save the rest for next quarter - [ ] Document the decision in the Brief doc > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Stretching one feature across 5 thin days reads as desperate. Audience drops off by Day 3. > - If your launch needs press coverage, a 5-day week gives reporters 5 angles to choose from. A 1-day launch gives them 1 deadline. > - Audience size matters: < 1000 followers is too small to sustain a week. Run a 1-day launch and grow to 1000 first. ## Step 2: Pick the launch week + define the daily themes _Estimated time: 2-3 hours_ Tuesday-through-Saturday is the strongest launch-week shape: Tuesday opens with peak attention, Wednesday-Thursday-Friday sustain it, Saturday closes with a personal/founder note (less competition, longer-form readers). Avoid the week of major industry events. Define each day's theme upfront: Day 1 'big drop', Day 2 'power-user feature', Day 3 'tech / behind-the-scenes', Day 4 'customer / community', Day 5 'reflection / what's next'. ### Tasks - [ ] Pick the launch week: Tuesday start, Saturday end (or Mon-Fri if Saturday traffic is weaker for your audience) - [ ] Cross-check against industry events, holidays, OpenAI / Apple keynotes - [ ] Define the 5 daily themes (e.g., 'big drop', 'power-user', 'tech deep-dive', 'customer story', 'founder reflection') - [ ] Map each day to a primary channel (X thread, blog post, video, podcast, etc.) - [ ] Block out 5 consecutive mornings on every team member's calendar > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Launch weeks that start Monday hit a fresh-from-weekend audience that's still triaging email. Tuesday is the higher-leverage start. > - Mid-week ('Wednesday is the new Thursday') is fine but loses the bookend effect of starting and ending on attention-peak days. > - Fridays for B2B audiences die after lunch. Save Friday's drop for morning publish, or move it to Saturday for a softer-but-longer-engaged audience. ## Step 3: Draft the narrative arc and the daily positioning _Estimated time: 4-6 hours_ The narrative arc is the 1-paragraph story the audience experiences across 5 days. Day 1 sets up the world; Day 2-4 deepen it from different angles; Day 5 closes the loop. Without an arc, the launch week reads as 5 disconnected announcements. With one, it reads as a single story shipped over 5 days. ### Tasks - [ ] Write the 1-paragraph launch-week narrative arc: what's the larger thesis the 5 drops collectively prove? - [ ] Write each day's positioning: how does today's drop advance the arc? - [ ] Define each day's primary audience: founders? engineers? customers? press? - [ ] Define each day's primary CTA: signup? demo? blog read? download? share? - [ ] Save in the Brief doc as the source of truth for every drop's copy > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Without an arc, drops read as a list of features. With an arc, drops read as a single story. > - Don't make Day 5 the biggest drop — the audience peaks on Day 1. Day 5 is the closer, not the climax. > - If your arc requires the audience to have read all 5 drops, you've over-fitted. Each drop should stand alone and reward the cohort that read all 5. ### Agent prompt for this step ```text Draft the launch-week narrative arc and the per-day positioning. Inputs from the Brief: - The 5 shippable things (one per day) - Audience profile - Product positioning - Day-by-day theme assignments Output to the Brief doc: 1. **The arc** (1 paragraph): the larger thesis the 5 drops collectively prove. What's the audience's belief on Monday vs Saturday? How does each day advance it? 2. **Day 1: Big drop**: positioning, primary audience, primary CTA, narrative role 3. **Day 2: Power-user feature**: same structure 4. **Day 3: Tech / behind-the-scenes**: same structure 5. **Day 4: Customer / community**: same structure 6. **Day 5: Reflection / what's next**: same structure Constraints: no marketing fluff. The arc should be specific enough that someone reading it could predict tomorrow's drop. No 'changing the future of X'. ``` ## Step 4: Build the asset list per day _Estimated time: 3-4 days production_ Every drop needs: a hero image / GIF / video, an X thread, a LinkedIn post, an email blast, a blog post, a press kit one-pager, a CTA. That's 7+ assets per day, 35+ assets across the week. Inventory all of them in the Drops calendar BEFORE the week starts so you're not designing assets at midnight Tuesday. ### Tasks - [ ] List every asset needed per day: hero visual, X thread, LinkedIn post, email, blog post, press kit, CTA - [ ] Assign an owner per asset (designer / writer / engineer) - [ ] Set a Friday-before-launch-week deadline for all assets to be done - [ ] Build a shared figma file with the consistent week-branding (logo, color, layout) - [ ] Pre-record any videos (Loom / studio) at least 4 days before > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Designing at the last minute kills the design quality. Figma file done by Friday-before is the rule. > - Inconsistent visual branding across the 5 drops makes the week feel like 5 disconnected launches. > - Pre-recorded videos beat live ones for launch week — too many things go wrong live. ## Step 5: Pre-write the daily X threads, LinkedIn posts, and email blasts _Estimated time: 3-5 days_ Pre-writing the entire week of social copy is the single biggest mental-cost saver. The agent drafts each day's thread, post, and email from the per-day positioning. The human reviews + edits. By Sunday night before the week starts, every piece of copy should be drafted, scheduled in Buffer, and reviewed. ### Tasks - [ ] For each of 5 days: draft the X thread (5-9 tweets), LinkedIn post (1200-2000 chars), Bluesky thread, email blast (300-600 words) - [ ] Schedule X threads in Hypefury or Typefully for ship time - [ ] Schedule LinkedIn + Bluesky posts in Buffer - [ ] Schedule email blasts in Resend with the daily ship time - [ ] Review every draft Sunday night before launch week > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Pre-scheduled posts that reference 'today' or 'just shipped' need verification day-of so they don't fire if a delay happens. > - X threads with the same shape every day (hook + 5 body + CTA) read robotic. Vary one element per day (image type, opening question, CTA verb). > - Email blasts every day for 5 days drives unsubscribes. Use a launch-week-specific list that opted in, not your full list. ### Agent prompt for this step ```text Draft the launch-week content for one day. Inputs from the Drops calendar row: - day number (1-5) - theme (big drop / power-user / tech / customer / reflection) - positioning (from Brief) - shippable thing (the feature, customer, milestone announced today) - primary audience - primary CTA Inputs from the Brief: - launch-week narrative arc - product positioning - voice rules Output: 1. **X thread** (5-9 tweets): hook tweet + body tweets each with one image suggestion + CTA tweet with link 2. **LinkedIn post** (1200-2000 chars): founder-story shape, ends with CTA + link 3. **Bluesky thread** (mirror of X with slight tone shift) 4. **Email blast** (300-600 words): - Subject line: lowercase, < 50 chars, references today's theme - Body: hook line, today's drop, why it matters, CTA 5. **Blog post outline** (8-12 H2/H3 headers): for the canonical write-up Constraints: - No exclamation marks, no '🚀', no 'we're thrilled to announce' - Each piece references where in the launch-week arc we are ('day 3 of 5...') - Each CTA points at the same canonical URL with day-specific UTM tag Output as a structured update to the Drops calendar row. ``` ## Step 6: Build the launch-week landing page that updates daily _Estimated time: 1-2 days_ The landing page is the canonical 'launch week' URL that audiences refresh each morning. It shows today's drop above the fold and the previous days' drops below. After the week, it stays as a permanent archive that compounds search traffic. Build it as a single dynamic page that updates each morning. ### Tasks - [ ] Build a single landing page at /launch-week or /[year]-launch-week - [ ] Above-the-fold: today's drop with the hero asset + the link - [ ] Below-the-fold: each of the 5 days as cards (locked / unlocked based on date) - [ ] Add an email signup prompt for 'get tomorrow's drop in your inbox' - [ ] Pre-populate all 5 drop entries with content + lock state (Day 2-5 locked until their day) - [ ] Set up a daily auto-unlock script (or manual unlock at ship time) > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - If the daily-unlock fails (server error, manual miss), audience refreshes and gets stale content. Have the manual override ready. > - Don't gate previous days behind email signup. Friction kills the bookmark + share rate. > - Add structured data (Article schema with datePublished) to each day's section so each drop indexes separately. ## Step 7: Run Day 1: the big drop _Estimated time: Full day, live_ Day 1 is the highest-attention day. The morning ship has to be perfect: page live, email blast sent on time, X thread fires at the planned hour, team is in the war room replying to comments. This is the day that decides whether Day 2-5 audience shows up. ### Tasks - [ ] Morning: confirm landing page is live with Day 1 unlocked - [ ] Ship time: X thread fires, LinkedIn + Bluesky posts go up, email blast sends - [ ] First 60 min: war room replies to every comment, answers every question - [ ] Mid-day: post the 'going strong' update with traffic numbers (if good) - [ ] End of day: log the metrics in Engagement log, draft tomorrow's morning ship > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Schedule mistakes on Day 1 are visible to the entire audience. Triple-check the timing for X, LinkedIn, email, landing page. > - Day 1 traffic can crush the site. Pre-flight load test for 200+ concurrent visitors. > - If Day 1 underperforms vs target, don't escalate desperate copy on Day 2. Tighten the value prop and let the audience catch up. ## Step 8: Run Days 2-4: sustain the rhythm _Estimated time: 3 full days, live_ Days 2-4 are the marathon. Each morning ships fresh content, each afternoon runs the war room, each evening logs metrics + drafts tomorrow's morning ship. The audience trains itself to refresh; the rhythm is everything. The single biggest failure mode here is the team running out of energy by Day 3. ### Tasks - [ ] Each morning: confirm the landing page unlocks today's drop, fire scheduled posts, send email blast - [ ] Mid-day: war room replies + cross-channel amplification (quote-tweets, repost-with-comment) - [ ] End of each day: log metrics in Engagement log, surface top-converting channel, refine tomorrow's drop based on Day-N learnings - [ ] Day 2: power-user feature theme — go deep on the magical moment for engaged users - [ ] Day 3: tech / behind-the-scenes theme — engineering deep-dive that earns HN respect - [ ] Day 4: customer / community theme — real customer story, real numbers, real quote > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Audience attention drops 20-40% from Day 1 to Day 2 even with great content. Don't read this as a flop; it's the natural shape. > - Day 3 is where teams run out of energy. Pre-write the Day 3 content extra-carefully so morning-of you're approving, not writing. > - The press cycle picks up between Day 2 and Day 4. Reporters who saw Day 1 reach out for the 'is this real' interview around Day 3-4. ## Step 9: Run Day 5: the closer _Estimated time: Full day, live_ Day 5 is the founder-voice reflection. Less product, more story. Why-now revisited. What you learned. What's next. This is the most-shared drop because it's the most personal. End the week with a single concrete next-step: a community link, a beta signup, a continuing-the-conversation thread. ### Tasks - [ ] Morning: ship the founder reflection post (long-form, personal, reflective) - [ ] Cross-channel: X thread version, LinkedIn version, email blast - [ ] Mid-day: respond to every reply / DM / comment substantively - [ ] End of day: thank-you post to the audience + the team - [ ] Save every comment thread for testimonial mining > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Day 5 should be reflective, not promotional. If it reads like another announcement, the week ends flat. > - Don't drop a surprise feature on Day 5 (saving it for last). The audience that watched all week feels cheated when the 'real' drop comes after the close. > - End on a question or a community-extension. Closed loops compound less than open ones. ## Step 10: Run the post-week analysis + repurpose _Estimated time: 1-2 weeks post-launch_ The week generates 50+ pieces of reusable content. After the dust settles, mine: which drop drove the most signups, which channel converted best, which drop earned the most press, which day's narrative resonated. The repurpose is where 50% of the launch-week ROI comes from: each drop's content gets re-spun into evergreen blog posts, ads, sales decks, and the next quarter's marketing. ### Tasks - [ ] Day +3: pull every metric (signups, traffic, replies, mentions) and surface the top + bottom drops - [ ] Week +1: turn each drop's content into an evergreen blog post for SEO - [ ] Week +2: pitch reporters with the launch-week numbers as the angle - [ ] Week +2: repurpose the customer story (Day 4) as a case study - [ ] Month +1: write the launch-week post-mortem in the Brief — what worked, what to repeat, what to drop next time > [!CAUTION] > **Gotchas** > > - Don't measure success by total reach alone. A 100k-impression week with 50 signups was a vanity-metric run. > - Post-week is where most teams disengage. The first 7 days post-week are when 50% of the lasting traffic shows up. Stay engaged. > - Repurpose drops as evergreen blog posts in the next 30 days. The launch-week URL becomes the anchor; cluster pages flow from it. ### Agent prompt for this step ```text Run the launch-week post-mortem. Inputs: - The Engagement log (per-day metrics) - The Drops calendar (every drop's content + ship status) - The Brief (the narrative arc, day positioning) Output to the Brief as a markdown section: 1. **By the numbers**: per-day reach, per-day signups, per-day press mentions, total week vs target 2. **The top drop**: which day's drop had highest reach + conversion + sentiment? Why? 3. **The bottom drop**: which day underperformed? Why? 4. **The strongest channel**: which platform / format drove the most signups? 5. **The narrative arc**: did the audience get what we promised in the arc? Evidence: comments referencing earlier days, day-over-day signup curve. 6. **Three things to repeat for the next launch week** 7. **Three things to drop** 8. **Three repurpose plays**: which drop content goes into next quarter's marketing as evergreen? ``` --- ## Hand the template to your agent Paste the prompt below into your agent's permanent system prompt so the agent reads, writes, and maintains this workspace as you work through the steps. ```text You are an agent on the "Run a launch week" playbook workspace at your-org/run-a-launch-week. Your role: keep the four surfaces (Steps, Drops calendar, Brief, Engagement log) in sync as the team runs the 5 daily drops. Cadence: - Pre-launch: draft the 5 drop announcements + X threads + LinkedIn posts + email blasts in the Drops calendar. - During the week, every morning: ping the team with today's drop checklist (asset, copy, channels, ship time). - Every evening: pull the day's engagement metrics, append to Engagement log, surface the top-converting channel. - Day 5 evening: draft the post-week summary + top-performing drops + lessons in the Brief. First MCP tool calls: 1. list_surfaces(workspace_slug="run-a-launch-week") 2. list_rows(workspace_slug="run-a-launch-week", surface_slug="drops-calendar") 3. get_doc(workspace_slug="run-a-launch-week", surface_slug="brief") Do NOT post anything. Drafts go in the Drops calendar; humans review, refine, and post on schedule. ``` --- ## FAQ ### Is a launch week worth the production cost? It depends. Launch weeks are 4-5x the production cost of a single-day launch. They're worth it when: you have 5 distinct shippable things, your audience is 1000+ engaged people (otherwise the week reaches the same audience repeatedly), you have a narrative arc that connects the 5 days. Without all three, run a stronger single-day launch and save the production cost for the next quarter. ### What if Day 3 or Day 4 underperforms? Do we course-correct or stay the course? Stay the course on the calendar; course-correct on the copy. The audience has trained itself to expect today's drop; skipping or merging drops breaks the rhythm. But you can refine the day-of copy: tighten the value prop, lead with a stronger hook, lean into the format that worked yesterday. The biggest mistake is accelerating Day 4-5 desperately to recover Day 3's miss. ### Should each day's drop have its own URL or share the launch-week URL? Both. The canonical launch-week URL (e.g., /launch-week-2026-q2) shows today's drop above the fold and stays as the archive. Each individual drop also gets its own URL (e.g., /launch-week-2026-q2/day-3) for SEO + sharing. Schema each as Article with datePublished so each indexes separately for long-tail search. ### Should I email my whole list daily for 5 days? Only if they opted in to the launch-week list specifically. Daily emails to your full list for 5 days drives 5-10% unsubscribes — the cost is lasting. The pattern that works: a launch-week-specific opt-in form ('get every drop in your inbox'), and a single 'launch week recap' email to the full list at the end of the week. ### Can my AI agents help with the launch week? Yes, especially for: drafting the daily X / LinkedIn / Bluesky / email content per day, drafting the per-day blog post outline, tracking the daily engagement log, drafting the post-week analysis. Posting and replying stay human; the agents draft and the humans ship. The launch-week scale (35+ pieces of content across 5 days) is exactly where agents earn their keep. ### What does a launch week cost? Tooling: ~$50-100/mo across Buffer, Resend, Plausible, Loom (mostly stuff you already have). Production: 3-4 weeks of team time for a small team (2-3 people). Press budget: 0 if you're doing organic only, $5-20k if you're running ad amplification on top of the organic week. The biggest cost is the team's energy across 5 consecutive launch days; budget recovery time after.