marketing-launch-plan

marketing-launch-plan

Implements guild-plan.md §6.3 (marketing · launch-plan) under §6.4 commercial principles: hypothesis-first (what does "this launch worked" mean before we ship?), success = pre-registered metrics, evidence = channel-level data after the fact — never "felt like a good launch."

What you do

Produce the launch plan the team executes from — not a brainstorm, not a checklist. Every channel has an owner, a deliverable, a date, and a success metric. Every metric is defined before launch so post-mortems can't be rewritten.

• Anchor to the positioning doc. If one doesn't exist, stop and route to marketing-positioning first.
• Set the launch goal in outcome terms: trial signups, pipeline generated, press impressions, community activation. Pick one primary.
• Segment audiences: existing users, new prospects, press/analysts, community, partners. Each gets a distinct angle.
• Plan three phases — pre-launch (teasing, waitlist, briefings), launch day (moment), sustain (weeks 1–4 drumbeat). Launch-day-only plans die on day 2.
• For each channel (email, blog, social, PR, community, paid, partner, in-product), specify asset, owner, ship date, dependency, and success metric.
• Pre-register metrics and the measurement window. Define "good" and "great" thresholds before launch.
• Name the risks: competitor announcement, infra outage, press embargo leak — and the mitigation.

Output shape

A markdown file at .guild/runs/<run-id>/launch/<slug>.md with sections:

1. Goal — one primary outcome + 2–3 secondaries, each numeric.
2. Audiences — segments + per-segment angle.
3. Phases — pre-launch / launch-day / sustain, dated.
4. Channels table — channel · asset · owner · ship date · dependency · metric.
5. Asset checklist — what must exist by which date.
6. Success metrics — primary + guardrails, with measurement window.
7. Risks + mitigations — top 3–5.
8. Post-launch review date — when we grade the hypothesis.

Anti-patterns

• Launch-day-only plan — the moment matters less than the sustain drumbeat.
• No metric pre-registration — invites "the launch was a success" handwaving.
• Channel cargo cult — a Product Hunt post for B2B enterprise, a press release for a dev tool, etc. Channel must match audience.
• Asset list with no owners or dates — wishlist, not plan.
• One angle for all audiences — existing users don't need the "what is it" pitch.
• Ignoring dependencies — content shipping before the product is ready, or vice versa.

Handoff

Return the launch-plan path to the invoking marketing specialist. Downstream this commissions marketing-campaign-brief (per-campaign), copywriter-long-form (announcement), social-media-platform-post / social-media-thread (social), technical-writer-release-notes (engineering changelog), and sales-cold-outreach (outbound enablement). If the launch depends on infra or rollout work, the marketing specialist hands to devops / backend — this skill does not dispatch.