Launch planning: the questions we get asked most

The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. The questions about launch planning that come up most often on our calls.

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

Do we need to care about this?

Never launch on a Friday afternoon. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. Anything you cannot measure here, you are deciding by taste, which is fine as long as everyone knows it.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly.

How do we know it is working?

Announce it once the thing is verifiably working. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

What this looks like day to day

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Three things worth confirming about launch planning before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Never launch on a Friday afternoon — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.