Launching a product across several brands works best on six weeks, with a clear owner and one approval gate per week: two weeks of setup, two of teasers, one launch week and one of follow-up. This playbook gives you the week-by-week plan, the roles and the gates. For the bigger question of timing across regions, see the 3-wave run sheet.
TLDR: Lock the facts and assets by week 2, get approvals done by week 3, publish teasers in weeks 3 to 4, launch in week 5 and follow up in week 6. Every week has one owner and one gate, and nothing goes out without an approved post.
The 6-week plan at a glance
| Week | Goal | Owner | Gate to pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nail down the facts, message and campaign tag | Product marketing | One-page launch brief signed off |
| 2 | Produce assets and draft posts per brand | Creators | Drafts on the calendar |
| 3 | Approve and schedule teasers | Brand leads, legal | All teaser posts approved |
| 4 | Teasers go live, collect early replies | Channel leads | Inbox owner assigned |
| 5 | Launch week | Everyone, one commander | Launch posts scheduled and checked |
| 6 | Follow up and report | Analyst | One-page results |
Weeks 1 and 2: the brief is the product
Most launch mistakes start with a fuzzy brief. It needs five things: the one-line promise, the three facts that can be repeated, the claims you must not make, the campaign tag and the dates.
Then each brand localises the message instead of writing from scratch. AI captions give each brand a first draft in its own voice, and bulk creation turns one launch idea into per-brand, per-platform drafts that your creators edit rather than write.
Week 3: run approvals as a single gate
Put every launch post in front of the approvers in one batch, with a deadline. Comments stay on the post, and approvers see the post as it will appear on each platform.
Mydrop's approval workflows and post preview cover that, and the client portal lets approvers outside your team sign off without a login. In Mydrop's data, the median post took 6 hours from submission to approval and two thirds were approved within a day. Give approvers 48 hours and chase on day two.
Weeks 4 and 5: schedule once, monitor live
Schedule everything in the multi-brand calendar so the commander can see the whole launch on one screen. Use the pre-launch checklist the day before launch.
During launch week, someone owns the inbox. A shared social inbox with assigned owners keeps replies from falling between brands. For regions, you can stagger by time zone; see staggered launch windows.
Avoid launching between midnight and 6 am in the audience's local time. In Mydrop's September data, posts in that window ran 17% below the median across platforms and 36% below on Instagram.
Week 6: report with one page
Follow-up is where launches get forgotten. Send one page: reach, link clicks, replies and any leads or sign-ups traced by the campaign tag, plus three lessons. Scheduled white-label reports can deliver the numbers to stakeholders automatically.
Three things that go wrong in launch week
- Posts go out before the product page is live. Add a "page is live" check to the day-one task, with a named person.
- Replies pile up in the wrong brand's inbox. Agree before launch who answers which question and where escalations go.
- A last-minute claim change. Keep one person responsible for edits after approval, and re-approve any changed post.
A short run-through the day before, with the commander reading the calendar aloud, catches most of these.
Also decide in advance what counts as a good launch. For example: a set number of link clicks in week 5, replies answered within four working hours, and a list of the questions customers asked most. Those questions feed next month's content.
Copy the plan into your calendar today
Pick your launch date, count back six weeks and put the six gates on the calendar as tasks with names next to them. Send the one-page brief template to your product owner this week. To run the whole launch from one workspace, start free on Mydrop.
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