The Launch Cycle
A launch is not an announcement. It is a cycle with a shape, and the shape is the same whether you are selling a workshop or a book. Three parts.
Pre-launch: collect emails
Before you sell anything, you need people who have said "tell me when." That is the pre-launch. You talk about the thing before it exists, and you give people a way to raise their hand. Everything you do in the actual launch is aimed at that list first. If the list is empty on launch day, you are not launching; you are hoping.
Early birds: a pricing discount
Without an early-bird price, there is no reason to register early, so nobody does, and you spend the whole launch waiting for the last day. The discount is not generosity. It is the mechanism that moves the buying forward so you can see, early, whether the launch is working. Make it real and make it end.
Exponential frequency of marketing
The mistake is to market at a steady rate. One post a day, start to finish. A launch does not work that way. It starts slow and accelerates: a mention, then a post, then daily, then several times a day in the final stretch. Most of the buying happens at the end, and the end is when you should be loudest. If it feels like too much, you are probably at the right level.