Category Launch Program

Purpose

Replace the legacy launch playbook (press wave, paid spike, PR push) with a launch program designed for the environment in which the buyer's discovery and validation happen partly inside answer engines, against a knowledge graph that has to know what the brand is before the launch can do its work.

Outcomes

• Established entity in the relevant knowledge graphs at launch
• Citation surface across the discovery query set
• Coordinated narrative across owned, earned, and paid surfaces
• Measurement framework that captures both legacy launch metrics and citation surface

Tools and agents

Steps

1. Establish the entity layer first

   Before any narrative work begins, set up the brand's entity layer — structured data, knowledge-graph presence, canonical home, sameAs relationships. The downstream launch work assumes this is in place. It usually is not.

2. Seed the citation surface in advance

   Invoke the GEO Content Production Line for the discovery query set on which the launch depends. Citation surface compounds slowly; starting at launch is too late.

3. Develop the launch narrative

   The narrative deployment agent produces the launch narrative across the owned channels (site, newsletter, social) in coordination with the human team responsible for the earned-media surface.

4. Coordinate earned and paid

   The press and earned-media surface is led by humans; the paid surface is supported by the agentic stack. Both align to the same narrative.

5. Launch, monitor, adjust

   At launch, monitor the entity-layer resolution behavior, the citation surface across the discovery query set, the legacy launch metrics, and the inbound signal. Adjust on a thirty-to-sixty-day arc.

Antipatterns to avoid

• Skipping the entity layer because the brand site looks fine
• Starting citation-surface work at launch
• Treating the launch as a single-day event rather than as a multi-month program