Lead with the customer, not the tech
I wrote the key messages around what the customer gains, with AI as the proof behind the promise rather than the headline.
Case file 01 of 07
A regulated brand launch
Evergreen Wealth, three months
Live on launch day. Traffic, 3.6x.
I led the messaging, the website and the launch-day operations for an SEC-registered wealth brand, and shipped it on its fixed date with each page and post cleared by compliance.
3.6x
launch-day site sessions vs a normal weekday the week before
2.6x
launch-week sessions vs the week before
+58%
organic Google clicks in the launch month
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01
The situation
A fixed launch date, and a homepage on hold.
- Company
- Evergreen Wealth, an SEC-registered investment adviser
The launch centered on a New York event and livestream. I helped choose the date, planned the livestream and ran it. The site was a holding page, and the agency's draft key messages led with the technology.
The CEO made me responsible for the website and the content prospects would see. I took on the messaging, the site and the founder's voice, and delivered each of them on the launch date.
The constraint
For a registered adviser, the website is advertising under the SEC Marketing Rule. Each performance line needs its footnote, and the site and each launch post went through compliance before going live.
02
My part
What I owned.
I owned
- The launch website: strategy, copy, information architecture, design-agency management, compliance cycles and the migration
- The key messages, written around the customer benefit, plus a sales battle card, talk track and PR FAQs
- Headline testing, the naming recommendation, and the approved homepage headline
- Membership and Founding Members pages, and launch blog content
- The CEO's launch posts, written in his voice, and the company page's launch countdown
- The launch date and the livestream: technical operations, stream cues and live social, plus launch-video direction and event brand guidelines
- PR, owned with my PR agency: launch timing and the wire-service release
03
The calls I made
Five decisions that shaped the launch.
Test the headline before betting the homepage
An AI audience simulation and a SurveyMonkey panel agreed: the AI analytics language read as buzzwords, and the promise of keeping more of what you earn landed. I refined the CEO's line into the final homepage headline, and he approved it.
Write the whole site before design starts
I drafted each page of the site in ten days, so the design agency was briefed on real copy instead of placeholder text.
Make readability part of the brief
AA accessibility, a set link color and 22px body copy went into the design brief, then five review rounds.
Soft launch, then cut over before the news
The site went live on a subdomain the day before launch, then cut over to the main domain early on launch day, ahead of the press release.
04
Before and after
From a holding banner to a launch-ready brand.
The homepage before the relaunch, and the site the day after launch.
05
Launch week
Ready for the launch-week spike.
Press, social and the livestream pointed people to the site in the same hours, many of them on a phone. The new site carried the spike, and traffic held above its prelaunch level the week after.
Site sessions, above the prelaunch baseline
Source: Google Analytics, main-site sessions.
10days to draft the full site
5design review rounds
6countdown posts for the company page
13CEO posts in four weeks
101minutes of livestream, 0% dropped frames
06
Results
What moved.
| Result | What it means |
|---|---|
| +260% | Launch-day site sessions vs a normal weekday the week before |
| +158% | Launch-week site sessions vs the week before, still 55% higher the week after |
| +58% | Organic Google clicks in one month |
| 15,599 | Impressions on the CEO's top launch post, a new high for his account |
| 15.24% | Average engagement on the six-post company countdown |
| 1,920 | Total livestream views |
WOW. I am so impressed with what you've done in such a short amount of time.
The Director of Strategy
07
Where it goes next
From one launch to a launch system for regulated brands.
I built each piece of this launch to be reused. I planned the company's next launch on the same playbook, and each piece scales into the next version.
Claims library
Pre-clear the words
The next layer is the approved-claims library I proposed to feed AI content tools. Launch copy starts from lines compliance has already signed, so review time goes to what is new, not what is repeated.
Release flags
Ship dark, launch on a switch
The soft-launch subdomain was version one. For the company's AI launch, I pushed for per-page release flags and became the person who dark-deploys pages and flips them live. Launch day stops being a migration and becomes a switch.
Run of show
Make the live moment repeatable
My livestream compliance playbook covered pre-approved scripts and disclosures, a compliance spotter, moderated questions and retained recordings. Paired with the stream cues, it becomes a template for future events.
The principle
A regulated launch is won before launch day. Test the words, clear the claims and rehearse the cutover, and the date becomes a formality. Build each piece once, and the next launch starts from approved parts.
For your brand
A launch system for regulated brands, on a date you can't move.
- 01Write the message around the customer, and test it with real people
- 02Draft the whole site before design, so the brief is real copy
- 03Build the claims and disclosures into the page, not onto it
- 04Soft launch or ship dark, then cut over ahead of the news
- 05Time the founder's voice, social and the livestream to the minute
- 06Measure launch day, launch week and the week after