Launches vs. Campaigns: A Better Way to Sell Digital Products
- A launch puts your whole quarter on one week. If that week goes badly, there's nothing behind it, and when the cart closes you start over from zero.
- A campaign is a theme with a start date, an end date and a reason to pay attention now, and you run them back to back all year.
- Big retailers like Target, Starbucks and Sephora are always running something, and it's rarely the same thing twice in a row.
- You can still have a big moment for your signature offer. It just becomes one campaign in a year full of them.
The online business world has taught us to launch. You spend weeks building up to it, you open the cart for five to seven days, you send an email every day, and then the cart closes and things go quiet while you get ready for the next one.
That's how a lot of us were taught to sell digital products, and it's still what most courses on selling teach. But when you look at the companies that sell the most stuff to the most people, almost none of them work this way.
So in this post I want to make the case for running campaigns instead of launches, and in the next post I'll give you eight campaigns you can borrow from big retailers.
What a launch is, and what a campaign is.
A launch is one big push around one offer. There's a long build-up, a short open window, and then a stretch where you're not selling anything while you plan the next big push.
A campaign is a theme with a start date, an end date, and a reason for people to pay attention right now. I talked about this in the Sephora post, which is where this whole series started. You run campaigns back to back all year, and each one promotes a different way into your business.
The biggest difference is what happens between the big moments. With launches, the time in between is mostly empty. With campaigns, there's always something going on, so your list keeps hearing from you and your revenue doesn't depend on a single week.
Why launches wear you out.
1. Everything rides on one window
When you launch, the open cart window is where all the money comes in. If you get sick that week, if your checkout breaks, or if your list just isn't paying attention, there's no second chance until the next launch, and that might be months away.
2. Your list only sees you sell a few times a year
Launches train your list to see you in two modes. Most of the time you're teaching, and a few times a year you're suddenly selling hard. That switch is what makes sales emails feel awkward for you to write and for your readers to open.
3. You start from zero every time
When the cart closes, the attention you built up during the launch has nowhere to go. So you spend the next few weeks building it back up again, and a lot of the work you did for this launch has to be done all over for the next one.
I run 24 events a year across Creator's MBA and HobbyScool, so my list always has something going on. That rhythm is a big reason promoting doesn't feel like a huge, scary thing in my business.
Big retailers are always running something.
Think about the last few emails you got from Target or Starbucks. They weren't all sales. Some were a members event, some were a new seasonal menu, some were a game or a giveaway, and some were early access to something coming later.
Target ran its members event, Target Circle Week, three times in 2025, each one tied to a different season. Starbucks moves from one seasonal menu to the next all year. Sephora only runs two big sitewide sales a year, and the rest of its calendar is birthday gifts, members weekends and gift sets.
None of them bet the year on one big week. They're running campaigns almost all the time, and they don't run the same one twice in a row, so people keep paying attention.
What changes when you switch to campaigns.
Your signature offer can still have a big moment. If you open your membership or your program once or twice a year, that's still a campaign, and it can take the main spot on your calendar for two or three weeks. The difference is that it's one campaign in a year full of them.
In between, you run smaller campaigns that lead to that same signature offer. One month might promote a lead magnet, the next might be a workshop, and the next might be a members open house. The way in changes and the place it leads stays the same.
The one rule I'd keep is to run one main promotion at a time. Two offers competing for attention in the same week usually means both do worse.
If you haven't figured out your signature offer yet, start with how to find your signature offer, because every campaign you run should point to it.
The Q4 Campaign Planner is a free Claude skill that asks about everything you sell and give away, names your signature offer, and maps how everything leads to it.
Then it plans one campaign each for October, November and December, with a starting pick for Black Friday. Get the free skill →
"Won't my list get tired of all this?"
This is the question I hear the most, and I get it. Nobody wants to feel like they're always selling.
But your list is already hearing from you every week. Campaigns give those emails a job, and the variety is what keeps it from feeling like the same pitch over and over. A game one month, a members event the next and a comeback after that all read like news about what's going on in your business.
Launches actually make this harder. When your list only hears about an offer a few times a year, every sales email feels like a big ask, because it is one.
Where to start.
The holiday season is the easiest place to try this for the first time, because people already expect to hear about offers from October through December. Instead of planning one Black Friday week, you plan the whole season, the way the big retailers do.
And if you want ideas for what to run, the next post has eight campaigns you can borrow from Target, Amazon, Starbucks, Sephora and Apple.
Plan your whole holiday season with me
In the Black Friday Profit Party, we take the playbook from the big retailers and plan your full season, from November 1 through the new year. It's included in Newsletter Profit Club, and the replay is inside the membership after October 28.
Join Newsletter Profit Club →Frequently asked.
What is the difference between a launch and a campaign?
A launch is one big push around one offer, usually a cart that opens and closes, followed by a quiet stretch while you build the next one. A campaign is a theme with a start date, an end date and a reason to pay attention now, and you run them back to back all year, each one a little different from the last.
Should I stop launching my digital products?
You can still have a big moment for your signature offer. The change is that it becomes one campaign in a year full of them, so your revenue doesn't depend on one week going well.
Why do launches feel so exhausting?
Everything rides on a short open cart window, your list only hears you sell a few times a year, and when the cart closes you start building attention back up from zero.
How many campaigns should I run in a year?
A good starting point is one campaign a month, with two to four big named events during the year and smaller campaigns in between. Run one main promotion at a time so your offers aren't competing with each other.
Won't my email list get tired of hearing about campaigns all the time?
Your list is already hearing from you every week. Campaigns give those emails a job, and when each campaign looks different, like a game one month and a members event the next, it reads like news about what's going on in your business.
Dr. Destini Copp helps digital product creators build sustainable, systems-based businesses through the Creator Growth Flywheel framework. She's the founder of Creator's MBA and HobbyScool, and has been teaching online business strategy for over a decade. Learn more →
