Even if you're not posting any content, don’t neglect to do gentle launches 🌱
For years I’ve been encouraging my readers to practice a rhythm of gentle launches. Maybe you’ve even done one or two. But then maybe you stopped doing them.
The loss in momentum is often due to:
- Content guilt (“I haven’t posted in weeks — I can’t just sell now, can I?”).
- Or the second or third gentle launch didn’t get any enrollments, so you took that as “don’t keep trying!”
- Or, you never set up an ongoing rhythm in the first place — just a one-off attempt, and then “life” happened…
May this post help unblock you, and inspire you to keep up a rhythm of gentle launches, because this is how you actually learn what your audience seeks most from you.
First, what is a “gentle launch”?
Just in case you’re newer here:
A gentle launch is to post 2 messages on social media (and your email newsletter) about your current service, upcoming program, or event. The tone is friendly-invitational, and heartfelt. No hype or pressure.
Something like: “I made this for [this type of person]. If it resonates, I warmly invite you to join, or ask me any questions about it. If not, no worries. Thank you for being here!”
It isn’t a “campaign” or a funnel. It’s simply, gently letting your people know what you’re offering right now.
Too few soulpreneurs do this on a regular basis!
What gentle launching is not
It’s not high-pressure, hypey-marketing, or tricky in any way.
It’s not the bait-and-switch where you tell a beautiful story about your life and then suddenly, at the end, “and that’s why you should hire me!” If you’re telling a story, just tell a story. If you’re selling, be upfront and warm about selling. Your readers will appreciate your authenticity.
But don’t “quality products sell themselves?” you might ask. Answer: that’s for commodities, in markets where benefits are well-known and people are shopping for “best” or “highest-rated” (think toothpaste or hotels). But our soulpreneur services are unique and non-mainstream. The market needs to be educated on the benefits, and the people who would most benefit need to be reminded that we exist… which is exactly why regular gentle launches matter.
The limiting beliefs that stop most gentle launches:
“My website is a mess… I haven’t blogged in a while… and I haven’t sent a newsletter in a long time! How can I launch something?”
The truth is that you can do a gentle launch anytime — even without ever having produced a single word of free content.
Why? Because you always have an audience. Friends, family, former colleagues, classmates, people you’ve met at workshops, and very importantly, the souls that they can introduce to your work.
Four reasons your audience actually wants to hear from you:
- They like you! For a moment, consider yourself as a client. Think of every acupuncturist, coach, healer, or mentor you’ve hired over the years. Would you mind getting a few emails a year from them about their new offers and whom it’s best for? Most of us would be glad to hear from them — and to know how we can support their work.
- They forgot what you do. Even our friends forget what we do for a living. They may think we just post helpful things on social media for fun… or that we’ve moved on to something else. A gentle launch is a useful reminder that we are still open for business.
- No “warm-up” is needed. The first message they hear from us after a year (or ten years!) of silence can simply be the announcement. We don’t need to “ease back in” with three thoughtful content posts before we’re “allowed” to sell. I sometimes get an email from a colleague or service provider I haven’t heard from in 10 years about what they’re offering now. I’m glad to know that they’re still doing the good work. Remember: people who know you, want to support you if they can. They just don’t know how! Give them the opportunity.
- The algorithm rewards the comeback. Social media algorithms reward us for coming back after silence. After weeks or months away, our next post often reaches more people, not fewer.
Keep realistic short-term expectations.
A 1% unsubscribe rate on an occasional newsletter is normal… even 2%, if you haven’t sent in a long time. Don’t fret. Those unsubscribers aren’t your ideal audience at this time… but they might come back to you after a while, or they might not, and that’s okay.
And, we shouldn’t expect a “yes” on the first gentle launch. By the 7th time someone sees an offer from us, they might finally consider it. Each gentle launch plants and nurtures a seed. Keep planting, keep watering, keep nurturing.
What’s yours to practice — the ART framework
Not every gentle launch will get us enrollments, and that doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong. Outcomes depend on a larger system, not on any single post or email broadcast.
I’ve written elsewhere about the three factors that determine enrollment results: the ART framework — Alignment (how well our offer matches what our audience actually wants right now), Reach (how many of the right people see our offer), and Trust (how much our audience trusts us and our expertise).
We can’t move any of those three in a single moment.
We build them over time, with consistent gentle launches.
The rhythm itself is how we learn what’s working, how we grow our audience, how we build trust over time, and how we keep the energy flowing back into our business.
Underneath the rhythm, try to keep practicing non-attachment. Sell humbly and warmly… then let the result be what it is… and then come back and do it again soon. The rhythm itself is the work, not the outcome of any single launch.
The two dates of an event-based gentle launch:
To get ready for an event-based gentle launch such as an FTA webinar, be mindful of these two dates.
The date of the event, of course, but also, go ahead and set the date of the announcement 1 or 2 weeks before the event.
The announcement date is the more important of the two. It anchors all the prep work that comes before it: the signup page, the confirmation email, the reminder emails, any other logistics. Between the announcement and the event itself, you’ll be sending a few gentle reminders to your audience, confirming signups, doing last-minute prep, and creating the content of the event itself.
The logistics minimum is small: a way for people to sign up (or message you), an automated confirmation, and at least one reminder email before the event. That’s really all you need.
“But my website isn’t ready!”
Don’t update your website. (Not yet, anyway.)
In my experience, people care about what they see in front of them on social media or email. They’re not going to make a decision mainly because your website’s not polished enough. Website-tweaking is one of the common (and highly seductive) delay tactics… because it feels like business-building work, but honestly after 17 years of helping solopreneurs do marketing, I keep coming back to this realization: our website isn’t what’s stopping our enrollments. See again the “ART” framework I mentioned above.
And on the related question of how often to create regular content: a healthy ratio is roughly 4 content posts to every 1 offer post (an 80/20 ratio). But this only kicks in once we’re already consistent.
Again, even if you’re not consistent in posting content yet, still please do your gentle launches! Launch rhythm first, content rhythm second.
7-step gentle launch you can do this month
Here’s one of the simplest gentle launches I know — a free small-group session on the topic of your service:
- Set a date a few weeks out for a free small-group session. No recording (it keeps things simpler, attendance is better, and the engagement is much more alive).
- Announce the event on social media. Cap it at 10 attendees. Ask people to comment or message you if they’d like to attend and whether there are spots left.
- Send the link to the post to a few friends in case they missed it and to help support the post if they’d like (by liking/commenting/sharing) but no pressure at all.
- When people respond, reply privately with the Zoom link, if spots are still available. (Sending the zoom link privately prevents Zoombombing.)
- A few hours before the event, send a reminder to the registrants, or automate this if you can.
- Towards the end of your event, mention your related service and ask them if there are any questions about it.
- Follow up afterward asking how they liked it, if they have a takeaway, and to mention again about your related service (can simply be a link to a public google doc).
That’s it. No funnel, no campaign, and certainly no website tweaking required!
“But every month feels like too much!”
…not if we frame the offer differently each time. This is a creativity practice — same offer, different doorway.
A couple of ways to vary the framing:
Variation set A — same offer, different doorways:
- The issue doorway: “If you’ve been struggling with [issue], I have a few openings this month for [service].”
- The transformation doorway: “A client told me yesterday that they finally [specific change]. We spent six weeks on [the work]. I’m opening up a few more spots.”
- The ‘who it’s for’ doorway: “I get asked this a lot: ‘Am I a good fit for this work?’ Here’s who I love working with most…”
Variation set B — same offer, different formats:
- Week 1: a short text post announcing the offer.
- Week 2: a 60-second video where you talk about who it’s for.
- Week 6: a behind-the-scenes post about how you came to do this work, with a quiet invitation at the end.
- Week 7: an invitation to a free Q&A on the topic, where you mention the offer at the end.
If you enjoy using AI you can have it brainstorm with you many different variations and doorways.
Between our launches, our audience is seeing hundreds of other posts. We’re not being repetitive to them, even when it feels repetitive to us. Always remember this.
A sustainable rhythm
Here’s a rhythm that works for many soulpreneurs:
- Social media: every month. A gentle launch (2 invitational messages) every month is sustainable, and again — between our launches, our audience is seeing hundreds of other posts, even if we post nothing else.
- Email newsletter: every 4 months. Even for a list that’s been quiet for a while, a humble and warm invitational email newsletter three times a year is certainly a reasonable cadence for people to hear from you.
Selling is the lifeblood of business.
Without it, the energy stops coming back to us — and not just financially. Without the rhythm of selling (via gentle launches), we slowly disconnect from those we’re meant to serve. Our work stops being for anyone in particular.
This is the part I most want you to take with you: the rhythm is the practice. Not the perfect post or email. Certainly not the polished website. And not expecting any breakthrough launch (even though occasionally it might happen!).
Simply have the willingness to show up, humbly, every month, to let our audience know we’re still happy to serve them.
Your turn…
If it’s been more than a month since your previous gentle launch, begin again.
Two messages. Warm humble invitational spirit. The same rhythm every month.
Begin again simply. Work lightly.
May your gentle launches feel less like “selling” and more like the natural rhythm of staying in relationship with the kindred spirits your work is for. May you trust the rhythm itself, more than any result. May this practice grow you, as much as it serves the people you’re here to help 🙏🏼🧡
If you’d like to experience my gentle launches, sign up for my launch newsletter at georgekao.com/invitations — no more than 2 emails per month.
This post was originally written in 2022 October. Fully updated in 2026 May.
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