Marketing Skills Guide

What this guide covers

Marketing with AI is not "write me a blog post." It is a repeatable skill stack: research, positioning, channel copy, creative variants, and measurement. This guide gives you the workflows, prompts, and checklists to run lean marketing as a solo operator or small team.

The five marketing skills to build

Skill	Output	Tooling
Audience research	ICP doc, pain quotes, objection list	Chat + web search
Positioning	One-liner, value props, differentiation	Claude or GPT with competitor URLs
Content engine	SEO briefs, drafts, repurposed snippets	Your CMS + AI editor
Paid creative	Ad headlines, hooks, A/B variants	Spreadsheet + batch prompts
Analytics loop	Weekly report, next experiments	GA4, Plausible, or PostHog + AI summary

Master one skill per week. Do not try to automate everything on day one.

Step 1 — Audience research (90 minutes)

Goal: A one-page Ideal Customer Profile you can paste into every future prompt.

1. Collect 10 customer reviews, Reddit threads, or competitor testimonials
2. Paste into your LLM with this template:

Extract from these sources:
- Top 5 pains (verbatim phrases)
- Top 5 desired outcomes
- Top 3 objections before buying
- Words they use (not jargon we use)
Format as bullet lists.

3. Save output as icp.md in your project repo
4. Validate with one real customer call if possible

Step 2 — Positioning canvas

Fill this before writing any landing page:

Product: [name]
For: [specific audience]
Who: [struggle]
Our product: [category]
That: [key benefit]
Unlike: [alternative]
We: [differentiator]
Proof: [metric, testimonial, or demo]

Turn the canvas into a homepage hero:

Headline: outcome in 8 words or fewer
Subhead: how you deliver it + for whom
CTA: one verb (Start, Get, Try)

Step 3 — SEO content brief template

Use before every article:

Target keyword: 
Search intent: (learn / compare / buy)
Title options (3):
Outline (H2s only):
Unique angle (what competitors miss):
Internal links to add:
CTA at end:
Word count target:

Generate the draft from the brief — not from the keyword alone. Brief-first writing beats prompt-first writing.

Step 4 — Ad and social variant factory

Batch-create variants in one session:

Product: [from positioning canvas]
Audience: [from ICP]
Platform: [LinkedIn / Meta / X]
Generate 10 hooks under 80 characters.
Generate 5 body copies under 150 words.
Tone: [direct / playful / technical]
Include one specific proof point per variant.

Log variants in a spreadsheet with columns: Hook | Body | Platform | Status | CTR | Notes.

Step 5 — Weekly marketing review

Every Friday, 30 minutes:

1. Export last week's traffic, signups, and top pages
2. Paste into AI with: "What worked, what didn't, and what should we test next week?"
3. Pick one experiment for the coming week (new headline, new channel, new lead magnet)
4. Document the result — even null results teach you

30-day rollout + folder structure

Week	Focus
1	ICP + positioning canvas
2	Homepage rewrite + one SEO brief
3	Email sequence (3 emails) + 20 ad variants
4	Analytics review + one experiment

Store assets in git under marketing/ (icp.md, positioning.md, briefs/, ad-variants.csv). Human-edit every AI draft before publish. Pick two channels max until one converts.