Plan a Marketing Campaign

Produce a campaign plan the team can actually approve and execute.

Research enough to make the plan credible. Do not return a generic template or a list of unanswered questions and call that a campaign strategy.

1. Define the campaign decision

Establish:

• business outcome;
• marketing objective;
• audience;
• offer or product;
• market;
• timing;
• budget range;
• required channels;
• constraints;
• decision the plan must support.

Determine the campaign shape:

• product launch;
• always-on program;
• event;
• lifecycle campaign;
• experiment;
• promotional campaign;
• another defined campaign type.

Use available:

• business goals;
• brand guidance;
• audience research;
• prior campaigns;
• channel benchmarks;
• customer evidence;
• approved product information.

Ask only about gaps that could materially change the campaign direction.

2. Ground strategy in evidence

When the audience is unclear or poorly supported, route to audience research.

When competitor positioning or activity could materially affect the campaign, route to competitor analysis.

For smaller evidence gaps, research directly and preserve source references.

Separate:

• current facts;
• team assumptions;
• platform estimates;
• previous campaign results;
• hypotheses.

Check whether the campaign objective can plausibly contribute to the stated business outcome.

Confirm that required proof either exists or can realistically be created.

3. Resolve the central proposition

If the campaign proposition is genuinely unsettled, present a small number of meaningfully different directions.

For each, show:

• evidence;
• tradeoffs;
• audience fit;
• implications.

Do not manufacture multiple options when one direction is already clearly supported.

4. Build the campaign strategy

Create a coherent plan covering:

Business and campaign goals

Define:

• business outcome;
• campaign objective;
• success measure.

Audience

Explain:

• target audience;
• situation;
• needs;
• evidence behind the choice.

Proposition and message

Define:

• proposition;
• message;
• proof;
• offer;
• CTA.

Channel roles

For each channel, clarify whether it supports:

• discovery;
• consideration;
• conversion;
• retention;
• reactivation;
• another specific role.

Choose channels because they fit:

• audience;
• behavior;
• message;
• objective.

Do not include channels only because they appear in a standard campaign template.

Required assets and operations

Identify:

• content;
• design;
• landing pages;
• technical setup;
• operational support;
• product dependencies.

Timing and ownership

Include:

• sequence;
• milestones;
• owners;
• approvals;
• dependencies.

Budget assumptions

State:

• available budget;
• spend assumptions;
• cost constraints;
• assumptions affecting economics.

Measurement

Define:

• metrics;
• baseline;
• attribution approach;
• reporting cadence;
• decision points.

Risks and stop conditions

Document:

• risks;
• open questions;
• conditions that should cause adjustment;
• conditions that should stop the campaign.

5. Validate campaign coherence

Check that these elements tell one consistent story:

• audience;
• proposition;
• offer;
• channels;
• assets;
• timing;
• budget;
• measurement.

Look for:

• unsupported claims;
• unclear ownership;
• missing dependencies;
• conflicting dates;
• unmeasurable objectives;
• attribution gaps;
• production requirements beyond team capacity;
• operational bottlenecks.

6. Deliver the decision-ready plan

Provide:

• executive summary;
• decisions already made;
• decisions still required;
• source-backed evidence;
• complete campaign plan;
• assumptions;
• owners;
• dependencies;
• measurement;
• risks.

Keep consequential source links close to the claims they support.

The plan should be ready for approval without being artificially polished past unresolved decisions.

7. Stop at the campaign-planning boundary

This skill stops before:

• configuring platforms;
• launching;
• publishing;
• contacting people;
• changing spend.

Those actions require separate approval and execution workflows.

After approval:

• route channel and message requirements into the content-plan workflow;
• route a specific approved asset into the content-creation workflow.

8. Maintain scoped permission

Follow active permission for every:

• data source;
• account;
• client;
• destination;
• action.

Draft or ask when authority is insufficient.

Stop when:

• account identity changes;
• destination changes;
• campaign scope changes;
• expected impact changes materially;
• sensitive data handling changes.

Verify external actions when possible.

9. Preserve the reusable method

When useful, preserve:

• accepted goals;
• assumptions;
• measurement definitions;
• owners;
• review points;
• planning structure.

Do not automate launch decisions merely because campaign planning occurs repeatedly.