# Marketing

> Craft high-converting marketing using the verified direct-response canon — building and pricing offers, writing copy (headlines, ads, emails, sales and landing pages, VSLs), positioning and messaging products, and planning content and distribution. Use when the user wants to write or critique sales copy, create/sharpen/name/price an offer, position or differentiate a product, write a headline/hook/CTA, plan a launch or content strategy, improve conversion, or name a marketing framework. Also use to decide what a landing page should *say* — which sections it needs, how to generate content angles, and moves like "who this is NOT for", the cost of inaction, or answering "why pay if I can do it myself". Grounded in evidence-verified masters (Schwartz, Caples, Hopkins, Ogilvy, Hormozi, Dunford, Berger, Cialdini, Bernays) with every tactic graded by the strength of its actual evidence — not guru hype.

- Skill: `dy/marketing` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 8 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add dy/marketing`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/dy/marketing/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Marketing & Growth
- Author: DY (https://skillmd.com/u/dy)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/dy/marketing

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# Marketing

Persuasion that works, drawn from the operators and copywriters whose results are *independently verifiable* — not the loudest names. Every framework here survived an adversarial credibility-and-accuracy audit. Use them as procedures, not inspiration.

**Prime directive:** *You cannot create desire — you can only channel desire that already exists onto this product* (Schwartz). Marketing therefore starts with the prospect's existing wants, words, and beliefs — never with the product. Find the dominant desire already in the market; aim it at what you sell.

## The operating procedure

Work in this order. Skipping diagnosis is the #1 reason copy "sounds fine" and converts nothing.

1. **Research first** *(before any writing)* — Study the product and the prospect more than you write. Surface the single dominant desire, the exact language they use, what they've already tried, what they believe, and the objection they'll raise. (Ogilvy spent three weeks with the Rolls-Royce engineers before one word.) → tools in [references/copy.md](references/copy.md).
2. **Diagnose the market** — Pin two independent axes: **Awareness** (Unaware → Most-Aware) and **Sophistication** (how worn-out the market is from hearing the claim). Together they decide *what kind* of copy to write before you write it. → [references/copy.md](references/copy.md) (Diagnose).
3. **Position** — Choose the frame: the competitive alternative, your one ownable differentiated claim, and the market category that sets the buyer's yardstick. → [references/positioning.md](references/positioning.md).
4. **Build the offer** — Make the thing worth far more than its price (Value Equation), de-risk it (guarantee), enhance it (scarcity/urgency/bonuses), and name it. *A great offer beats great copy.* → [references/offers.md](references/offers.md).
5. **Plan the content** — Decide *what the page says* before how it says it: harvest the customer's own words, ladder every claim from attribute to the value it serves, generate angles systematically, then choose blocks by the objection each retires. → [references/content.md](references/content.md).
6. **Write** — Pick the structure that matches the awareness stage; lead with the headline (5× as many read it as the body); open the conversation already running in their mind; prove every claim with specifics; layer in persuasion primitives; make it slippery (every line earns the next); before sending, run the primal-brain packaging checklist (six stimuli — personal, contrast, tangible, beginning/end, visual, emotion). → [references/copy.md](references/copy.md) + [references/persuasion.md](references/persuasion.md). *Optional finishing pass:* once the copy is clear and converting, elevate **only** the parts where resonance matters — the headline, a manifesto, the brand line, the emotional peak — with the `eloquence` skill. Never the spec list, guarantee, or CTA mechanics; ornament there lowers response.
7. **Distribute** — Win the third-party authorities the crowd already trusts *before* shouting at the crowd — endorsement flows downhill (Bernays); put it in front of a *starving crowd* via the Core Four channels; engineer it to spread (STEPPS); remove resistance (REDUCE); follow up 6+ times. → [references/distribution.md](references/distribution.md) + [references/persuasion.md](references/persuasion.md) (Engineering Consent).
8. **Test & measure** — Two versions, keyed/tracked response, scale the winner. Opinions lose to split tests (Hopkins/Caples).

## The laws (override any tactic)

- **Channel existing desire; don't manufacture it.** Enter the conversation already happening in their head (Collier).
- **Specificity beats superlatives.** "Softens the beard in one minute" beats "amazing." Exact numbers, named proof, concrete nouns (Hopkins, Berger).
- **Proof before promises.** Trust and belief are the toll gates every persuasion passes through; lead with proof when the market is skeptical (Bencivenga).
- **One reader, one big idea.** Write to a single person and carry one dominant emotion/idea per piece.
- **Clarity beats cleverness.** Confused people don't buy. Plain, grade-school language.
- **Match the message to the stage.** A price headline for an Unaware market converts zero; a story lead for a Most-Aware buyer wastes them (Schwartz).
- **Honesty is the long game.** Never fake proof or independence — it's the difference between a 40-year career and an FTC order (the Sugarman cautionary tale). Substance first; *truthful, attractive, then famous* — in that causal order.

## When to read what

| The task | Open |
|---|---|
| Headlines, ads, emails, sales/landing pages, VSLs, any copy | [references/copy.md](references/copy.md) |
| What a page should *say* — content strategy, page blocks, generating angles, "who this is NOT for" | [references/content.md](references/content.md) |
| Live/synchronous selling — demos, webinars, sales calls, livestreams | [references/copy.md](references/copy.md) (The Live-Commerce Close) |
| Create / price / name / de-risk an offer; bundles; lead magnets | [references/offers.md](references/offers.md) |
| Position, differentiate, or message a product or category | [references/positioning.md](references/positioning.md) |
| Content strategy, channels, virality, lead gen, follow-up | [references/distribution.md](references/distribution.md) |
| Persuasion principles to layer into anything above; final message-packaging checklist (primal-brain stimuli) | [references/persuasion.md](references/persuasion.md) |
| Elevate the resonant parts — manifesto, brand line, emotional peak | the `eloquence` skill (optional finishing pass, after copy converts) |
| Who to trust, who to discount, and why | [EXPERTS.md](EXPERTS.md) |

## Stance on sources

Built on the verified canon. Famous frameworks that did **not** survive the audit are kept as *tools, not authorities*: StoryBrand's SB7 is a fine homepage wireframe but yields samey messaging; Godin is strategy, not execution; the "22 Immutable Laws" are hypotheses, not laws. Ignore unverified guru revenue claims — trust acquisitions, third-party records, peer-reviewed studies, and campaign longevity. Details in [EXPERTS.md](EXPERTS.md).