Marketing workshop

What it is for

Before choosing channels, agree on who you need to reach and what you can honestly say to them. A campaign can be beautifully produced and still leave someone wondering whether the product is for them.

This session connects the audience, message, and place they will encounter it. Bring examples of what has worked and what has not. Leave with a campaign you can test and a reason for each part of it.

Who hears what, where — claims, audiences, and channels.

Tools, in order

Here is where each tool helps. Use an equivalent you already work with if it fits the task and your project’s access requirements.

1. 01

   Before the session

   Notion · Paper or a shared workshop board

   Bring customer language, objections, channel evidence, and proof for important claims. Put the decision you need on the first page. Agree on recording, transcription, access, and retention with everyone before starting; handwritten notes are a valid alternative.

   Carry forward A brief, a prepared board, and an agreed capture method.

2. 02

   In the room

   Notion AI Meeting Notes · Paper or a shared workshop board · Phone camera

   Use the recorder to support listening, not to replace a facilitator. Separate what you want to promise from what you can support; connect each message to an audience. Write decisions and disagreements visibly; photograph the boards with permission. Pause recording whenever someone asks.

   Carry forward Authorized source notes, a transcript if agreed, and labeled board photos.

3. 03

   After the session

   Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok · Notion

   Check speaker names, quotations, numbers, and apparent agreements against the sources. Ask an assistant to draft a message hierarchy with evidence and a channel-specific brief, with a source ID for each decision and a separate list of open questions. Have participants correct the record before using it as a brief.

   Carry forward a message hierarchy with evidence and a channel-specific brief

Review the work with partners

We make and revise the work with Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok, then put selected versions on our Studio project pages for partners to review. Check the preview before sharing it. You can do the same with a private prototype or shared document; use a workspace that can access the files you need.

Name the version, say what changed, and ask the question you need answered. Keep feedback with that version and discuss conflicting requests before making the next changes. Confirm approval separately, and keep confidential work in a restricted space.

Delegate the routine work

Turn verified notes into a source-linked table, label board photos, or format the agreed action list. Give the agent only the relevant excerpts and a completed example.

Interpreting disagreement, choosing a direction, and deciding what participants actually approved stay with the facilitator and decision owner.

Sequence prompts, then delegateChoose a model for the design task

Prepare the room

2 × 90 min

Get whoever writes, sells, or answers for the company: marketing, sales, founders, and the person who hears customer objections all day.

A small group works fine here. What matters is that sales and marketing are in the same room when the claims get sorted.

• The same kit: 90 minutes, whiteboards, stickies, Sharpies.
• Bring the evidence: won and lost deal notes, actual customer quotes, competitor pages printed out. Claims get checked against these in phase two.
• Set the frame: we're deciding what to say and to whom, not designing campaigns yet.

Step 1 · 30–45 min

Claims & audiences brainstorm

Use two sticky colors. First: every claim the company could make — capabilities, outcomes, differences, prices, proofs. 'Live in a week', 'no per-seat pricing', 'we answer the phone'. Second: every audience that might care, named specifically ('the ops lead who inherited the tool', not 'SMBs').

Include the uncomfortable claims: the ones competitors make, the ones sales makes that marketing wouldn't. Objections count as negative claims, so put them up too.

Ten-minute rounds until two minutes of silence.

Step 2 · 30–45 min

True and not us

Two sides: True (we can prove this today, with evidence in the room) and Not us (we can't, or wouldn't want to). Place every claim. An aspirational claim goes to Not us with a date attached; unproven counts as untrue for marketing purposes.

Most of the session goes to the discussions this sorting causes. When a claim won't settle:

Photograph the board and keep the True side. That's the raw material for every message.

When a claim gets stuck

• Ask for the proof — a named customer, a number, a screenshot. No proof, no claim.
• Invert it — if the opposite is something nobody would ever say ('we don't care about quality'), the claim is empty.
• Separate the claim from the wish — put a date on wishes and park them.
• Ask which competitors could say the same — if all of them can, it differentiates nothing.
• Skip it — a sharper claim later often absorbs it.

Step 3 · 30–45 min

Message mapping

Second session. Put the audiences across the top of the board and cluster the True claims under the audience they matter to. Claims that matter to nobody come down; claims that apply to everyone are usually too generic to lead with.

For each audience, order its claims: the one that opens the conversation, the ones that support it, the proof that closes. Note the main objection each audience raises and pin the claim that answers it directly beneath.

Step 4 · 30–45 min

Distilling into the hierarchy

Transpose into a document: per audience — the lead message, supporting claims with their proofs, the objection and its answer. Limit it to four claims per audience so it stays usable.

Then match channels: for each audience, where do they already pay attention, and assign messages to channels, not the other way around. Close with tone anchors in the comparison format so everything written afterwards sounds like the same company.

Anchor examples

• More like a good engineer explaining than a keynote
• More like The Economist than BuzzFeed
• More like a chef's menu than a supermarket flyer

What comes out

• A message hierarchy per audience with proof attached to every claim, the objection answers, a channel shortlist, and tone anchors.
• Site copy, campaigns, sales decks, and lifecycle email all get written from this document instead of from scratch.

Leave the next person enough to work with

Write down what was decided and why, with links to the notes or examples behind it. Keep the open questions alongside the decisions. Someone joining the project should be able to tell which is which without asking you.

Project: [name]
Input sources: [references and permission]
Approved decisions: [choice, rationale, owner]
Assumptions: [what remains untested]
Open questions: [question, owner, due date]
Acceptance checks: [observable pass/fail criteria]
Next step: [person or workflow]
Approval: [name, date, version]

Before you move on

• Can someone who was not in the room understand the result?
• Are claims supported by evidence, with uncertainty labeled?
• Has the responsible person approved the decisions—not just received the document?
• Have you removed private information and checked rights to any assets?

If the summary says something was agreed and you cannot find that agreement in the notes, ask the person who decides before carrying it into the next task.