Executive Marketing

---
name: executive-marketing
description: Make executive go-to-market, positioning, channel, funnel, brand and retention decisions by connecting customer evidence and channel economics to revenue.
---

# Executive Marketing

Use this skill for positioning, ICP, go-to-market, channel allocation, demand generation, brand strategy, launch sequencing, funnel economics, customer marketing and executive communications strategy.

Marketing activity is not the objective. The objective is a **specific customer behavior and economic result**.

## Start with the customer and alternative

Establish:

- best-fit customer / ICP;
- job/problem and urgency;
- current alternative or status quo;
- why the product is meaningfully better for that customer;
- buying process and decision maker;
- price/value perception;
- distribution/channel access;
- conversion path and current bottleneck;
- retention/repurchase/expansion behavior where relevant.

If customers cannot explain the value in language close to the intended positioning, treat message-market fit as unproven.

## Positioning before tactics

A useful positioning statement identifies:

- who the product is best for;
- what alternative it replaces or beats;
- differentiated value;
- credible proof;
- category/context that makes the value understandable.

Do not compensate for weak positioning by multiplying channels or content volume.

## Funnel economics

Map the actual path to revenue rather than reporting isolated marketing metrics.

Depending on the business, inspect:

- reach/impressions -> visit;
- visit -> qualified lead/product view;
- lead/view -> cart/trial/demo;
- cart/trial/demo -> purchase/close;
- purchase -> repeat/renew/expand/referral;
- CAC / contribution / payback by channel or cohort.

Use channel-specific economics. Blended averages can hide both winners and money pits.

## Channel decisions

For each serious channel, evaluate:

- customer presence/intent;
- expected reach and conversion;
- creative/content requirement;
- marginal CAC and contribution;
- speed to learning;
- scalability/saturation;
- platform dependency;
- attribution confidence;
- operational capacity to fulfill demand.

Cut or redesign a channel when its economics cannot credibly reach the target payback/strategic objective. Do not keep spend because the top-line dashboard looks active.

## Brand vs demand

Treat brand and demand as different investment horizons, not enemies.

- Demand capture/generation should connect to near-term pipeline/revenue evidence.
- Brand can improve future conversion, pricing power, salience and direct demand but usually needs longer-horizon evidence.
- Early/constrained companies should know which spend is expected to pay back now and which is a deliberate longer-horizon bet.

Do not label unmeasured generic awareness activity “brand strategy.”

## Launch sequencing

Prefer staged learning when the product/message is not yet proven:

- internal/alpha where useful;
- design partners or tightly chosen early users;
- measured beta/limited release;
- wider launch when core assumptions survive evidence.

A big launch cannot rescue weak retention or an unclear customer problem.

## Retention and customer marketing

Acquisition economics are incomplete without downstream behavior. Inspect:

- repeat purchase / renewal;
- cohort retention;
- expansion/upsell;
- refund/return/churn;
- referral/organic pull;
- customer support or fulfillment friction.

Pair with `executive-product` when retention points to product value/onboarding problems rather than channel quality.

## Decision method

1. Define the customer behavior/revenue outcome.
2. Clarify ICP, alternative and positioning.
3. Find the binding funnel/channel constraint with evidence.
4. Compare channel/message/offer options by economics and learning speed.
5. Choose a prioritized sequence rather than “do everything.”
6. Define experiment, budget/exposure, success/failure threshold and review date.
7. Feed validated learning back into positioning and product.

Use `marketing-and-growth` for deeper campaign/copy/CRO execution when needed. Use `executive-finance` for capital allocation and payback sensitivity, and `executive-operations` when fulfillment/ops limits growth.

## Current-source rule

Platform algorithms, ad products, privacy rules, competitor offers and channel economics change. Use current first-party/platform data and authoritative sources when those details materially affect the recommendation.

## Failure modes

Avoid:

- “everyone” as ICP;
- copying competitor tactics without their economics/context;
- optimizing CTR while purchase/retention is broken;
- blended CAC hiding channel losses;
- big-bang launches before message/product evidence;
- starving product/ops fixes while increasing acquisition spend;
- attributing all growth to the last-click channel;
- brand activity with no strategic thesis or learning plan.

## Provenance

Original Agentit guidance materially informed by the marketing specialist design and GTM heuristics in Sente Labs' OpenExecutive (Apache-2.0), including positioning-before-tactics and revenue-linked decision framing. See `THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md`.