Agent: Campaign Strategist

This is Part 8 of a 16-part series on building your AI VP of Marketing with Claude Cowork. Previous: Meet Your Agents | Next: Agent: Content Repurposer

What We Are Building

You saw Agents in action in Article 7. You gave your VP a competitor analysis task, watched it research autonomously, and got back a structured positioning matrix. That was an agent doing multi-step work on its own.

Now you build your own.

A content brief tells you what to write. A campaign plan tells you how to get that writing in front of your audience. The Campaign Strategist agent takes a content brief -- the kind you have been generating with the Skill from Article 5 -- and produces a plan that covers:

• Audience segments: Who specifically are you targeting, and how do you reach each group differently?
• Messaging angles: What is the core argument for each segment? What pain point does it press on?
• Calls to action: What do you want each segment to do after seeing the content?
• Timeline: When does each piece go live, and in what order?
• Channel allocation: Which platforms carry which messages? LinkedIn for the thought leadership angle, email for the direct pitch, blog for the long-form case.
• Budget allocation: If you are spending money, where does each dollar go? If you are not, where does your time go?

Without this agent, this thinking either does not happen or stays incomplete in your head -- audience segments you never wrote down, timing you meant to stagger but forgot, channels you defaulted to out of habit. The Campaign Strategist codifies that thinking into a repeatable process. Feed it a brief, get back a plan.

Build with /skill-creator

You know how Skills work from Article 5, and you know how /skill-creator speeds up the build from Article 6. Agents use the same creation flow -- /skill-creator handles both.

Open your Cowork project and run:

/skill-creator

When Cowork asks what you want to build, paste the following:

Build a Campaign Strategist agent that takes a content brief as input and
produces a complete marketing campaign plan.

The agent should:

1. Read the content brief and extract the topic, target audience, key
   messages, CTA, and content format.

2. Break the target audience into 2-4 specific segments based on the
   business context in CLAUDE.md. Each segment should have a name,
   a one-sentence description, and the primary channel where that
   segment is most reachable.

3. For each segment, write a messaging angle: the specific argument
   or value proposition that resonates with that group. Each angle
   should connect to a pain point from the brief's key messages.

4. Define a specific CTA for each segment. "Learn more" is not
   acceptable. Each CTA should tell the reader exactly what to do
   and what they get from doing it.

5. Create a timeline that sequences content publication across
   channels over 1-2 weeks. Specify exact days (Day 1, Day 3, etc.)
   and which channel fires on each day.

6. Allocate effort across channels. For each channel, specify:
   the content format, estimated time to produce, and expected
   reach relative to other channels.

7. Apply all brand voice rules from .claude/rules/brand-voice.md
   to the messaging angles and CTAs.

8. Present the campaign plan in a structured format with clear
   sections for Segments, Messaging, CTAs, Timeline, and
   Channel Allocation.

The agent should ask clarifying questions if the brief is missing
audience information or if the business context in CLAUDE.md does
not specify active marketing channels.

Cowork walks you through a few clarifying questions -- the name of the agent, where to save it, whether it needs file access. Accept the defaults or adjust based on your project structure. The agent definition lands in your project's .claude/agents/ directory.

The agent exists. But a definition without a test run is just a document. Time to feed it something real.

Feed It a Brief

Pull up a content brief. If you built the Content Brief Generator Skill in Article 5, run it now to produce a fresh one. If you are working from scratch, here is a sample brief for Tideway Bookkeeping (the fictional business from Article 1):

## Content Brief: Tax Season Prep Guide

**Topic**: Helping freelancers prepare for tax season without panic
**Target Audience**: Freelance designers, developers, and writers earning
$75K-$250K who handle their own bookkeeping
**Key Messages**:
- Tax prep does not need to start in March. Small habits throughout the
  year prevent the annual scramble.
- Categorized transactions save hours at tax time. If your books are
  current, tax prep is a 30-minute task.
- Tideway clients spend an average of 20 minutes on tax prep versus
  the freelancer average of 8 hours.
**CTA**: Start a free trial to get tax-ready books before next quarter
**Format**: Blog post (800-1200 words)
**SEO Keywords**: freelance tax prep, freelancer bookkeeping, tax season
  preparation for self-employed

Now run the Campaign Strategist agent against this brief. In Cowork, start a new conversation and say:

Run the Campaign Strategist agent on the following content brief:
[paste the brief above]

The agent works through the brief step by step. It reads your CLAUDE.md for business context, checks your brand voice rules, and produces a campaign plan. Depending on complexity, this takes 30 seconds to two minutes.

Here is what the output looks like -- not verbatim, but the structure you should expect:

Audience Segments

Messaging Angles

Panicked Procrastinators: "Tax season is not the problem. The eleven months of ignored receipts are the problem. Here is how to fix it in 20 minutes a week so next April is boring instead of terrifying."

Reluctant DIYers: "You are already doing the work. You are just doing it the hard way. Automated categorization turns your 8-hour tax prep into 20 minutes."

Referral Candidates: "You spent 20 minutes on tax prep last year. Your freelancer friends spent 8 hours. Send them this -- they will thank you."

CTAs

• Procrastinators: "Start your free trial today and have categorized books before Q2 closes."
• DIYers: "See what automated bookkeeping looks like -- import your last month of transactions in 5 minutes."
• Referral Candidates: "Share your referral link and you both get a free month."

Timeline

Channel Allocation

Your version will reflect your business, your channels, and your audience. The structure is what matters: segments tied to messaging tied to CTAs tied to a timeline. Every element connects to the one before it.

Review the Campaign Plan

The agent did the thinking. Now you do the judging. A campaign plan that looks complete can still be wrong in ways that require human knowledge to catch. Run through these checks before you act on anything.

Are the segments actionable?

Each segment should describe a group you can actually reach through a specific channel. "Young professionals interested in personal finance" is a demographic description, not a segment. "Freelancers searching Google for tax prep help" is actionable -- it tells you where to find them and what they are looking for when you do.

If a segment does not suggest a channel, it is not a segment. Push the agent to be more specific:

The "Growth-Minded Professionals" segment is too vague. Break it into
groups I can actually target on a specific platform. Who are they, where
do they hang out online, and what are they searching for?

Are the CTAs specific?

Every CTA should pass the "what happens when I click" test. "Learn more" fails. "Get started" fails. "Start a free trial and import your last month of transactions" passes -- the reader knows exactly what action they are taking and what they get immediately.

Check the CTAs against your approval criteria from Article 4. Your rules already define what a good CTA looks like. The agent should have applied those rules. If it did not, that is a signal the agent definition needs tightening.

Is the timeline realistic?

Look at the timeline against your actual capacity. The agent does not know that you have a product launch next week, or that your email list is too small for a segmented campaign, or that you only have time to write one LinkedIn post this week. The agent plans for an ideal scenario. You adjust for reality.

Common timeline issues to watch for:

• Too compressed: Publishing on three channels in three days sounds efficient until you realize each piece needs drafting, review, and scheduling.
• Wrong sequence: The blog post should usually go first because other channels reference it. If the agent scheduled email before the blog exists, reorder.
• Missing dependencies: A referral campaign only works if you have a referral mechanism built. If you do not, that campaign needs to move to a future cycle.

Iterate

The first output is rarely the final plan. Review is a conversation, not a verdict. Tell the agent what to fix:

The timeline is too aggressive -- I can only produce content for two
channels per week. Restructure the plan over three weeks instead of ten
days. Keep the same segments and messaging, just spread the execution.

Or:

The LinkedIn messaging angle for Reluctant DIYers sounds too salesy. It
should match our brand voice -- practical and specific, not pushy. Rewrite
it so it reads like advice from a peer, not a pitch from a vendor.

The agent revises and presents the updated plan. Repeat until the plan reflects what you will actually execute. A campaign plan you do not follow is a document, not a plan.

# Campaign Strategist

You are a Campaign Strategist agent for {{business_name}}. Your job is to
transform content briefs into complete marketing campaign plans.

## Input
You receive a content brief containing: topic, target audience, key
messages, CTA, and content format.

## Process
1. Read the brief. Extract topic, audience, messages, CTA, and format.
2. Reference CLAUDE.md for business context and active channels.
3. Reference .claude/rules/brand-voice.md for voice constraints.
4. Break the audience into 2-4 actionable segments. Each segment must
   have a name, a one-sentence description, and a primary channel.
5. Write a messaging angle for each segment. Each angle must connect
   to a specific pain point from the brief's key messages.
6. Define a specific CTA for each segment. Generic CTAs are not
   acceptable. Each CTA specifies the action and the immediate value.
7. Create a 1-2 week timeline with specific days and channels.
8. Allocate effort: format, estimated time, and expected reach per channel.

## Output Format
Present the plan with these sections:
- Audience Segments (table: name, description, primary channel)
- Messaging Angles (one paragraph per segment)
- CTAs (one per segment, specific and actionable)
- Timeline (table: day, channel, action)
- Channel Allocation (table: channel, format, time, reach)

## Rules
- Apply brand voice rules to all messaging and CTAs
- If the brief is missing audience information, ask before proceeding
- If CLAUDE.md does not specify active channels, ask before proceeding
- Never use banned vocabulary from brand-voice.md

Use the campaign-strategist agent to create a campaign plan for
this content brief: [paste your brief]

What is Next

You have an agent that turns briefs into campaign plans. But a campaign plan calls for content across multiple channels and formats. That blog post from the plan needs a LinkedIn teaser, an email summary, and maybe a newsletter blurb. You are not going to write each one from scratch.

In Article 9, you build the Content Repurposer agent -- an agent that takes one approved piece of content and transforms it into every format your campaign plan calls for. One blog post becomes a LinkedIn post, an email campaign, an ad headline, and a newsletter blurb. Same message, different shapes, all in your brand voice.

The Campaign Strategist tells you what to publish and where. The Content Repurposer produces the variations. Together, they turn a single content brief into a full campaign -- planned, written, and ready for review.

This is Part 8 of 16 in the Your AI VP of Marketing series. Previous: Meet Your Agents | Next: Agent: Content Repurposer