What this lesson covers
How do I turn ambition into goals I can measure?
- Demand capture vs. demand creation: the decision that sets the channel mix
- SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) marketing objectives
- Capacity and seasonality: marketing to fill slow periods, not only to grow
- KPIs (key performance indicators) across the customer journey, including calls, bookings and store visits
- Budgets and resource choices
- Choosing the marketing stack: all-in-one platforms vs. specialist tools, total cost including pay-per-use AI, who owns the data and how to leave
- The one-page digital marketing strategy
- Aligning AI tools to the plan: deciding which tasks and customer moments to hand to AI agents and which to keep human
Why this matters now
Placeholder for the lesson's opening story: a vivid, real moment where a marketer or small-business owner meets this exact problem.
You can now
Turn a goal into SMART objectives and KPIs, and fit the whole marketing plan on one page.
For your own business or employer: Agree on what success means, and how you'll measure it, before the work starts.
Industry case studies
Industry Case
Tepary Kitchen
Local restaurant · Local and offline
Case update 3.3
Module 3 of 8 in this case
Market the empty seats
Most businesses set goals by asking how much more they want to sell. Rosa asks a different question: where are the empty seats?
On Friday and Saturday, there aren't any. More marketing on a full night just makes the wait longer, and the wait is already costing her reviews. Tuesday and Wednesday sit at 35%. And every summer, from June to September, sales fall about 25%.
The rent, the staff and the mesquite fire cost the same on an empty Tuesday as a full Saturday. That's why an empty seat is the cheapest growth Tepary will ever find.
So the objective is built around capacity: raise Tuesday and Wednesday occupancy from 35% to 55% within six months, and hold summer sales flat with last year. Twenty points across two nights is roughly 40 more guests a night, at a $29 average check, about $2,300 a week. Because the fixed costs are already paid, most of it, after food cost, is profit.
Two more goals follow from 1.1 and 2.1: shift 30% of delivery-app orders to direct ordering, and build an opted-in club of 3,000 guests, the list that makes the weeknight neighbors measurable at last.
Is this demand capture or demand creation? Both. Some guests are already searching for Sonoran food tonight. The Tuesday regulars of next year don't know yet that Tuesday is the best night to come.
The KPIs fit on one line: Tuesday and Wednesday covers, direct-order share, club members, summer sales versus last year.
Artifact added
One-page strategy: goals set by capacity and season
Industry Case
Bajada Plumbing & Drain
Local home service · Demand capture
Case update 3.3
Module 3 of 8 in this case
Win the moment of need
Nobody wants a plumber until they need one, and then they need one right now. That makes Bajada's strategic choice easy: demand capture. The demand already exists every night in the six zip codes. Bajada's job is to be found and to answer.
The KPIs follow the journey from 1.3: answer 95% of calls, 24/7; reach the map 3-pack for “emergency plumber” and “water heater repair”; 150 reviews at 4.7 stars; cut the marketplace share of jobs from 35% to 20%; sign 250 Bajada Care members; and know the source and cost of every booked job.
Capacity matters here too. Summer brings the emergencies. The cooler months are when the trucks sit idle, so that's when Bajada will push planned water heater and softener upgrades.
Artifact added
One-page strategy: demand capture, with KPIs from the first ring to the finished job
Industry Case
Ocotillo & Ash
DTC fashion · Demand creation
Case update 3.3
Module 3 of 8 in this case
Nobody is searching for us yet
Nobody types “heat-smart linen from a brand I've never heard of” into a search bar. Andrea doesn't know Ocotillo & Ash exists until something stops her scroll. That makes Lena's strategy demand creation: content, creators and ads that make people want something they weren't looking for.
Demand creation can burn money fast, so the KPIs are about profit, not order counts: first-order ROAS of at least 2.5, above the 2.2 break-even; acquisition cost at or under $44; returns down from 22% to 14%; repeat buyers up from 25% to 35%; and an email and SMS list of 15,000.
Hot-climate season runs from March to October. Lena circles one weekend in late June for the first full-price launch of the year.
Artifact added
One-page strategy: demand creation, with profit-first KPIs
Package it, price it, promise carefully
Package your services. Describe the scope and deliverables in plain words: what is included, what isn't and what the client must provide. Vague scope is where most client disputes start.
Choose a pricing model. Hourly, per project, a monthly retainer or performance-based pay. Each shifts risk differently: performance pay aligns your incentives with the client's, but results also depend on things you don't control, such as who answers the phone.
Write the proposal. A proposal or statement of work states the goal, scope, timeline, price, what the client provides and how you'll report.
Setting expectations. Agree on objectives and KPIs (3.3) before the work starts, and say plainly what you can't promise: a ranking, a viral post or an exact return on ad spend.
Listen
Podcast · Move at the Speed of Culture
The Culture Gap in Your Marketing Strategy
Listen for why a data-driven plan can still miss, and what your one-page strategy should account for beyond the numbers.
More from Move at the Speed of Culture →
Listen online: moveatthespeedofculture.com/culture-gap-marketing-strategy
Key terms
- AI agent: Software that uses AI to carry out a task on its own within set limits, such as answering a call, replying to a message or booking an appointment, rather than only suggesting text for a person to send.
- AI tool alignment: Choosing AI tools because they serve a specific step in the plan, not because they are new or popular.
- All-in-one platform: A single marketing platform that combines the CRM, email, texting, forms, scheduling, automation and reporting, instead of connecting separate specialist tools.
- Capacity: How much work a business can handle at one time: tables, technicians, appointments or inventory. Marketing should fill capacity, not overwhelm it.
- Channel mix: The combination of marketing channels a business uses and how it splits its time and budget among them.
- Data portability: The ability to export a business's customer data and history from one platform and move it to another.
- Demand capture: Marketing that meets people who already know they need something and are looking for it, such as search ads, map listings and SEO.
- Demand creation: Marketing that makes people want something they weren't looking for yet, such as social content, video, creator partnerships and display ads. Also called demand generation.
- KPI (key performance indicator): A number chosen to track progress toward an objective, such as calls answered, cost per booked job or repeat purchase rate.
- Marketing budget: The money and resources set aside for marketing over a period, and how they are split across channels.
- Marketing objective: A specific result the marketing plan is designed to achieve, such as more booked jobs, new subscribers or higher repeat purchases.
- Marketing stack: The set of software tools a business uses for marketing and customer relationships, and the way data moves between them. Also called the martech stack.
- One-page strategy: A single page that summarizes the target customer, positioning, objectives, channel mix, budget and KPIs, so everyone works from the same plan.
- Seasonality: Predictable rises and falls in demand during the year, week or day.
- SMART objective: An objective that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
- Usage-based pricing: Pricing that charges for each use, such as per call minute, per AI resolution or per credit, instead of a flat monthly fee.