Marketing Strategy

When to use

• Before any hero copy, wireframe, or section is built — positioning runs first; a page built without it reads as generic and could belong to any competitor.
• When mapping a traffic source (cold ads, SEO, retargeting, brand search, email) to an awareness stage, so the page structure matches what that visitor already knows.
• When defining the offer itself: lead offer vs. core offer vs. order bump, pricing-tier presentation, and the page's single conversion goal.
• Before handing copy off to whoever writes it — package a message hierarchy, not adjectives or a mood board.
• After a first draft exists — audit every section against "does this earn its place"; run this as a build gate, not a nice-to-have.

Rules

Positioning exercise (Dunford 5-step, run in order)

1. [FRAMEWORK] Run Dunford's 5-step positioning exercise in exact order before writing any hero copy: (1) list every true competitive alternative — what the visitor would do/buy/use if this product didn't exist, including "do nothing"/spreadsheet/manual process, not just named direct competitors; (2) list the unique attributes/capabilities the product has that those alternatives don't; (3) translate each attribute into customer-facing value ("attribute X means you get outcome Y"); (4) name the specific characteristics of the best-fit customer who cares most about that value (role, company size, trigger event — not "everyone"); (5) pick the market category that makes the value obvious on first read. Output one reconciled positioning statement, not five orphaned lists. — aprildunford.com
2. [FRAMEWORK] Treat step 1 as failed if the competitive-alternatives list has fewer than 2 entries or omits "do nothing"/status quo — most weak positioning traces to skipping straight to a feature comparison against 1-2 obvious direct competitors. — aprildunford.com
3. [FRAMEWORK] Pressure-test the market-category choice (step 5) with a swap test: reread the headline with a much broader category label substituted, then a much narrower one. If the headline still basically makes sense either way, the category is too vague to anchor the reader's comparison set — return to step 5. — aprildunford.com
4. [FRAMEWORK] Require the exercise as a written artifact — a 5-row positioning canvas, one row per step — checked in alongside the creative brief before wireframes start, not a discussion that stays verbal. — aprildunford.com (5-component structure confirmed directly; the full 10-step book process is not independently verified — see copy-strategy.md Open Questions)

Awareness stage → page structure (Schwartz)

5. [FRAMEWORK] Identify the primary traffic source's awareness stage before drafting anything, using Schwartz's five stages: Unaware (doesn't know they have the problem) → Problem-Aware (knows the problem, not the solution category) → Solution-Aware (knows the solution category, not the product) → Product-Aware (knows the product, hasn't decided) → Most-Aware (knows the product, needs only the offer/reason to act now). Default mapping by channel: cold social/display ≈ Unaware/Problem-Aware; SEO/content ≈ Problem/Solution-Aware; competitor-comparison search/retargeting ≈ Product-Aware; brand search/email list/returning cart ≈ Most-Aware. — kingeshop.com / Schwartz, Breakthrough Advertising (source page unreachable this research pass; stage model and mapping rest on established secondary knowledge — see copy-strategy.md Open Questions). For B2B traffic specifically, b2b-landing extends this same five-stage model with committee-driven intent mapping and CTA language (its Rule 31) — read that skill alongside this one when the buyer is a multi-person committee rather than a single consumer.
6. [FRAMEWORK] For Unaware/Problem-Aware traffic: open with a problem-first hook, hold the product name out of the first line, and place objection-handling/named-competitor comparison below an educational section rather than above the fold. For Product-Aware/Most-Aware traffic: lead with product name + differentiator + the offer itself, and move objection-handling and comparison content above the fold. One page structure built for all traffic sources under-serves whichever stage it wasn't designed for. — kingeshop.com
7. [FRAMEWORK] Default section order for a primary sales page, before awareness-stage adjustments: Nav → Hero (headline + subhead + primary CTA) → Social proof → secondary CTA → Features/benefits (each section resolves one objection) → repeat CTA → FAQ/objections → Footer. Record any deviation as a deliberate strategy-brief decision, not a silent default. — julian.com
8. [FRAMEWORK] When one page must serve mixed-awareness traffic (e.g. cold ads and retargeting landing on the same URL), default the structure to the colder stage (problem-first per Rule 6) and let Product/Most-Aware visitors self-select down via a comparison block or pricing anchor — record this as a stated tradeoff in the strategy brief, not an oversight, unless true per-segment personalization is in scope (Rule 24).

Offer architecture

9. [FRAMEWORK] Define in writing, before build starts: (a) the lead offer — what earns the click/signup, often free or low-commitment; (b) the core offer — the actual paid product/ service the page exists to sell; (c) any order bump/upsell — a single add-on offered at the moment of highest commitment, never stacked with a second competing upsell; (d) the page's one primary conversion goal. An undefined offer architecture accumulates competing CTAs by default as sections get added over time.
10. [FRAMEWORK] Ship exactly one primary offer and one primary CTA per page. Multi-offer/ multi-link pages measurably underperform single-offer pages; direction is consistent across sources, magnitude is source-dependent (13.5%→10.5% single-link advantage in one dataset, ~266% relative lift in another) — treat the direction as reliable, re-verify magnitude locally before citing a number externally. — seosherpa.com
11. [FRAMEWORK] If a secondary offer must share the page (e.g. "Buy now" and "Book a demo"), make it visually subordinate to the primary offer (secondary button style, not an equal-weight competing button) and name which offer is primary in the strategy brief before copy is written — don't let button placement decide this implicitly.
12. [TREND-2026] Default to charm pricing (.99/.97 endings) for price-sensitive, transactional/ low-consideration offers; default to round numbers ($50, $100) for premium/luxury positioning instead. A .99 ending on an offer positioned as premium in Rule 1's market-category step undercuts that positioning. Cited lift range for charm pricing is roughly 24-35% vs. round numbers, from pre-2010 studies — note rising regulatory scrutiny of psychological pricing in the EU and some US states. — shno.co
13. [TREND-2026] When presenting multiple pricing tiers, place the target tier next to a visible reference point — either a struck-through higher list price ("was $X, now $Y") or a higher-priced tier alongside it. Cited anchoring effect on perceived value is roughly +32%. — shno.co
14. [TREND-2026] If using a decoy pricing tier, price it at the same price as the target tier (or higher) while stripping at least one named feature/benefit the target tier keeps — the decoy must be strictly worse on a checkable dimension, never merely "priced awkwardly," and must sit directly beside the tier you want chosen. Ariely's Economist test: 32%→84% chose the target tier once this kind of decoy was added — validate locally rather than assume the lab-study magnitude transfers; effect size is reported to shrink with realistic, non-lab stimuli. — growmeorganic.com, shno.co

Message hierarchy handoff (to copy)

15. [FRAMEWORK] Hand off copy work as a structured message hierarchy, never adjectives or a mood board: (1) One Thing to Remember — a single sentence the visitor should be able to repeat back after leaving the page, tied directly to the value from positioning step 3 (Rule 1); (2) Three Supporting Proofs — the three strongest, most specific, checkable reasons to believe the One Thing (a number, a named mechanism, a named comparison — not adjectives); (3) One Action — the single next step the page asks for, matching the offer architecture's primary conversion goal (Rule 9). A brief carrying more than one "big idea" or more than three proofs hasn't finished prioritizing.
16. [FRAMEWORK] Test each of the three supporting proofs with the specificity test before handoff: could a competitor paste this proof onto their own page unchanged? If yes, it's an adjective wearing a proof's clothes — replace it with a checkable number, named mechanism, or named comparison. — marketingexamples.com (moderate confidence; exact "falsifiability" framing not independently re-verified — see copy-strategy.md Open Questions)
17. [FRAMEWORK] Confirm the One Thing to Remember passes the headline test before handoff: if a visitor reads only this one line, do they know exactly what is being sold and to whom? Reject anything that could be pasted onto a competitor's page unchanged (e.g. "Improve your workflow"). — julian.com

Section-must-earn-its-place audit

18. [FRAMEWORK] Audit every section of a drafted page against three questions: does it advance the One Thing to Remember, resolve a specific objection (Rule 19), or move the visitor toward the One Action? A section answering none of the three is cut, not kept "for completeness." — julian.com Desire/Labor/Confusion applied at the section level
19. [FRAMEWORK] Map the visitor's objection sequence before auditing sections, in this cognitive order: (1) legitimacy — "is this real?"; (2) relevance — "does this work for my situation?"; (3) mechanism — "how does it actually work?"; (4) results — "are the numbers real?"; (5) peer validation — "what do others say?"; (6) pricing/terms transparency; (7) risk — "what if I get burned?" A page whose sections answer only 2-3 of these converts only the visitors already warmest coming in. — instantpress.co
20. [FRAMEWORK] Assign every section on the page to exactly one objection number from Rule 19, or to the offer/CTA itself. Two sections mapped to the same number are redundant — cut the weaker one. A number mapped to zero sections is a coverage gap — add or merge content to close it. — instantpress.co, applied as an audit method
21. [FRAMEWORK] Sequence legitimacy (1) and relevance (2) signals within the first screen; place mechanism (3) and results (4) content mid-page; place risk-reversal (7) directly beside or below the final CTA, never buried only inside an FAQ. — instantpress.co, julian.com
22. [FRAMEWORK] Cap primary-page feature/benefit sections at 3-6 blocks. Each block must contain exactly three elements: a benefit-stated header (not a bare feature label, e.g. "Ship in half the time" not "Faster builds"), one short paragraph tying feature → benefit → the objection number it resolves (Rule 19-20), and one supporting product image or GIF (not stock/abstract art). A block missing any of the three, or reusing a stock image, fails the check. If the objection map from Rules 19-20 needs more than 6 distinct sections to reach full coverage, that's a signal the offer is too broad for one page — split into a dedicated page per segment/objection cluster instead of lengthening the primary page indefinitely. — julian.com
23. [FRAMEWORK] Every FAQ entry must map to one specific unresolved objection from Rule 19 — treat the FAQ block as a targeted objection-handling tool, not a generic-info dump ("What is your company?" filler). Cut any entry that doesn't trace to a numbered objection. — instantpress.co
24. [TREND-2026] Where the platform can serve different hero copy per traffic-source/awareness- segment (ads vs. organic vs. retargeting), treat it as an extension of Rules 5-8 — test full section-reordering, not just word swaps. No controlled-study source confirms a reliable lift for this practice yet; log any such build as an experiment in the strategy brief, not an assumed win. — copy-strategy.md Trends 2024-2026 (gap, no controlled source found)

Checklist

Positioning

• 5-step Dunford exercise completed and written up as a canvas before wireframes started (Rules 1, 4)
• Competitive-alternatives list has ≥2 entries and includes "do nothing"/status quo (Rule 2)
• Market category passed the broad/narrow swap test (Rule 3)

Awareness stage → structure

• Primary traffic source's awareness stage identified and documented (Rule 5)
• Page structure matches the identified stage: problem-first hook for cold traffic, or product+offer lead for warm traffic (Rule 6)
• Default section order used, or deviation explicitly recorded (Rule 7)
• Mixed-traffic pages default to the colder stage's structure, with the tradeoff stated in the brief (Rule 8)

Offer architecture

• Lead offer, core offer, order bump, and single conversion goal are all named in writing (Rule 9)
• Exactly one primary offer and one primary CTA on the page (Rule 10)
• Any secondary offer is visually subordinate and named as secondary in the brief (Rule 11)
• Pricing style (charm vs. round) matches the market-category positioning, not chosen by habit (Rule 12)
• Multi-tier pricing shows a visible reference/anchor point next to the target tier (Rule 13)
• Any decoy tier is priced at or above the target tier's price AND missing ≥1 named feature the target tier has (Rule 14)

Message hierarchy handoff

• Copy brief delivered as One Thing / Three Proofs / One Action — not adjectives (Rule 15)
• Each of the three proofs passes the "could a competitor paste this unchanged?" test (Rule 16)
• The One Thing to Remember passes the headline test (Rule 17)

Section audit

• Every section answers yes to at least one of: advances the One Thing, resolves an objection, moves toward the One Action (Rule 18)
• Objection sequence (7 items) mapped before auditing sections (Rule 19)
• Every section assigned to exactly one objection number or the offer/CTA; duplicates cut, gaps filled (Rule 20)
• Legitimacy/relevance signals above the fold; mechanism/results mid-page; risk-reversal beside the final CTA (Rule 21)
• Feature/benefit sections capped at 3-6, each with a benefit-stated header + one paragraph naming the objection it resolves + one supporting product image/GIF (no stock art); overflow becomes a separate page, not a longer one (Rule 22)
• Every FAQ entry traces to a numbered objection (Rule 23)
• Any per-segment dynamic copy is logged as an experiment, not shipped as an assumed win (Rule 24)

Anti-patterns

• Writing the headline before running the positioning exercise. Produces confident-sounding but generic copy ("Reimagine the future of X") that could be pasted onto a competitor's page unchanged. Instead: complete all 5 Dunford steps and write the positioning canvas first — headline-writing is the last step, not the first.
• Listing only 1-2 named direct competitors as the "competitive alternative." Misses that most visitors' real alternative is doing nothing, using a spreadsheet, or hiring a person — positioning against the wrong alternative set produces value claims nobody who matters actually compares against. Instead: force "do nothing"/status quo onto the list before adding named competitors.
• Shipping one page structure for all traffic without identifying the awareness stage. A problem-first educational hook wastes a Most-Aware visitor's time; a product-name-first hook confuses an Unaware visitor who doesn't know the problem category yet. Instead: identify the dominant channel's awareness stage first (Rule 5) and structure the page — or split into stage-specific pages — accordingly.
• Letting the offer architecture stay implicit. Sections and CTAs accumulate over time until the page has 3 competing "primary" buttons with no stated hierarchy. Instead: name the lead offer, core offer, upsell, and single conversion goal in writing before build starts (Rule 9), and revisit it whenever a new CTA is proposed.
• Defaulting to charm pricing (.99 endings) on an offer positioned as premium. Directly contradicts the market-category choice from the positioning exercise — a $499.99 price on a luxury-positioned product reads as value-hunting, not premium. Instead: match pricing style to positioning (Rule 12), and use round numbers for premium tiers.
• Handing copy a mood board or a list of adjectives ("bold," "trustworthy," "innovative") instead of a message hierarchy. Adjectives don't survive contact with a blank page — the writer either invents the strategy themselves or the page comes back generic. Instead: hand off One Thing to Remember + Three Proofs + One Action, each proof passing the specificity test (Rule 16).
• Keeping a section "because it's good content" when it maps to no objection and advances nothing. Section bloat dilutes the One Thing to Remember and adds scroll distance between hero and CTA. Instead: run the section audit (Rule 18) on every draft; cut anything that doesn't answer yes to at least one of the three questions.
• Treating the FAQ as a generic company-info dump ("What is your company?", "Where are you located?") instead of an objection-resolution tool. Wastes the one section visitors reach specifically because they still have doubts. Instead: map every FAQ entry to a numbered objection from Rule 19; delete entries that don't trace to one.
• Trying to make one page answer every objection for every awareness stage at once. Produces an endless-scroll page that under-serves everyone rather than converting anyone well. Instead: cap primary-page sections at 3-6 (Rule 22) and split overflow into a dedicated page per segment or objection cluster.
• Assuming AI-personalized/dynamic hero copy is a proven lift because it's trending. No controlled source in current research confirms a reliable effect size for this practice. Instead: treat any per-segment dynamic copy build as a logged experiment against a control, not a default best practice (Rule 24).