Strategy Deliverables

 

SKILL TO LEARN

At some point in your strategy career, someone will send you a project brief and ask for a deliverable you’ve never made. Or worse, they’ll hand you a problem and expect you to figure out what to make.

This is scary. Most strategists are never sat down and told what tools are in the toolkit. Instead, you learn by watching senior people or Googling what you don’t understand in a panic.

This post is a shortcut to all of that.

Below are 10 of the most common strategic deliverables — what they are, when to reach for them, and the kinds of projects that require them. 

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⭐ Paid subscribers get a deck with templates for all of these strategic deliverables at the end of this post ⭐

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1. Creative Brief:

   • What It Is: A one-paged document (and accompanying multi-slide deck) that aligns the creative team around a single problem to solve and gives them direction for how to solve it. It has the problem, ask, audience, insight, and strategic way-in. You can read more about writing a creative brief in this post.

   • When To Make One: If you don’t have a big creative idea yet orif the creative idea needs to flex for a new execution (e.g. you are making a Q3 campaign for a long-running platform), then you should have a creative brief.

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: Campaign creation, stunts, quarterly campaigns, experiential concepts, merch drops, rebrands.

2. Assignment Brief

   • What It Is: A one-page document that captures the parameters of a project. The ask, the audience, the objective, the timeline, the budget, and any relevant context. Less about strategic direction, more about operational clarity.

   • When To Make One: When a project is turnkey, the ask is clear, and you don’t need a breakthrough insight, make an assignment brief. 

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: One-off social posts, website copy updates that align to an already approved campaign/platform, localizing approved content.

3. Competitive Audit

   • What It Is: A deep dive into your brand’s biggest competitors — examining how they show up across positioning, messaging, tone, visuals, campaigns, and channels. Check out this post to learn more about how to conduct a competitive audit. 

   • When To Make One: Conduct one when you don’t know what the competition in a category looks like, or before creating something visual where knowing category norms and outliers will help your team.

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: New business, quarterly reports, website refreshes, asset development like in-store displays, iconography, etc.

4. 4Cs

   • What It Is: The 4Cs stand for: Category, Consumer, Company, Culture. They allow you to quickly ground yourself in the world surrounding a brand. This post has a full breakdown on writing the 4Cs. 

   • When To Make One: Anytime you have a new client, make one. There will also be times when you only need to tap some of the 4Cs (e.g. you have worked on a client for a long time but need to update your knowledge on the consumer, culture, and competition). 

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: New business pitches, repositioning, entering a new market, writing a brand positioning statement.

5. Persona:

   • What It Is: A persona is a one-page document that brings your target audience to life. It contains things like demographics, audience size, barriers & drivers/motivations, attitudes & values, and media behaviors.

   • When To Make One: If the work depends on knowing how that person thinks, feels, or behaves (and there isn’t a pre-existing persona), then create one.

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: New business, journey mapping, website or app UX design, loyalty programs, new audience expansion, product innovation.

6. Brand Positioning Statement

   • What It Is: An internal line that articulates the value your brand brings to your target market. It creates focus — guiding what your brand says, makes, and how it shows up over time. You can read this post to learn more about how to write one. 

   • When To Make One: When a brand needs clarity on what it stands for and how it’s distinct from competitors. 

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: Brand launches, rebrands.

7. Comms Plan

   • What It Is: A one-page framework for how a brand reaches and speaks to people at each stage of the funnel. It outlines what to say, to whom, when, where, and why—all in service of a specific business or marketing goal.

   • When To Make One: Make one when you already have the strategy and big idea, but need a clear plan for how to communicate it across different stages of the funnel.

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: Campaign rollouts, product launches, seasonal pushes, multi-channel campaigns, brand refresh launches.

8. Messaging Hierarchy

   • What It Is: A one-paged framework that lists a brand’s key messages in order of importance. It shows the main message at the top, the supporting points underneath it, and the proof that backs each one up. It helps everyone say the same thing, in the same order.

   • When To Make One: When a brand has multiple things it needs to say at the same time and messaging order will heavily influence and impact creative.

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: Tradeshow booth design, stakeholder decks, hype videos.

9. Customer/Consumer Journey

   • What It Is: Framework that shows the steps someone takes from first hearing about a brand to becoming a loyal buyer. It shows what they are doing, thinking, and feeling at each stage, and where the brand shows up along the way.

   • When To Make One: When you need to understand the full path someone takes with your brand so you can spot gaps, friction, or missed opportunities in the experience.

   • Examples of Projects That Need It: Campaign development, loyalty programs, retail experience updates, CRM strategy.

10. Discussion Guide:

    • What It Is: A list of questions used to lead a research conversation (e.g. focus groups, IDIs, etc.). It ensures you cover what matters in the time that you have with research participants.

    • When To Make One: Anytime you are conducting primary research.

    • Examples of Projects That Need It: One-on-one interviews, focus groups, concept testing sessions, stakeholder interviews, customer feedback conversations.

1 ACTION TO TAKE

Below are five mock asks.

For each one, decide:

1. What single deliverable would you create first?

2. Why is that the right tool for the job?

Mock asks (with my answers at the end):

1. A legacy cereal brand has seen declining sales for three years. Leadership wants a new campaign that makes the brand feel relevant to younger audiences.

2. Your client is launching a new skincare product and needs your help figuring out what the in-store display will look like.

3. The brand platform and campaign idea are approved. Now the team needs a clear plan for what to say at awareness, consideration, and conversion across channels.

4. You’re about to conduct 10 one-on-one interviews with consumers to understand why repeat purchase has dropped.

5. You are working on a new business pitch for a brand you’ve never worked on before and need to quickly understand the landscape.

Answers to the above (only scroll after you’ve done the exercise):

1. Creative Brief: Because leadership wants a new campaign, you need to define the exact problem, the younger audience, and the strategic direction before ideas are made.

2. Competitive Audit: Because you’re designing an in-store display, you need to see how competitors show up visually so you don’t blend in.

3. Comms Plan: Because the campaign is approved and now needs to roll out across awareness, consideration, and conversion, you need a clear plan for what to say at each stage.

4. Discussion Guide: Because you’re conducting 10 interviews, you need structured questions to uncover why repeat purchase is dropping.

5. 4Cs: Because it’s a new business pitch for a brand you don’t know, you need to quickly understand the category, consumer, company, and culture before proposing a strategy.

1 QUOTE TO INSPIRE

“Begin with the end in mind.” — Stephen R. Covey

Write a brand positioning statement

 

SKILL TO LEARN

A brand positioning statement is an internal line that articulates the value your brand brings to your target market. This short, but powerful, sentence creates focus—guiding what your brand says, makes (e.g. product, creative) and how it shows up over time. 

A simple formula for writing a brand positioning statement is:

functional benefit + emotional benefit = outcome.

Note: There’s no required order here. Emotional or functional benefits can come first. This formula is a tool to help you get started writing brand positioning statements.

To use this formula, start by clearly defining who your brand is for (read more about target audiences here) and who you’re competing against (read more about conducting a competitive audit here). Positioning works hardest when it is grounded in both an audience and a point of difference.

From there, list all of your brand’s functional and emotional benefits. Then narrow that list by circling only the benefits that meet the following criteria:

1. What your brand does best: This helps you select RTBs (reasons to believe) that are credible and deliverable.

2. What your target audience wants most: This helps you select RTBs that are relevant and motivating. 

3. What meaningfully differentiates you from competitors: This helps you select RTBs that are distinct and defensible.

Once you’ve identified the benefits at that intersection, use the formula to write your brand positioning statement.

Let’s do an example with Dove. Their brand positioning might be:

“Dove makes gentle, nourishing hygiene products that help women feel cared for so they can be confident in their own skin.”

Breaking that down using the formula above:

• Functional Benefit: Gentle, nourishing hygiene products

• Emotional Benefit: Feeling cared for

• Outcome: Confidence in one’s own skin

⭐ Paid subscribers get a cheat sheet of 60 functional benefits, 40 emotional benefits and 2 bonus examples of brand positioning statements at the end of this post ⭐

1 ACTION TO TAKE

Let’s practice by writing a brand positioning statement for Skittles.

Normally, you’d conduct a competitive audit and target audience research. Since we’re focusing specifically on writing brand positioning statements, that work is provided for you below:

Key competitors and what they stand for:

• Starburst: Big, juicy fruit flavor with a soft, chewy bite. Individually wrapped. 

• Mentos: Clean, refreshing flavor with a smooth chew. Associated with freshness and everyday utility.

• Nerds Gummies: A playful mix of textures and flavors. Known for novelty, contrast, and sensory fun.

• Sour Patch Kids: Sour-to-sweet flavor with a mischievous, rebellious personality.

• Mike & Ike: Classic, straightforward chewy candy with familiar fruit flavors and broad appeal.

Target audience: Gen Z and younger Millennials who see candy as a quick hit of fun in their day. They prefer bold, fruit-flavored candy that delivers on taste, visual impact, and a satisfying eating experience.

Armed with the information above, follow these steps:

First, take 5 minutes and jot down every benefit that comes to mind for Skittles—both functional and emotional. Don’t edit yourself. Just write.

• Benefits can include things like flavor, texture, variety, convenience, price, energy, vibes, or how the brand makes someone feel.

Second, review your list and organize the benefits into two buckets: functional benefits and emotional benefits.

Third, look at the competition. Which of these benefits are truly ownable for Skittles and not claimed by others?

Fourth, look at the target audience. Which benefits actually matter to them and align with why they choose candy? Feel free to do your own research (talking to people you know, scouring Reddit, pulling from your lived experiences, etc.).

By this point, you should have eliminated quite a few of your benefits. The goal is to get down to just two benefits (one functional benefit & one emotional benefit). If you haven’t arrived at two yet, that’s okay! Keep going and consider doing your own research to help you make decisions. 

Now, write your brand positioning statement. Write several and iterate. 

functional benefit + emotional benefit = outcome

Once you feel like you have the one, do one final gut check:

• Could a competitor reasonably say this?

• Would your audience care?

• Can the brand actually deliver on it?

And with that, you’re done. Congrats!

1 QUOTE TO INSPIRE

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”— Leonardo da Vinci

Write my personal manifesto

 You are a personal brand strategist. Help me write a "what I believe" 

manifesto — a set of 8–10 punchy, declarative statements that reflect 
my professional values and opinions.

My context:
- My niche/role: [e.g. B2B content marketer, growth strategist]
- My audience: [who I help and what they care about]
- My contrarian takes: [things I believe that others in my field don't]
- What I stand against: [bad practices, overused tactics, lazy thinking]

For each belief:
- Start with "I believe…"
- Keep it to 1–2 sentences max
- Make it specific — no generic truisms
- Give it an edge where it fits

Output the manifesto as a clean, numbered list.

Get up to speed on an industry or category

 You are an industry expert and plain-English explainer. I'm a marketer who needs to quickly understand [INDUSTRY] so I can hit the ground running.

Give me:
1. HOW IT WORKS — a simple explanation of how this industry operates (key players, how money moves, how buying decisions get made)
2. WHAT MATTERS TO MARKETERS — the trends, challenges, and sensitivities I need to know to market effectively in this space
3. THE LANGUAGE — 10 key terms or phrases insiders use, with plain-English definitions

Keep it concise and practical. I don't need a history lesson — I need to sound credible and think clearly about this industry within the hour.

Industry: [INDUSTRY]
My context: [brief description of your role or client]

Strategic storytelling

 

1 SKILL TO LEARN

At work, two emotions run high: cortisol and adrenaline. These emotions make people irritable, uncreative, memory impaired, intolerant, and lead to bad decision making. Every time you present, you’re actively trying to get people out of these emotions. 

Storytelling is the antidote.

Below are 7 actions you can take to tell better stories. 

1. Write your story first, before switching to slides: Have you ever tried to write an essay one sentence at a time, tabbing to the next page before you could see the whole thing? No. because you’d lose the thread immediately. The same trap exists in decks. When you write directly in slides, you only ever see one slide at a time. You lose the narrative. You lose the flow. And you end up with a story that is, at best, lackluster, and at worst, incoherent. Write and edit in a document first, before you move it to a deck.

2. Add tension immediately: Margaret Atwood said, “A good story needs a break in pattern recognition.” This is how you grab people’s attention; pulling them away from quietly multitasking on the Zoom call to sitting up and actually listening to you. For example, “Your brand is doing great and really doesn’t need to do anything differently” is a sedative. Likewise, “Your brand is the best in the world. Or at least, that’s what your clients are telling you...” is a different thing entirely. It grabs attention. It makes people want to listen to hear where the story will go.

3. Make it specific. It is in the specific that you find the universal. The best novels, movies, TV shows, and advertisements know specificity makes work feel human. It gives people something to latch onto. An insight that hits on a precise human truth lands harder than a general platitude. A persona that paints a vivid picture of a real person—her name, her morning routine, the thing that keeps her up at night—does more work than a demographic chart ever could. 

4. Tease the ending: Hint at where the story is going at the beginning. This is a popular trick with journalists. When the first sentence of your story and the last sentence contain echos of each other people are convinced of their brilliance. It makes them feel smart. It makes them feel like it was their idea. 

5. Release positive emotions: Dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins are three powerful emotions you want your audience to experience, and they are easy to trigger. You create dopamine by building suspense and creating cliffhangers, which increases focus, motivation, and memory. You create oxytocin by showing vulnerability and creating moments of empathy, which builds trust and makes people root for you. And you create endorphins by making people laugh, which helps people relax, become more open, and think more creatively. You can learn more about this by watching David JP Phillips Ted Talk. 

6. Shorten It: Short sentences. Small words. Cut fluff. Bella Fordyce of Google wrote a great piece about this. 

7. WRITE: Journal in the morning. Write short stories. Craft essays about things you love. 

There are many different narrative structures you can apply these tips to. Freytag’s Pyramid. The three-act structure. The hero’s journey. The snowflake method. Countless others. Understand them and try them out to find the best fit for you. 

I’ve found Freytag’s Pyramid works best for most strategic narratives.

1. Exposition: Background and the big problem

2. Rising action: What’s happening that adds nuance to the problem

3. Climax: The unlock helps us solve the problem (aka, the insight)

4. Falling action: The strategy that solves the problem

5. Denouement: How it comes to life

🌟 At the bottom of this post are the 5 essential resources to make you the best storyteller in the room. Paid subscribers only 🌟

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1 ACTION TO TAKE

Let’s use the narrative above to write a 5-part story. for this exercise, we will use Aesop, but if you’re working on your own project, swap that in. 

Ask: Aesop wants to increase sales of their pet wash.

1. Exposition: What is the background? What is the problem behind the ask?

   Aesop has invested in creating a luxury pet wash that gently cleanses, deodorizes, and soothes skin. As pets have become family members, the profit potential has exploded. Aesop sees pet care as a natural extension of its brand and an opportunity to grow basket size. But consumers don’t naturally think of Aesop, a luxury brand, when they think of pet care.

2. Rising action: What’s happening that adds nuance to the problem?

   The majority of premium pet brands (e.g., Farmers Dog, Wild One, and Furbo) only sell pet products. Aesop, by contrast, is a skincare brand entering a category where it lacks the same credibility and mental availability. At the same time, premium pet care is becoming increasingly crowded as brands rush to capitalize on the humanization of pets. Consumers may be willing to spend more on their animals, but they don’t necessarily expect a skincare company to suddenly become a pet expert.

3. Climax: What is the insight?

   Aesop’s human-first perspective isn’t a disadvantage. It’s exactly what makes them credible. As pets become family, the standards we have for ourselves increasingly extend to them.

4. Falling action: What is the strategy that will leverage the insight to solve the problem?

   Position Aesop Pet Care as bringing Aesop’s standards of care to every member of the household.

5. Denouement: How will this work come to life?

   Awareness

   • Launch at the Westminster Dog Show as the official grooming partner. Create content in the same style beauty brands use to showcase celebrity red-carpet looks

   • OOH near flagship stores, dog-friendly neighborhoods, and dog parks

   • Paid social

   • PR and earned media

   • Partnerships with premium groomers

   Consideration

   • Direct mail to existing Aesop customers

   • Creator partnerships

   • Paid social retargeting 

   • Paid search 

   • In-store sampling

   Conversion

   • Sales associates trained to sell Pet Care

   • In-store dog events 

   • Prominent in-store merchandising

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1 QUOTE TO INSPIRE

“The most powerful person in the world is a storyteller.” -Steve Jobs

Brand positioning competitor gaps

 You are a brand positioning strategist. I'm going to give you information about my competitors. Your job is to map their positioning and identify the gaps.

For each competitor I list, identify:
- Their core positioning claim (what they say they are)
- Their target audience
- The tone and language they use
- What they emphasise most (speed, price, expertise, trust, etc.)

Then:
1. Identify where 3+ competitors overlap (the crowded space to avoid)
2. Identify 2–3 positioning gaps nobody is clearly owning
3. Recommend one specific angle I could own based on these gaps

Competitors:
[Paste URLs, homepage copy, or a short description of each competitor]

My business: [Brief description of what you do and who you serve]

Audit customer experience

 You are an expert customer experience strategist and conversion consultant.

I'm going to give you:

- My business goal
- My customer journey map
- The key touchpoints in each stage

Your job is to audit the journey and determine where the biggest opportunities or failures exist in relation to my goal.

Business goal:
[e.g. reduce churn, increase upsells, improve trial-to-paid conversion]

Customer journey:
- Stage 1: [name + touchpoints]
- Stage 2: [name + touchpoints]
- Stage 3: [name + touchpoints]
...

For each stage:

1. Assess how likely it is that this stage contributes to the problem (High / Medium / Low)
2. Explain why you reached that conclusion
3. Identify friction, confusion, missing expectations, or missed opportunities
4. Suggest one practical improvement with the highest potential impact
5. Explain how that change would influence the overall business goal

Then rank every stage from most critical to least critical.

Finally, tell me:

- Which single improvement would likely have the biggest ROI
- Which assumptions you're making because information is missing
- What additional data or metrics would help validate your recommendations

Challenge my assumptions rather than agreeing with them. If the problem is probably happening somewhere other than where I think, say so.