Lifecycle Marketing

Generate production-ready lifecycle marketing campaigns for B2B SaaS products across email, push, SMS, in-app messaging, and paid social.

For full process, lifecycle stages, campaign templates, and emotional cue framework → the premium reference.

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Doctrine inherited (Step 7 — 0626 rollout)

Output complies with:

• output-tenets.md — the seven tenets
• output-simplicity.md — length caps, three-layer source placement, robot-tells ban
• marketing-psychology.md — 8 anchored heuristics
• doc-output-structure.md — GDoc/Notion structural defaults (campaign planning docs)
• Step 6 calibration: see [[feedback_execution_doctrine_refinements_step6]]

Refinements applied to this skill:

Code	Refinement	How it lands in lifecycle-marketing
R1	Source placement (three layers)	Customer-facing surfaces (email, push, SMS, in-app, paid social) → no sources block. Campaign planning doc (client-team review) → cleaned [VERIFIED:...] tags in a collapsed appendix toggle.
R2	Single-doc-with-toggles	Cross-channel campaigns ship as one campaign doc with one toggle per channel/asset — not 5 separate files for email + push + SMS + in-app + paid. Index up top.
R3	Product-update tone	Even feature-driven campaigns frame as "[Product] now does X" not "we're thrilled to announce."
R5	Blog as voice anchor	Cross-channel campaigns with an anchor blog post mirror the blog's opening line across every channel verbatim. Voice drift across channels is the loudest tell of multi-author lifecycle campaigns.
R6	CTA hierarchy	Warm-base lifecycle → product-action CTA primary (open feature, complete onboarding, upgrade). Trial/sign-up only when re-engaging churned or upgrading free → paid. Blog as fallback.
R9	Action-oriented section names	"How to activate [Product]" beats "Activation playbook." Verb-led across campaign brief sections + asset titles.

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Research source (Exa)

Default: Exa per .claude/rules/exa-protocol.md.

Primary tools: web_search_exa for competitor lifecycle / nurture flow research.

Tool surface: prefer mcp__plugin_exa_exa__web_search_exa; legacy mcp__exa__web_search_exa still mounted.

Citation: every claim uses [VERIFIED: exa_search, {url}, accessed {YYYY-MM-DD}].

Quality gate: ≥3 sources per major claim, ≥50% [VERIFIED], date filter for any "recent / latest" claim.

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Campaign philosophy

Effective lifecycle marketing isn't about sending more messages — it's about sending the right message at the right moment through the right channel. Every campaign should:

• Map to specific user behaviors and lifecycle stages (not arbitrary time delays)
• Drive measurable outcomes (activation, adoption, retention, expansion)
• Respect channel-appropriate copy lengths and formats
• Test emotional angles systematically (urgency, exclusivity, curiosity, etc.)
• Include clear CTAs that align with the user's current journey stage

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Three-phase workflow

Phase	Purpose	Deliverable
1. Discovery	Gather context, goals, segments, channels	Campaign brief
2. Strategy	Map lifecycle stages, triggers, messaging hierarchy	Strategy doc
3. Generation	Produce channel-specific copy with variants	Production-ready copy files

For full discovery questions, lifecycle stage mapping, campaign templates, and per-channel specs → the premium reference.

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Required inputs

Input	Required	Purpose
Campaign goal	Yes	What behavior/outcome are we driving?
Company name	Yes	Personalization + UTM parameters
Product description	Yes	What does the product do? Key value props
Lifecycle stage	Yes	Where are users in their journey?
Target audience	Yes	Who are we messaging? (role, seniority, segment)
Channels needed	Yes	Email / push / SMS / in-app / paid social
Number of messages	Recommended	How many touchpoints in the sequence?
Sender/From name	Recommended	Personal name vs. company name
Existing brand context	Optional	TOV guidelines, messaging frameworks, previous campaigns

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Anti-Hallucination Guardrails

1. Ground claims in context. All product benefits must come from provided context.
2. No invented metrics. Use provided proof points or mark as [PLACEHOLDER: metric].
3. No invented testimonials. Only use provided quotes.
4. Mark missing context. Use [PLACEHOLDER: description] for unconfirmed details.
5. Respect channel constraints. Stay within word count limits.
6. No fake urgency. Only use urgency cues when there's real time pressure.

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Integration with Other Skills

Skill	Integration point
product-messaging	Value props, capabilities, benefits for copy
icp-behavioural	Persona pain points, motivations, language
tov-guidelines	Brand voice, editorial patterns, word choices
landing-page-copy	Consistent messaging with landing pages
email-nurture	Downstream — pre-conversion drip sequences

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Final ship gate

Run /premortem --output before ship. See /premortem skill for the 5 execution domains (will-it-resonate / will-it-convert / will-it-stay-on-brand / will-stakeholder-push-back / will-it-degrade-over-time) and output template.

Trivial-case escape: ## Premortem\nNo failure modes — trivial change satisfies the contract for genuinely trivial outputs.

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Persuasion & stickiness pass

Output complies with persuasion-and-stickiness.md — Cialdini's 7 persuasion levers + Heath's SUCCESs. Deploy the 1-2 Cialdini levers that fit the reader's barrier (never all seven; every lever must be TRUE), run the SUCCESs diagnostic (Simple / Unexpected / Concrete / Credible / Emotional / Stories) over the near-final draft, then the rule's pre-ship gate.

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