marketing-ideas

Overview

What the marketing-ideas skill does

The marketing-ideas skill turns your agent into a marketing strategist for SaaS and software products, powered by a curated library of 139 proven marketing approaches.

Instead of dumping a long, generic list, the skill:

• Starts from your product, audience, stage, and constraints
• Filters ideas across content, SEO, social, email, partnerships, launches, PLG, and more
• Suggests a short list of best-fit ideas
• Explains why each idea fits and how to implement it with your current resources

It is designed as the starting point when you are asking “how do we grow?”, before you dive into specific execution skills like paid-ads, social-content, or email-sequence.

Who this skill is for

The marketing-ideas skill is especially useful if you are:

• A SaaS founder or solo builder unsure what to try next
• A developer or technical team launching a product without a full-time marketer
• A growth, product, or marketing lead looking for structured brainstorming
• A content or SEO specialist wanting cross-channel ideas for a roadmap

It works best for:

• B2B and B2C SaaS products
• Developer tools and technical software
• Bootstrapped teams with limited budget
• Funded teams that need to prioritize among many possibilities

Problems the skill solves

Use marketing-ideas when you:

• Don’t know which marketing channels to try next
• Keep asking for “marketing ideas” or “ways to grow” and get scattered answers
• Need low-budget options for a bootstrapped SaaS
• Want ideas tailored to your stage (pre-launch, early traction, growth)
• Need a structured way to compare and prioritize tactics

From the repository, the skill is explicitly scoped to handle prompts like:

• “marketing ideas”
• “growth ideas”
• “how to market this SaaS?”
• “marketing strategies or tactics”
• “ways to promote” or “ideas to grow”
• “what else can I try?”

For hands-on execution in a single channel (e.g., writing ad copy, drafting email sequences, or scheduling posts), you should pair this with more specific skills.

What’s inside the repository

The marketing-ideas skill is defined in:

• SKILL.md – core behavior, description, and usage instructions
• evals/evals.json – example prompts and expected structured output for quality control
• references/ideas-by-category.md – the full catalog of the 139 marketing ideas, grouped by category

From references/ideas-by-category.md, ideas are organized into practical categories such as:

• Content & SEO
• Competitor & Comparison
• Free Tools & Engineering
• Paid Advertising
• Social Media & Community
• Email Marketing
• Partnerships & Programs
• Events & Speaking
• PR & Media
• Launches & Promotions
• Product-Led Growth
• Content Formats
• Unconventional & Creative
• Platforms & Marketplaces
• International & Localization
• Developer & Technical
• Audience-Specific

This categorized structure is what enables the skill to pull targeted, relevant ideas instead of generic advice.

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How to Use

1. Installation and setup

To install the marketing-ideas skill into a compatible agent environment, use:

npx skills add https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill marketing-ideas

After installation:

1. Open the Files for the skill.
2. Review these key files first:
   • SKILL.md – defines the role as a marketing strategist and explains how it should ask questions, filter ideas, and respond
   • references/ideas-by-category.md – shows the complete idea catalog by category (1–139)
   • evals/evals.json – shows example prompts and the expected structured output format

No additional configuration is strictly required, but you will get better results if you provide product context, as described next.

2. Provide product marketing context

The skill is designed to ground itself in your existing marketing context before brainstorming.

From SKILL.md:

• If .agents/product-marketing-context.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing-context.md in older setups), the skill should read that first.

For best results:

1. Create a product-marketing-context.md file in your agent’s context folder.
2. Include details like:
   • What your product does
   • Target audience and key segments
   • Price points and plans
   • Current acquisition channels
   • Constraints (budget, time, team, geography)
   • Any previous tests or channels that didn’t work

When the marketing-ideas skill runs, it will use that context so it doesn’t ask you the same basic questions repeatedly and can skip ideas that are clearly misaligned.

3. Triggering the skill in conversations

Use marketing-ideas when your query is about what to try, not how to execute a specific channel.

Good trigger prompts include:

• “Give me marketing ideas for our SaaS. We’re early-stage with a small budget.”
• “What growth tactics should we test next for our dev tool?”
• “We’re preparing a launch – what are the best marketing ideas for this stage?”
• “We have $500/month to spend. What high-impact marketing ideas make sense?”

In these situations, the skill will:

1. Check for product-marketing-context.md and read it if present.
2. Ask follow-up questions if key details (stage, pricing, target audience, budget) are missing.
3. Pull relevant ideas from the 139-item catalog, filtered by:
   • Your budget (e.g., low-cost vs paid-heavy tactics)
   • Stage (pre-launch, early customers, scaling)
   • Audience type (e-commerce, enterprise, developer tools, etc.)
   • Team resources (solo founder vs dedicated marketing team)

4. Expected output format and structure

The evals/evals.json file describes how responses should be structured for quality. While the exact format is defined there, the pattern is:

• Idea name
• Why it fits your context
• How to start (clear first steps)
• Expected outcome or what success looks like
• Resources needed (time, skills, budget)
• Priority or ordering based on likely impact

For example, if you’re a bootstrapped SaaS with a tight budget (as in eval id: 1), the skill will prioritize:

• Content and SEO
• Community and social
• Partnerships
• Referral programs
• Launch platforms like Product Hunt

If you have a higher budget and sell enterprise software (as in eval id: 2), it will lean towards:

• High-intent lead generation tactics
• Outbound and events
• Paid campaigns that can be tested quickly

5. Using the ideas in your workflow

To get real value from the marketing-ideas skill:

1. Start broad – ask for a range of ideas tailored to your stage and constraints.
2. Narrow down – ask the skill to prioritize or compare 3–5 top ideas.
3. Go deeper – for each selected idea, ask for:
   • Content outlines
   • Campaign structures
   • Checklists and timelines
4. Hand off to execution skills – once you pick a direction:
   • Use social-content for posts
   • Use email-sequence for nurture flows
   • Use any paid, SEO, or docs-oriented skills to implement the chosen tactics

The marketing-ideas skill is meant to be your planning and prioritization layer, not the only tool you use.

6. When this skill is and isn’t a good fit

Great fit for:

• Brainstorming marketing ideas for a SaaS or software product
• Choosing between many possible tactics
• Adapting ideas to limited budget and small teams
• Planning launches, growth experiments, and content roadmaps

Not a great fit for:

• Writing ad copy, email sequences, or long-form content (use dedicated execution skills)
• Non-SaaS contexts where the patterns are very different (e.g., local brick-and-mortar only)
• Deep analytics or attribution modeling

If your question is purely tactical (e.g., “write a LinkedIn post about this feature”), you can skip marketing-ideas and go straight to a specialized skill.

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FAQ

Is the marketing-ideas skill only for SaaS?

The skill is designed and documented primarily for SaaS and software products, including developer tools and technical platforms. Some ideas—like content marketing, SEO, community, email lists, and partnerships—are broadly applicable, but the framing, categories, and examples are optimized for SaaS.

If you are working on a non-software, purely local business, many ideas will still be useful, but the fit will be looser.

How many marketing ideas does this skill actually use?

According to references/ideas-by-category.md, the skill is backed by a catalog of 139 marketing ideas. These are grouped into categories such as Content & SEO, Social Media & Community, Launches & Promotions, Product-Led Growth, Developer & Technical, and more.

The agent doesn’t necessarily list all 139; it selects and explains the most relevant ideas for your context.

How does it choose which ideas to suggest?

The selection logic described in SKILL.md and reinforced in evals/evals.json is:

• Read product-marketing-context.md if it exists
• Ask clarifying questions about product, audience, stage, and resources if needed
• Filter the 139 ideas by:
  • Budget (e.g., low-cost vs paid-heavy)
  • Stage (pre-launch, early customers, growth)
  • Audience type (e-commerce, enterprise, developers, etc.)
• Present a short, prioritized list with explanations and implementation steps

This keeps the responses practical instead of generic or overwhelming.

Can it help with low-budget or bootstrapped SaaS?

Yes. One of the eval scenarios in evals/evals.json explicitly covers a bootstrapped team with a tight budget. The skill is expected to:

• Check your constraints (e.g., around $500/month)
• Emphasize low-cost, high-leverage ideas like content, SEO, community, partnerships, and referrals
• Avoid suggesting tactics that require large ad budgets or big event spends

If you mention that you are bootstrapped or budget-limited, the skill will lean into those lower-cost categories.

How does it work with other marketing skills?

Use marketing-ideas as the strategy layer:

1. Start with marketing-ideas to decide what to do.
2. Once you’ve picked a direction, use specialized skills to execute:
   • social-content – draft and schedule posts
   • email-sequence – create onboarding or nurture flows
   • Other SEO, documentation, or paid media skills as available in your setup

This keeps your workflow organized: one skill for brainstorming and prioritizing, others for getting the work done.

Do I need to edit any files after installation?

You don’t have to modify the skill files themselves. For better results, it is recommended that you:

• Create or update product-marketing-context.md with up-to-date product information
• Optionally, review references/ideas-by-category.md to understand the available idea categories

You can keep the core skill definition as-is and treat your context file as the main place to customize.

Where can I see all 139 marketing ideas?

Open the Files tab for the marketing-ideas skill and navigate to:

• references/ideas-by-category.md

There you will find the full list of 139 ideas, grouped by category (Content & SEO, Social Media & Community, Product-Led Growth, Developer & Technical, and more). This file is what the skill uses as its structured idea library.