Starting a New Engagement

What You Need Before Starting

Before running the scaffolding, three things from the client:

A brief — Can be a raw discovery doc, a Slack thread, a one-pager, or a voice memo transcript. Marketing Bootstrap reads it and structures it. The rougher the input, the more you’ll need to review the output, but the tool handles unstructured input.

Brand materials — Logo files, existing copy (website, decks), any style guide. These become the inputs for voice.md and style-guide.md. If none exist, we write them from scratch in the first week.

Notion access — An empty Notion workspace where the databases will be created.

What the Scaffolding Produces

Running the init command creates:

<client-name>/
├── CLAUDE.md                    # Claude Code project context
├── core-md/
│   ├── voice.md                 # Tone, banned phrases, stylistic anchors
│   ├── positioning.md           # Core value props, competitive differentiators
│   ├── product-facts.md         # Features, specs, technical details
│   ├── audience-personas.md     # ICP definitions with pain points
│   └── style-guide.md           # Visual identity rules
├── agents/                      # Agent configuration files
├── skills/                      # Wrapper command implementations
└── outputs/                     # Where generated content lands

The core-md/ files are drafted from the brief. They’re starting points — you review and approve before any agents run against them.

First Commands to Run

Once the environment is set up and core-md files are approved:

1. /weekly-report — Generates the baseline report template. Low risk. Shows the system working end-to-end before any content production.

2. /write-blog <intro-topic> — First content piece. Use a topic that doesn’t require competitor data so the full pipeline runs without gaps.

3. /seo-pulse — First market scan. Shows the analyst agent’s output before any campaign work begins.

Reviewing Core-MD Quality

Everything Clembot produces depends on the quality of the core-md files. Before any client-facing output, review:

voice.md — Read it out loud. Does it sound like the client? Would someone mistake an AI-written paragraph for theirs? If not, edit until they would.

positioning.md — Are the differentiators specific? “Easy to use” is not a differentiator. “Only RPC provider with sub-50ms latency on Base” is. Vague positioning produces generic content.

product-facts.md — Is every claim verifiable? The editor agent checks against this file. Weak facts produce low compliance scores and content that has to be rewritten.

Weak core-md files are the most common reason a first engagement produces mediocre output. The setup investment pays back immediately.