Homework: Build the System & Run One Real Week

Reading about a content engine does not produce content. Running it for one real week does.

This homework is six parts. By the end you will have a MARKETING.md file, a content backlog, a full week of edited content, and at least three things published on real platforms.

Do not move to the next course until this is done. The system only works once you have run it.

What You Are Building

A completed MARKETING.md file covering audience, message, pillars, and voice. A content-ideas.md backlog with at least 20 specific topics. One full week of content generated, edited, and scheduled. At least three pieces published on real platforms. And one honest look-back at what happened.

Part 1: Define Your Audience and Message

Write all three of these before running the Claude prompt.

Your specific audience in one sentence describing one real person you can picture, covering who they are, what they do, and what their situation is.

Their problem in their words as 2 to 3 sentences of their complaint written in the language they would actually use and not marketing language.

Your one message as one sentence covering who it is for, what it solves, and what makes it different.

Now run the sharpening prompt from the audience lesson. Adjust based on Claude's feedback. Save the final versions to MARKETING.md.

If you are not sure what to write about, use this starting point: you are marketing what you built in this programme to people who are in the exact position you were in before you built it. That is an audience you understand better than anyone.

Part 2: Build Your Voice Profile

Collect three things you have genuinely written including WhatsApp messages, emails, old posts, or anything that sounds like you talking. Paste them into the discovery prompt from the voice lesson.

Take the output, read it out loud, adjust anything that is wrong, and save the final voice rules and banned phrases list to MARKETING.md.

If you skip this, everything Claude produces for you will sound like a polished template. The voice profile is the difference between content that gets ignored and content that makes someone think "this is exactly me, how do you know?"

Part 3: Generate Your Pillars and Backlog

Write your four one-sentence pillar descriptions:

Teach: [YOUR SENTENCE]
Show proof: [YOUR SENTENCE]
Show process: [YOUR SENTENCE]
Take a stance: [YOUR SENTENCE]

Run the pillar expansion prompt from the pillars lesson. Save the resulting topic ideas to content-ideas.md.

You need at least 20 ideas before moving forward and 32 is the goal. If Claude gives you generic-sounding ideas, push back with: "These are too vague. Make them more specific and more tied to my exact audience's situation."

Part 4: Run the Master Prompt for One Real Week

Pick one idea from your backlog. Fill in the master prompt from the master prompt lesson with your real audience, message, pillars, and voice from @MARKETING.md, the idea you picked, anything real that happened this week even if it is a small thing, and "First week — no feedback yet" for the last week's feedback field.

Run it. Read every piece of output carefully.

Does the short post hook grab you immediately? Does the long post have one real concrete example or does it feel abstract? Does the newsletter opening start with something personal? Does everything sound like you or like a version of you that is slightly more polished and slightly less real?

Fix anything that does not sound right using the method from the voice lesson. Paste the line, say what is wrong with it, and give an approximate direction. Then build your 5-day posting calendar.

Part 5: Publish

Post at least three of the five pieces this week on real platforms.

Not in a draft. Not saved for later when your audience is bigger. Published, on a real platform, visible to real people.

If you do not have an audience yet, post anyway. The audience starts when you start. The point of this homework is running the system once for real and not the size of the response you get. You will not have a large audience the first week. You will have a functioning system which is worth more.

Part 6: Look Back at the End of the Week

At the end of the week open a note and write down for each post you published what it was about covering the topic and pillar, and roughly what happened even if it is just "got a few likes," "nobody engaged," "got a reply from someone I did not expect," or "more comments than usual."

Run the analysis prompt from the analytics lesson on this data. Even with only one week and rough numbers Claude will find something worth noticing.

Write down the one specific change it recommends. Apply it in your next batch session next week.

Post in the Community

Once you have published your first batch and completed the look-back, go to the Claude Code and Codex Mastery community and create a post titled "Marketing with Claude — Homework Done." Share three things: your one message which is the exact sentence from MARKETING.md, your four content pillar sentences, and one piece of content you published this week pasted in full. Write one sentence about what surprised you whether it was something harder than expected, something easier, or something you noticed when you looked back at the results.

The community posts from this homework are consistently one of the most useful things in the course. Seeing how different people with different products and audiences define their message and pillars makes your own clearer.

Bonus: Go Further

If you want to go beyond the core homework before moving on, try one of these.

Build a 4-week content plan:

• Using @MARKETING.md and my content-ideas.md backlog — organise the next 4 weeks
• so each week uses a different pillar in a sensible order.
• Start with Teach posts in week 1 to build trust first.
• Move to Show Proof in week 2 so now they know you and can see evidence.
• Mix Show Process and Take a Stance in weeks 3 and 4.
• Output as a simple week-by-week list: Week / Pillar / Idea.

Create a lead magnet:

• Using @MARKETING.md — suggest 3 lead magnet ideas such as a short checklist,
• a template, or a one-page guide that I could offer in exchange for an email signup.
• For each, explain in one line why it fits my exact audience's problem.
• Make them specific enough that I could build them in a single Claude session.

You Are Ready for the Next Course

With a working marketing system running, content batched, published, and reviewed, you are ready to move from getting attention to converting it.

When someone responds to your content, DMs you, replies to your newsletter, or reaches out, a conversation starts. That conversation has different requirements: how to respond, how to understand what they actually need, how to position your offer, and how to follow up without feeling like you are chasing.

Sales with Claude is the next course. Same approach, applied to one-on-one conversations.

Move there when your marketing system is running. Not before.