Sixth in a Series: Putting it all Together
Over the course of this series, we’ve covered a lot of ground: why intent matters more than tactics; how to market for awareness, trust and action; and how to get honest about your own business goals before any of that work begins. If you’ve missed any of the earlier articles, here’s a quick index:
- Article 1: The Question Most Marketers Never Ask
- Article 2: Change What They Think
- Article 3: Change What They Feel
- Article 4: Change What They Do
- Article 5: Know Your Own Agenda
This wrap-up article focuses on applying the ideas we’ve discussed in the past five and the clarity test that has appeared in each installment as a set of three questions that plays a central role. Here, we use it as a practical framework you can apply before any campaign, any piece of content, or any marketing investment.
The Three Questions (and Why They’re not One-Size-Fits-All)
The Clarity Test asks three things:
- Have I defined what I want a prospect to think or do as a result of this?
- Does the content or campaign lead them there?
- Will they know what to do next?
Like many powerful ideas, these questions are simple enough on the surface, but the right answers will look different depending on where your prospect is in their buying journey and what your marketing is actually trying to accomplish.
That’s where many teams get into trouble: applying conversion-stage thinking to awareness-stage content or measuring trust-building work against lead-gen metrics.
Here’s how the test applies at each stage.
When You’re Trying to Change What They Think
At the awareness stage, the first question—what do I want them to think or do?—should produce an answer about belief not behavior. You want them to think something new. That might be realizing that a problem they’ve been tolerating has a real cost to them. Or that your category of solution is worth considering. Or that you and your firm understand their world.
The second question—does this content lead them there?—is where awareness marketing most often fails. Content that talks about your company rather than their problem, or that leads with your credentials rather than their challenge, doesn’t shift belief. It just adds to the noise.
The third question—will they know what to do next?—has a more modest answer at this stage than it does later. The next step might simply be to read another article, follow you on LinkedIn, or walk away with a clearer understanding of the problem they face. That’s enough, as long as you’ve designed for it.
When You’re Trying to Change What They Feel
At the trust stage, the first question requires you to be specific about the emotional outcome you’re after. “I want them to trust us” is a start, but it’s not specific enough to guide content decisions. Do you want them to feel that you understand their industry? That you’ve solved this exact problem before? That choosing to work with you won’t put their job at risk?
The second question—does this content lead them there?—pushes you to examine whether your content is actually doing emotional work or just making a logical case. Specificity, point of view, and voice are the tools. It’s not about features or benefits.
The third question at this stage is often about a low-friction next step that deepens the relationship: a case study worth reading, a newsletter worth subscribing to, or even a conversation worth requesting. The ask should match the level of trust you’ve actually built, not the level you wish you’d built.
When You’re Trying to Change What They Do
At the conversion stage, the first question should produce the most specific answer of all. Not “I want them to contact us” but “I want them to schedule a 20-minute call to discuss their options for Q3.” Vagueness at this stage is costly.
The second question—does this content lead them there?—is where you audit for friction: unclear calls to action, landing pages that don’t deliver on the promise made by the content that brought the prospect there, follow-up that feels like a sales sequence rather than a conversation.
The third question is the most critical at this stage. If a prospect finishes your content, finds the offer compelling, and still isn’t sure what to do next, you’ve done the hardest parts of the work and left the last, critical step uncovered.
When You’re Checking Your Own Agenda
The Clarity Test also applies before any of the above, when you’re still evaluating your overall marketing strategy rather than a single piece of content. In that context the three questions become:
- What specific business outcome are we trying to produce?
- Is our marketing activity actually designed to produce that outcome?
- Do the people responsible for sales and marketing agree on what success looks like?
If any of these is uncertain, that uncertainty will show up in your results. It won’t necessarily be an obvious failure. More likely, it will be quiet underperformance that’s hard to diagnose because everyone is busy and nothing is obviously broken.
The Challenge
Here’s a practical place to start: pick one campaign or piece of content you’re working on right now and run it through the Clarity Test. Don’t do this theoretically as you’re still reading this article. Actually write down your answers to the three questions and see whether what you’ve built matches what you wrote.
If it does, you’re in good shape. If you sense a gap, you’ve identified something that needs fixing before you publish.
That gap, and the willingness to close it before pushing the piece out, is what separates intentional marketing from the kind that keeps you busy without making an impact.
This is the sixth and final article in my “Marketing With Intent” series.You can find earlier articles in the series here.
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
