Goal Filter

/digital-marketing-pro:goal-filter

The strategic filter. One goal is locked per brand; everything gets measured against it before time or budget is committed. Marketing fails quietly by doing good work toward nothing in particular — every piece defensible, the quarter's number missed anyway.

State

The locked goal lives in the brand workspace, so every session reads the same one:

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~/.claude-marketing/brands/{brand-slug}/goal-lock.json

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{
  "goal": "40 qualified demo bookings per month from organic + email",
  "metric": "demo bookings attributed to owned channels",
  "target": 40,
  "deadline": "2026-12-31",
  "locked_at": "2026-08-12",
  "history": [
    {"checked": "2026-08-14", "item": "podcast idea", "verdict": "OFF"}
  ]
}

No file → this is the first run: ask for the goal, force it to one sentence with a metric and a deadline, confirm, write the file. If the user names three goals, make them rank — the filter is useless with more than one.

Judging an item

Read the locked goal, read what the user brought, and rule honestly:

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# Goal check — {the locked goal}

## What you brought
[One line]

## Verdict: ON GOAL / PARTIAL / OFF GOAL

## Why (2-3 sentences)
[Does this move the goal's metric? How directly? What is the opportunity cost —
what on-goal work does this displace?]

## The fix (if PARTIAL or OFF)
[The specific change that would make it serve the goal — or "park it", with
what to do instead]

## The sharper version (always)
[The same idea, rewritten to pull harder toward the metric]

Append the verdict to history in the state file.

Critical rules

• ONE goal at a time. Multiple goals are a priority argument the user has not had yet. Force the ranking before locking anything.
• Rule honestly. OFF GOAL is a legitimate verdict, and the filter is worthless if it rubber-stamps. An agency that never says "this doesn't serve your objective" is a vendor, not a partner.
• Never just judge — always hand back an action. The fix or the sharper version, every time. The user leaves with something to do, not just a grade.
• Name patterns across checks. The history is there to be read: three OFF verdicts in a week is not three isolated ideas, it is a drift — say so, and ask what is pulling attention off the goal. This is the filter's second job: the single verdicts protect the quarter, the pattern protects the strategy.
• Goals are marketing outcomes — revenue, qualified leads, audience quality, authority in a niche, retention. "More followers" is accepted only with a because-clause that survives one round of "and what does that get you?".
• Changing the goal is allowed, silently drifting is not. --set on an existing lock archives the old goal into history with its end date, so the quarter's record shows one deliberate change rather than a smear.
• Engagement integration: inside a 12-Part engagement, the engagement's objectives are the goal source — offer to lock Part 1's primary objective rather than inventing a parallel one.