9. Marketing & Content¶

The Marketing & Content module covers the create-to-publish value chain — every step from brand foundation through content creation, review, channel publishing, and performance measurement. It also feeds the lead-to-cash chain: outreach drafts, campaign sequences, and SEO content all flow through here before reaching prospects.

BOB does not publish anything without your review. The module is built around a draft → review → scheduled → published lifecycle, with a clear gate before anything goes out.

9.1 Brand foundations¶

Before BOB can write content that sounds like you, it needs to know your voice. This is a one-time setup step, not an ongoing workflow.

Brand voice¶

Run brand-voice-generator once, early on. BOB interviews you — or analyzes samples of your existing writing — and produces a brand voice document: tone descriptors, vocabulary preferences, sentence rhythm, things to avoid, and example passages. This document is stored at {company.brand} and is read automatically by every content-drafting skill.

If your voice shifts or you add a new writer to the team, re-run brand-voice-generator and replace the file.

Brand system¶

brand-system handles the visual and messaging layer: colour palette, typefaces, taglines, positioning statement, and messaging hierarchy. It writes a DESIGN.md design spec in {company.brand}, with companion UI and media standards files; a product or a client can have its own spec in {product.brand} or {client.brand}. Skills that produce designed deliverables — branded-pdf, corporate-pdf, presentation tools — read from this spec.

You do not need to update these files frequently. Treat them as your single source of truth for brand rules and update them only when your brand changes.

9.2 Content production¶

social-content is the workhorse for regular publishing. Give it source material — a meeting note, a report excerpt, a client insight, a link — and it drafts posts calibrated to your chosen channel (LinkedIn, X, Substack, or others). It applies your brand voice automatically.

Typical workflow:

Point BOB at your source: "Write a LinkedIn post from the notes in last week's client call."
social-content reads the source and drafts two or three options in your voice.
Drafts land in {company.marketing}/{channel}/drafts/ with status: draft.
You review in Obsidian, edit inline if needed, and change status: scheduled or status: approved.
Only then does publishing happen — either manually or via a publisher skill.

Repurposing¶

Good content is expensive to produce. content-repurposer multiplies its value. Give it one strong piece — a long article, a recorded talk transcript, a case study — and specify which formats you need. BOB produces a set of derivative pieces: a short-form post, a newsletter excerpt, a pull-quote set, a thread structure.

The output is a set of draft notes, one per format, saved alongside the source. They are not identical rehashes — BOB rewrites for each context, applying channel-appropriate length and framing.

Copywriting¶

copywriting handles persuasive writing with a defined commercial goal: landing pages, product descriptions, call-to-action blocks, email subject lines. Unlike social-content, which works from your existing material, copywriting starts from a brief. Tell BOB the offer, the audience, the desired action, and any constraints. BOB drafts; you approve.

9.3 Channels and publishing¶

The review gate¶

Every content workflow produces a draft, never a live post. The status field in the note frontmatter controls progression:

Status	Meaning
`draft`	Created by BOB; not reviewed
`in-review`	Under your review or a collaborator's
`approved`	Cleared for scheduling or publication
`scheduled`	Queued for a specific publish date
`published`	Live; publisher confirmed

No publisher skill will act on a note with status: draft. This is intentional and cannot be bypassed.

Publisher skills¶

Skill	Channel	Notes
`social-publisher`	LinkedIn, X, and others	Uses configured channel credentials; posts at scheduled time
`wordpress-publisher`	WordPress sites	Posts as draft in WordPress; you publish from the CMS
`metalsmith-publisher`	Static sites (brn.cx and similar)	Generates the file and writes to the site source; build runs separately

wordpress-publisher and metalsmith-publisher never push a live page directly. WordPress receives a draft; Metalsmith writes source files that a build step then compiles. The final live state is always the result of a separate deliberate action.

Where content is saved¶

Content type	Vault path
LinkedIn drafts	`{company.marketing}/linkedin/`
Newsletter / Substack	`{company.marketing}/newsletter/`
Blog and long-form	`{company.marketing}/content/`
Outreach (cold/warm)	`{company.marketing}/{channel}/`
Campaign assets	`{company.marketing}/{channel}/`
Brand files	`{company.brand}`

9.4 Campaigns and sequences¶

A campaign is a coordinated set of content pieces aimed at a defined audience over a defined period. BOB can plan and draft the full campaign, but you control sequencing and timing.

To run a campaign:

Brief BOB: audience, goal, duration, channels, key messages.
BOB proposes a content calendar — posts, emails, landing page copy, and the sequence logic.
You approve the plan. BOB then drafts each piece as a separate note.
Each note goes through the normal draft → review → approved → scheduled flow.

For email-based nurture or outbound sequences, outbound-sequence (see chapter 8) produces the sequence structure, and social-publisher or your email tool handles sending. BOB links the sequence notes so you can review the full arc before any piece goes out.

Relevant playbooks: Content strategy to publish, Content campaign launch, Daily Content Machine, Blog creation quality loop.

9.5 Audits¶

Run audits quarterly, or before a major relaunch, or when something is clearly underperforming. Each audit skill returns a scored report and a prioritised list of concrete actions — not a summary of what's already there.

Skill	What it audits	Primary output
`seo-audit`	On-page SEO: title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, internal linking, keyword gaps	Scored report with fixes ranked by impact
`geo-audit`	Generative engine optimisation: how your content appears in AI-generated answers	Visibility score and content recommendations
`website-audit`	Overall site health: performance, UX, conversion friction, messaging clarity	Prioritised improvement list
`social-media-audit`	Channel performance: posting frequency, engagement rates, content mix, audience trends	Channel-by-channel score with actions

Audit reports land in {company.reports} with the date and audit type in the filename. They are inputs, not conclusions — the action items are what matter.

9.6 Deliverable rendering¶

Some marketing work needs to be sent to clients or prospects as a finished document, not a vault note.

branded-pdf renders any approved note as an on-brand PDF, applying your brand-system colours, typeface, and logo.
lead-magnet-generator builds a multi-page downloadable guide, checklist, or toolkit from a topic, plus the promotion posts to distribute it.
Visual skills (visual-designer, excalidraw-diagrams, d2-diagram) produce charts, diagrams, and visual assets that can be embedded in documents or posts.
Video and motion graphics skills exist for producing short explainer videos, testimonial clips, and social video content — the Daily Content Machine and AI News Daily Video Pipeline playbooks orchestrate these.

Rendered files are saved to {client.deliverables} if client-facing, or to the relevant {company.marketing} subfolder for owned channels.

9.7 Skills in this module¶

Skill	Primary use
`brand-voice-generator`	Capture and codify your tone and style
`brand-system`	Visual identity and messaging hierarchy
`social-content`	Social and editorial post drafting
`content-repurposer`	One piece → many formats
`copywriting`	Persuasive copy with a commercial goal
`social-publisher`	Post to social channels on schedule
`wordpress-publisher`	Push content to WordPress as a draft
`metalsmith-publisher`	Write to static-site source
`seo-audit`	On-page SEO scoring and fixes
`geo-audit`	Generative engine visibility
`website-audit`	Full site health and conversion review
`social-media-audit`	Channel performance review
`branded-pdf`	On-brand PDF rendering
`content-scorer`	Quality and readability scoring
`copy-editing`	Grammar, clarity, and consistency pass
`humanize-content`	Remove AI cadence from drafts
`messaging-coherence`	Check that all content tells the same story

9.8 The content lifecycle in practice¶

The draft → review → scheduled → published progression is not bureaucracy. It exists because published content is hard to retract, and inconsistent brand voice compounds over time.

A practical routine:

Monday: review all notes with status: draft created last week. Approve, request revisions, or delete.
Wednesday: check status: scheduled queue. Confirm timing still makes sense.
Friday: review anything that went status: published that week. Note what to repurpose.

BOB can generate this weekly content review as a dashboard if you run weekly-review with the marketing context specified.

9.9 Good practices¶

Run brand-voice-generator before any bulk drafting. Content produced without a voice file will require heavier editing.
Always check messaging-coherence before a campaign launch. It is easy for individual posts to drift from the core message when drafted at different times.
Use content-repurposer before reaching for social-content. If you have a strong existing piece, repurposing is faster and more consistent than drafting from scratch.
Treat audit actions as a backlog, not a to-do list. A seo-audit can return fifty items. Add them to your task notes and work through them by impact, not by order.
Never change status: published back to draft in place. If a published piece needs revision, create a new note as the corrected version and link the old one.