View All guides Conversation skill · updated 2026-09-21
Maryland SBDC Toolkit

Skill guide

Marketing Plan Generator

A 2,000–3,000-word strategic marketing plan from client inputs, a Vertical IQ report, and the client's own website.

For: Maryland SBDC consultants and staff
Maintainer: Brandon Mason
Source: the skill’s own instructions
What you getWhat you useSetupHow to useFAQ

Start here

What you get

Two modes. Direct generate: hand it the client info, the Vertical IQ report, and the website URL and it produces the full ten-section plan (Executive Summary, Market Overview, Competitive Analysis, SWOT, Personas, Objectives & KPIs, Recommendations & Tactics, Budget & Timeline, Measurement, Appendix). Walkthrough: it asks the discovery questions one at a time, confirms what it gathered, then generates — and can pause after each section for your review.

Conversation skill. You start it by saying what you want; it asks for what it needs and hands back a deliverable in the same chat. Nothing to install beyond the plugin, nothing to configure.

What it never does

  • Never generates before confirming the inputs in walkthrough mode.
  • Never invents market data — the Market Overview comes from the Vertical IQ report and the website facts it extracted.

Step 1

What to have ready

Step 2

Setting it up

Getting it on your side

The skill is plain instructions, so it runs wherever you already work. Pick your row:

  1. Get the files: everything is in the public GitHub repository — the skills themselves, and the ready-to-install plugin file on the latest release. MIT licensed; no GitHub account needed to download.
  2. Claude desktop app: download sbdc-toolkit.plugin from the latest release, drag it into a chat, click Accept.
  3. ChatGPT: this skill is a plain Markdown file, not Claude-specific. Open skills/sbdc-marketing-plan-generator/SKILL.md, copy the whole file, and paste it into a ChatGPT Project’s instructions or a custom GPT. Same instructions, same outputs.
  4. Claude Code: /plugin marketplace add bwfnx/sbdc-toolkit then /plugin install sbdc-toolkit@maryland-sbdc

Your first conversation

Open a new chat and say:

Let's build a strategic marketing plan for [client].

It will ask for:

  • Walkthrough: the discovery questions one at a time. Direct: nothing — it reads the inputs you gave and fetches the website.

Step 3

How to use it

Say

Generate the full marketing plan from this client info and Vertical IQ report.Build the marketing plan step by step and let me review each section.Here's the website — extract the facts and fold them in.

What comes back

  • One continuous report with the ten sections, clear headings, and call-out boxes.

Then

  • Review section by section with the client; regenerate a section when an assumption is wrong.

Tips from the field

  • The Vertical IQ report is what makes the Market Overview real — pull it before you start.

Questions people ask

FAQ

Is it safe to paste client details?
Paste only what the deliverable needs. Nothing you paste is stored by the skill, but the chat itself is a record — treat it like any other working document.
It did something odd. Who do I ask?
Brandon Mason. Say which skill and what you said to start it; a screenshot of the reply helps.