luckiest-co 1.0.1 → 1.0.3

package/skills/luckiest-marketing-plan/references/current-state-rubric.md

@@ -0,0 +1,255 @@
+# Current State Rubric — 17-Section Scoring Lens
+
+This 17-section rubric is the source of truth for Section 3 ("Current State") of every marketing plan. Score each section 0–5 from available materials, then write a 2–4 sentence "shape interpretation" that names where strengths and gaps cluster.
+
+## How to score
+
+**From rich materials.** When the team has shared decks, prior content audits, a brand voice doc, kickoff transcript, app store and analytics snapshots — score each section from those artifacts. Mark "scored from materials" in the section heading so the team can push back where they have better data.
+
+**From a separately scored audit.** If the team has already run a scored current-state assessment (in any format), ingest those scores directly. Don't redo the work — note the date the rubric was scored and flag any sections where material has shifted since.
+
+Either way, the output is the same: a 17-row scored table, a total out of 85, and a shape paragraph.
+
+## The 17 sections (scored 0–5 each)
+
+### 1. Positioning
+**What's scored:** Clarity of category claim, differentiation, alignment across surfaces (homepage, app store, pitch deck, founder messaging).
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No positioning anywhere
+- 2 = Inconsistent across surfaces; team can't articulate it on demand
+- 4 = Clear, original, mostly consistent; minor surface gaps
+- 5 = Distinctive, category-defining, every surface aligned
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Cross-cutting — feeds every stage.
+
+### 2. Customer research
+**What's scored:** Depth and recency of customer research, ICP clarity, voice-of-customer capture.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No formal research, only founder intuition
+- 2 = Some research but stale or one-off
+- 4 = Active research practice, customer language captured
+- 5 = Continuous research, customer language flows into copy / product / messaging
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Cross-cutting — feeds especially Acquisition (channel choice) and Activation (onboarding voice).
+
+### 3. Homepage
+**What's scored:** Headline clarity, voice alignment, conversion architecture, mobile experience.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = Generic / broken / off-brand
+- 2 = Functional but underperforming; voice mostly absent
+- 4 = Clear, voice-aligned, converting; minor optimization opportunities
+- 5 = Distinctive, converts strongly, fully voice-aligned
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition + Activation.
+
+### 4. Sales / product pages
+**What's scored:** Existence and quality of dedicated product / pricing / feature pages. Are SKUs documented? Is pricing scannable? Are upsells visible?
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No dedicated pages
+- 2 = Pages exist but are stale or off-voice
+- 4 = Quality pages for primary products; gaps on secondary
+- 5 = Every product, tier, and upsell has a high-converting page
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition + Revenue.
+
+### 5. Conversion pages
+**What's scored:** Landing pages for specific campaigns, channels, or use cases. `/partner`, `/science`, `/ambassadors`, `/eye-mask` types of pages.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No conversion pages
+- 2 = One or two exist; rest of needed pages missing
+- 4 = Most needed conversion pages exist; quality is good
+- 5 = Full conversion page library, each high-converting
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition + Activation.
+
+### 6. Competitor comparison
+**What's scored:** Existence of "vs. {competitor}" pages, comparison content. Does the brand acknowledge alternatives, or pretend they don't exist?
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = Nothing — actively avoiding competitor mentions
+- 2 = Some content exists but is weak or hidden
+- 4 = Solid comparison pages for top 2–3 competitors
+- 5 = Comprehensive comparison library; SEO-targeted; high-converting
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition (consideration-stage SEO + sales enablement).
+
+### 7. Resources / content
+**What's scored:** Blog, knowledge base, science page, whitepapers, research, founder essays, podcast.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No content surface
+- 2 = Blog exists but is stale or thin
+- 4 = Active content production; multiple formats
+- 5 = Content is a moat — proprietary research, named pillars, daily volume
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition.
+
+### 8. Onboarding
+**What's scored:** New user onboarding (in-app + email). Time-to-value, completion rate, brand-voice alignment.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No onboarding flow
+- 2 = Onboarding exists but is broken, off-voice, or underperforming
+- 4 = Solid onboarding; clear bottlenecks identified
+- 5 = Tested, optimized, on-brand; activation rate at category top quartile
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Activation.
+
+### 9. Email lifecycle
+**What's scored:** Existence and quality of lifecycle email programs. Welcome / onboarding / post-purchase / lapsed / win-back.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No lifecycle email
+- 2 = Some flows exist but drafted not live, or live but stale
+- 4 = Core flows live and performing; gaps on secondary flows
+- 5 = Full lifecycle live, segmented, performing above category benchmarks
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Retention (+ Activation for onboarding emails).
+
+### 10. Sales material
+**What's scored:** Sales decks, one-pagers, demos, case studies, pricing sheets. (For B2B / hybrid companies — for pure D2C, this can be marked N/A or scored low without implication.)
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No sales material
+- 2 = Founder uses a deck but other material is thin
+- 4 = Solid sales kit; reps can self-serve content
+- 5 = Comprehensive material; updated quarterly; objection-handling library exists
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition + Revenue (B2B).
+
+### 11. Messaging
+**What's scored:** Voice, tone, vocabulary, message hierarchy across surfaces. Is the brand voice documented, consistent, distinctive?
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No voice documented; surfaces inconsistent
+- 2 = Voice exists in founder's head but isn't operationalized
+- 4 = Documented voice; mostly consistent across surfaces
+- 5 = Distinctive voice; documented; every surface respects it; voice is a moat
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Cross-cutting.
+
+### 12. Pricing
+**What's scored:** Pricing structure clarity, packaging logic, recent pressure-testing, listed vs. effective price reconciliation.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = Pricing not pressure-tested in over a year; unclear structure
+- 2 = Listed pricing exists but plan mix / discounting muddles the read
+- 4 = Clear pricing; recent tests; LTV math known
+- 5 = Pricing tested quarterly; packaging optimized; expansion levers known
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Revenue.
+
+### 13. CRO (conversion rate optimization)
+**What's scored:** Test cadence, instrumentation, A/B history, statistical rigor.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No tests run; no instrumentation
+- 2 = Some ad-hoc tests; no statistical rigor
+- 4 = Regular test cadence; some wins
+- 5 = Continuous testing program; experimentation culture; documented wins
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Cross-cutting (most impactful at Activation + Revenue).
+
+### 14. GTM launches
+**What's scored:** Quality of past launch executions. Product launches, feature launches, campaign launches.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No structured launches; "soft launches" only
+- 2 = Some launches but uneven execution
+- 4 = Solid recent launches; playbook exists
+- 5 = Repeatable launch motion; Product Hunt #1s; press coverage on demand
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition + Activation.
+
+### 15. Ads (paid)
+**What's scored:** Paid acquisition state. Active campaigns, channels, CAC tracking, creative quality.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No paid acquisition
+- 2 = Some paid but unstructured / wasteful
+- 4 = Paid is firing across 2–3 channels with positive unit economics
+- 5 = Sophisticated paid stack; CAC/LTV understood; creative iterated weekly
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition.
+
+**Note:** For pre-seed clients with no paid budget, score this 0 *without* treating it as a weakness — it reflects the funding stage, not a marketing failure.
+
+### 16. SEO
+**What's scored:** Organic search performance. Domain rating, ranking keywords, organic traffic, content cluster strategy.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = No SEO; new domain or zero-authority
+- 2 = Some content but no strategy; ranks for brand only
+- 4 = Established content clusters; growing organic traffic; DR 25+
+- 5 = SEO is a moat; DR 40+; thousand+ ranking keywords; consistent content production
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition.
+
+### 17. Internationalization
+**What's scored:** Geographic expansion, language localization, region-specific pricing.
+
+**Score guide:**
+- 0 = US/EN only; no international consideration
+- 2 = International users exist but aren't served (one language, one currency)
+- 4 = Multi-language, region-specific pricing, GTM playbook for new markets
+- 5 = International is a strength; multi-region revenue; localized GTM
+
+**Maps to AARRR:** Acquisition.
+
+**Note:** For most early-stage companies, internationalization scores 0–1 and that's appropriate. Don't penalize early-stage companies for not having international playbooks yet.
+
+## How to compute the total + read the shape
+
+**Total = sum of all 17 scores. Out of 85.**
+
+The total matters less than the *shape*. After the scoring table, write a 2–4 sentence "shape interpretation":
+
+> *"High in {strong sections}, low in {weak sections}. That shape is the gap the rest of the plan closes — Sections X (AARRR stage) is the longest because that's where the gap is widest."*
+
+## Common shapes
+
+### "Strong voice / messaging, weak distribution"
+- High: Positioning (#1), Customer research (#2), Messaging (#11)
+- Low: SEO (#16), Ads (#15), GTM launches (#14)
+- Translation: The founder is a strong storyteller but distribution hasn't caught up. Plan emphasizes Acquisition + paid layer prep.
+
+### "Strong acquisition, weak conversion"
+- High: SEO (#16), Resources (#7), Ads (#15)
+- Low: Homepage (#3), Onboarding (#8), Conversion pages (#5), Pricing (#12)
+- Translation: Traffic comes in but doesn't convert. Plan emphasizes Activation + Revenue.
+
+### "Strong conversion, weak retention"
+- High: Onboarding (#8), Homepage (#3), Pricing (#12)
+- Low: Email lifecycle (#9), CRO (#13)
+- Translation: Users sign up and pay but churn. Plan emphasizes Retention.
+
+### "Strong product, weak everything-else"
+- High: only Positioning (#1) and Customer research (#2) — the founder knows the customer
+- Low: everything operational
+- Translation: Pre-marketing stage. Plan is foundation-heavy. First quarter is bedrock fixes.
+
+### "Strong recent revenue, weak compounding"
+- High: Ads (#15), Sales material (#10), Pricing (#12)
+- Low: SEO (#16), Resources (#7), Referral mechanics
+- Translation: Performance marketing carries the business. Plan emphasizes building compounding channels before paid scales further.
+
+## When scores are subjective
+
+Some sections are easier to score from outside than others. Subjectivity tier:
+
+- **Objective (data-driven):** SEO (#16), Ads (#15), Email lifecycle (#9), Onboarding (#8) — backed by analytics
+- **Semi-objective:** Pricing (#12), CRO (#13), Conversion pages (#5), Sales material (#10) — visible artifacts to evaluate
+- **Subjective (judgment call):** Positioning (#1), Messaging (#11), Customer research (#2), Resources (#7) — interpretive
+
+For subjective sections, write the rationale into the "Note" column so the team can push back if they disagree.
+
+## When a prior scored audit exists
+
+If the team already has scored output from any current-state assessment, ingest those scores directly — don't redo the work. Treat that prior scoring as the ground truth for sections it covers.
+
+If the prior scoring was done weeks ago and material has shifted since (new shipped flows, new content live, repositioning, etc.), note "scored on YYYY-MM-DD; material has shifted since" and update any specific scores you have current evidence for.