“Convince me.”
The question I ask on behalf of audiences before anything gets built, and at every point after.
Most people like shopping. Almost nobody likes being sold to.
The difference is whether we chose to want it, or had to be convinced into buying it.
Before a campaign takes shape, I put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't care yet, and ask myself the questions they actually ask. Beyond the four walls of corporate meeting rooms, no one thinks to themselves "what's the value proposition." Their first question is usually "So what?"
I find the answer myself where I can: old customer or user reviews, emails in a support inbox, or a dashboard with the right filters set. Where I can't get to it, I say so; naming a gap early saves everyone from discovering it later, usually at a worse time.
When done well, this is the fastest part of the job. Most "insights" doesn't survive a second question, and I'd rather find out on day one than after the brief's been signed off.
Strategy is just the beginning.
“Convince me” doesn't stop once the strategy’s set - it changes shape.
Throughout campaign development, I ask myself if the product or service I’m promoting actually works where it lands. Would I read this past the subject line? Would I stop scrolling for this? Would I tap "see more" if the first slide is all I saw? Past the hook, there's a second test: does this travel across markets, or does it just sound right in the one it was written in? Something warm and direct in one market can read as blunt or oddly formal in another - beyond A/B testing and copy choices, these questions force me to stop, check, and care about the outcome.
Delivery mechanisms get scrutinized, too. Does the landing page deliver what the ad sets promised, or does it just hope nobody notices the gaps? Do call-to-action buttons promise more support than what can be realistically offered?
The stage I don’t always own
What happens after a campaign ends is the stage I've had the least formal mandate over. Most of my roles ended at handoff; feedback came back only when a client or stakeholder chose to share it. When it did, I asked the same question one more time: was I actually right, or do the results just tell me what I wanted to hear?
Owning that loop end to end is something I'd want built into the process from day one. It’s something worth being intentional about, rather than leaving to whoever remembers to circle back.
Once I'm convinced, I move quickly, because by then I know exactly what I'm building toward.
Until then, I will keep asking.