Free Tool Lead-Gen Planner

By coreyhaines31· coreyhaines31/marketingskills· 0

When the user wants to plan, evaluate, or build a free tool for marketing purposes — lead generation, SEO value, or brand awareness. Also use when the user mentions "engineering as marketing," "free tool," "marketing tool," "calculator," "generator," "interactive tool," "lead gen tool," "build a tool for leads," "free resource," "ROI calculator," "grader tool," "audit tool," "should I build a free tool," or "tools for lead gen." Use this whenever someone wants to build something useful and give it away to attract leads or earn links. For downloadable content lead magnets (ebooks, checklists, templates), see lead-magnets.

Installation

1
Make sure Claude is on your device and in your terminal.
Skills load from ~/.claude/skills/ when Claude Code starts up — so you need it on your machine first. If you don't have it yet, install it once with the command below, then run claude in any terminal to verify.
One-time setup
```
npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
```
Already have it? Skip ahead.
2
Paste into Claude Code or into your terminal.
Install
```
git clone https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills.git /tmp/coreyhaines31__marketingskills && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/free-tool-strategy-coreyhaines31 && cp -r /tmp/coreyhaines31__marketingskills/skills/free-tool-strategy/. ~/.claude/skills/free-tool-strategy-coreyhaines31/
```
This copies the whole skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/free-tool-strategy-coreyhaines31/ — the SKILL.md plus any scripts, reference docs, or templates the skill ships with. Safe default: works for every skill.
Faster alternative (instruction-only skills)
Skips the clone and grabs only the SKILL.md file. Don't use this if the skill ships Python scripts, reference markdowns, or asset templates — they won't be downloaded and the skill will fail when it tries to load them.
Quick install (SKILL.md only)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/free-tool-strategy-coreyhaines31 && curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/main/skills/free-tool-strategy/SKILL.md -o ~/.claude/skills/free-tool-strategy-coreyhaines31/SKILL.md
Restart Claude Code.
Quit and reopen Claude Code (or any other agent that loads from ~/.claude/skills/). New skills are picked up on startup.
Just ask Claude.
Skills auto-activate when your request matches the skill's description — no slash command needed. Trigger phrases live in the skill's own frontmatter; you can read them in the “What this skill does” section above.

Prefer to read the source first? Open on GitHub.

When Claude uses it

What this skill does

Free Tool Strategy (Engineering as Marketing)

You are an expert in engineering-as-marketing strategy. Your goal is to help plan and evaluate free tools that generate leads, attract organic traffic, and build brand awareness.

Initial Assessment

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing-context.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing-context.md in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Before designing a tool strategy, understand:

Business Context - What's the core product? Who is the target audience? What problems do they have?
Goals - Lead generation? SEO/traffic? Brand awareness? Product education?
Resources - Technical capacity to build? Ongoing maintenance bandwidth? Budget for promotion?

Core Principles

1. Solve a Real Problem

Tool must provide genuine value
Solves a problem your audience actually has
Useful even without your main product

2. Adjacent to Core Product

Related to what you sell
Natural path from tool to product
Educates on problem you solve

3. Simple and Focused

Does one thing well
Low friction to use
Immediate value

4. Worth the Investment

Lead value × expected leads > build cost + maintenance

Tool Types Overview

Type	Examples	Best For
Calculators	ROI, savings, pricing estimators	Decisions involving numbers
Generators	Templates, policies, names	Creating something quickly
Analyzers	Website graders, SEO auditors	Evaluating existing work
Testers	Meta tag preview, speed tests	Checking if something works
Libraries	Icon sets, templates, snippets	Reference material
Interactive	Tutorials, playgrounds, quizzes	Learning/understanding

For detailed tool types and examples: See references/tool-types.md

Ideation Framework

Start with Pain Points

What problems does your audience Google? - Search query research, common questions
What manual processes are tedious? - Spreadsheet tasks, repetitive calculations
What do they need before buying your product? - Assessments, planning, comparisons
What information do they wish they had? - Data they can't easily access, benchmarks

Validate the Idea

Search demand: Is there search volume? How competitive?
Uniqueness: What exists? How can you be 10x better?
Lead quality: Does this audience match buyers?
Build feasibility: How complex? Can you scope an MVP?

Lead Capture Strategy

Gating Options

Approach	Pros	Cons
Fully gated	Maximum capture	Lower usage
Partially gated	Balance of both	Common pattern
Ungated + optional	Maximum reach	Lower capture
Ungated entirely	Pure SEO/brand	No direct leads

Lead Capture Best Practices

Value exchange clear: "Get your full report"
Minimal friction: Email only
Show preview of what they'll get
Optional: Segment by asking one qualifying question

SEO Considerations

Keyword Strategy

Tool landing page: "[thing] calculator", "[thing] generator", "free [tool type]"

Supporting content: "How to [use case]", "What is [concept]"

Link Building

Free tools attract links because:

Genuinely useful (people reference them)
Unique (can't link to just any page)
Shareable (social amplification)

Build vs. Buy

Build Custom

When: Unique concept, core to brand, high strategic value, have dev capacity

Use No-Code Tools

Options: Outgrow, Involve.me, Typeform, Tally, Bubble, Webflow When: Speed to market, limited dev resources, testing concept

Embed Existing

When: Something good exists, white-label available, not core differentiator

MVP Scope

Minimum Viable Tool

Core functionality only—does the one thing, works reliably
Essential UX—clear input, obvious output, mobile works
Basic lead capture—email collection, leads go somewhere useful

What to Skip Initially

Account creation, saving results, advanced features, perfect design, every edge case

Evaluation Scorecard

Rate each factor 1-5:

Factor	Score
Search demand exists	___
Audience match to buyers	___
Uniqueness vs. existing	___
Natural path to product	___
Build feasibility	___
Maintenance burden (inverse)	___
Link-building potential	___
Share-worthiness	___

25+: Strong candidate | 15-24: Promising | <15: Reconsider

Task-Specific Questions

What existing tools does your audience use for workarounds?
How do you currently generate leads?
What technical resources are available?
What's the timeline and budget?

Related Skills

lead-magnets: For downloadable content lead magnets (ebooks, checklists, templates)
page-cro: For optimizing the tool's landing page
seo-audit: For SEO-optimizing the tool
analytics-tracking: For measuring tool usage
email-sequence: For nurturing leads from the tool

Related skills

AI Search Optimization

coreyhaines31

When the user wants to optimize content for AI search engines, get cited by LLMs, or appear in AI-generated answers. Also use when the user mentions 'AI SEO,' 'AEO,' 'GEO,' 'LLMO,' 'answer engine optimization,' 'generative engine optimization,' 'LLM optimization,' 'AI Overviews,' 'optimize for ChatGPT,' 'optimize for Perplexity,' 'AI citations,' 'AI visibility,' 'zero-click search,' 'how do I show up in AI answers,' 'LLM mentions,' or 'optimize for Claude/Gemini.' Use this whenever someone wants their content to be cited or surfaced by AI assistants and AI search engines. For traditional technical and on-page SEO audits, see seo-audit. For structured data implementation, see schema-markup.

App Store Listing Audit

coreyhaines31

When the user wants to audit or optimize an App Store or Google Play listing. Also use when the user mentions 'ASO audit,' 'app store optimization,' 'optimize my app listing,' 'improve app visibility,' 'app store ranking,' 'audit my listing,' 'why aren't people downloading my app,' 'improve my app conversion,' 'keyword optimization for app,' or 'compare my app to competitors.' Use when the user shares an App Store or Google Play URL and wants to improve it.

Competitor Comparison Pages

coreyhaines31

When the user wants to create competitor comparison or alternative pages for SEO and sales enablement. Also use when the user mentions 'alternative page,' 'vs page,' 'competitor comparison,' 'comparison page,' '[Product] vs [Product],' '[Product] alternative,' 'competitive landing pages,' 'how do we compare to X,' 'battle card,' or 'competitor teardown.' Use this for any content that positions your product against competitors. Covers four formats: singular alternative, plural alternatives, you vs competitor, and competitor vs competitor. For sales-specific competitor docs, see sales-enablement.

Competitor Research Profiler

coreyhaines31

When the user wants to research, profile, or analyze competitors from their URLs. Also use when the user mentions 'competitor profile,' 'competitor research,' 'competitor analysis,' 'profile this competitor,' 'analyze competitor,' 'competitive intelligence,' 'competitor deep dive,' 'who are my competitors,' 'competitor landscape,' 'competitor dossier,' 'competitive audit,' or 'research these competitors.' Input is a list of competitor URLs. Output is structured competitor profile markdown files. For creating comparison/alternative pages from profiles, see competitor-alternatives. For sales-specific battle cards, see sales-enablement.