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<title>Buyer Awareness – Michel Fortin</title>
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<title>Buyer Awareness – Michel Fortin</title>
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<title>How I Diagnose a Market Before I Try to Reposition It</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/three-lens-diagnostic/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 16:49:17 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Frameworks & Models]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Buyer Awareness]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Diagnostic Method]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[FORCEPS]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Fractional CMO]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Diagnosis]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[OATH Formula]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Positioning Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Power Positioning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Proof]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Repositioning]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=11781</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most repositioning fails because the diagnosis was partial. Here is the three-lens method I run as a fractional CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) before I reposition a market.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Stalled growth is rarely a copy problem. It’s a diagnosis problem. Before repositioning a market, run three lenses in sequence: Power Positioning (what specific place to own), the OATH formula (whether buyers are Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, or Hurting), and FORCEPS (which of seven proof types closes the doubt). Any single framework gives a confident but partial read. Stacked in order, they reveal the real gap and prevent endless homepage rewrites that fix nothing.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc toc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#you-see-but-you-do-not-observe">You See, But You Do Not Observe</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-first-lens-is-what-to-position">The First Lens Is What to Position</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-second-lens-is-where-the-buyer-actually-stands">The Second Lens Is Where the Buyer Actually Stands</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-third-lens-is-what-proof-closes-the-gap">The Third Lens Is What Proof Closes the Gap</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-i-run-them-in-that-order">Why I Run Them In That Order</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#this-is-not-only-for-fractional-work">This Is Not Only For Fractional Work</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#diagnose-before-you-produce">Diagnose Before You Produce</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A SaaS company once told me their problem was the messaging. They had rewritten their homepage four times in a year. Traffic was healthy. The pitch was clear. And they were still parked at the same revenue line they had hit three years earlier.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">On the surface, that looks like a copy problem. It almost never is.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I step into a fractional engagement, the first thing I do is not write. I diagnose. And I have learned the hard way not to trust a single framework to give me the whole read, because one lens on its own will lie to you with total confidence.</p>
<h2 id="you-see-but-you-do-not-observe" class="wp-block-heading">You See, But You Do Not Observe</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That line is Sherlock Holmes, scolding Watson for looking at the same staircase a thousand times without ever counting the steps. A market hands you the same clues it hands everyone else. The edge is reading them in a way your competitors do not.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So I run three lenses over every market before I touch a word of the messaging. Each lens answers one question, and only one. On its own, each one produces a clean, confident, wrong answer. Stacked together, they produce a read I can actually act on.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Power Positioning tells me what to position. The OATH formula tells me what awareness level I am speaking to. FORCEPS tells me what proof will close the gap. Those are the three steps of the deduction, and the order matters more than people expect.</p>
<h2 id="the-first-lens-is-what-to-position" class="wp-block-heading">The First Lens Is What to Position</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first question is the one most companies skip. What specific, ownable place should this business occupy in the buyer’s mind?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is <a href="https://michelfortin.com/power-positioning/">Power Positioning</a>, and it is not a tagline exercise. The market is not a physical space. It is a mental one. The company that wins is rarely the best in the category. It is the one the buyer thinks of first when the need shows up.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I look through this lens, I am hunting for one gap. The distance between what a company says it is, what its marketing implies it is, and what its buyers actually believe. Those three are almost never aligned, and that gap is where growth quietly stalls.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">With the SaaS firm, the place they could own was clear and narrow. Their messaging blurred it across three adjacent claims, so the market remembered none of them. That was the first clue, but it did not explain the stall on its own.</p>
<h2 id="the-second-lens-is-where-the-buyer-actually-stands" class="wp-block-heading">The Second Lens Is Where the Buyer Actually Stands</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A sharp position aimed at the wrong moment still misses. So the second lens asks where the buyer sits before I decide how to speak to them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That is the <a href="https://michelfortin.com/oath-formula/">OATH formula</a>, which I built back in 2003. It maps four stages of awareness. Oblivious buyers do not know they have the problem. Apathetic buyers know but do not feel the urgency. Thinking buyers are actively comparing options. Hurting buyers are ready to act and just need the friction removed.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Each stage needs a different message. Lead with proof and pricing for an Oblivious buyer and you lose them. Educate a Hurting buyer who already wants to sign and you stall the deal.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Through this lens, the SaaS picture sharpened. Most of their buyers were Apathetic. They understood the problem and felt no pressure to fix it. But the entire funnel was built for Hurting buyers who were ready to buy now. The position was findable. The conversation was aimed at the wrong moment.</p>
<h2 id="the-third-lens-is-what-proof-closes-the-gap" class="wp-block-heading">The Third Lens Is What Proof Closes the Gap</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The third lens assumes the position is right and the awareness level is read correctly, and then asks a harder question. What is the buyer still not convinced of?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Doubt blocks more decisions than weak offers do. <a href="https://michelfortin.com/forceps-framework/">FORCEPS</a> names the seven kinds of proof a buyer accepts: Factual, Optical, Relational, Credential, Evidential, Perceptual, and Social. The lens tells me which kind is missing at the exact point where the buyer goes quiet.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For an Apathetic buyer, the proof that moves them is rarely a testimonial. It is relational proof. The cost of doing nothing, made concrete enough to feel. Their messaging was built for a buyer who was ready to act, so it never put a number on what standing still was costing every month they waited.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Three lenses, one diagnosis. The position was blurred, the messaging spoke to the wrong awareness stage, and the proof that raises urgency was thin. We realigned the messaging to the buyer’s actual state. Qualified pipeline rose 197% in 90 days, with no change to the product, the price, or the ad spend.</p>
<h2 id="why-i-run-them-in-that-order" class="wp-block-heading">Why I Run Them In That Order</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The sequence is not arbitrary. The place comes first because it sets the destination, and everything downstream exists to deliver a buyer to it. Awareness tells me where that buyer is standing when the trip begins. Proof clears whatever is blocking the road between the two.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Start with proof and you stack evidence for a position the company has not earned yet. Start with awareness and you meet the buyer beautifully, then lead them nowhere.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is also why a single framework is dangerous on its own. Each one is correct about its own slice and silent about the other two. The OATH read on its own would have told me to fix the funnel. True, but incomplete. The positioning read alone would have told me to sharpen the message. Also true, also incomplete. The deduction only holds when all three agree on the same story.</p>
<h2 id="this-is-not-only-for-fractional-work" class="wp-block-heading">This Is Not Only For Fractional Work</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I run this read as a fractional CMO, CRO, or CSO because that is the seat I am usually in. But the method does not belong to the title.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">An executive repositioning a business unit runs the same three lenses. So does an expert building authority around a point of view, or a founder deciding what their company should be known for. The common thread is not the role. It is the depth of judgment behind the read. Anyone who has to make a market believe something can pick up these three instruments and use them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That is the part I care about most. The frameworks are not the point. The point is refusing to act on a partial diagnosis, no matter how confident the first clue feels.</p>
<h2 id="diagnose-before-you-produce" class="wp-block-heading">Diagnose Before You Produce</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most teams skip straight to production. They write before they observe, and they end up rewriting the homepage four times in a year while the real problem sits two lenses away.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The three-lens read is slow on the first day and fast for the rest of the engagement, because you stop guessing. You know what to position, who is ready to hear it, and what proof finally makes them believe it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If your growth has stalled and the messaging fixes are not holding, that is usually the tell. The diagnosis was partial. <a href="https://michelfortin.com/contact">Book a discovery call</a> and we can run the three lenses over your market together.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="what-is-the-three-lens-diagnostic-method" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is the three-lens diagnostic method?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It is the read I run before any repositioning work. Power Positioning identifies the place a company should own. The OATH formula identifies where the buyer sits on the awareness spectrum. FORCEPS identifies which proof is missing. Used together, they catch what any single framework misses.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-not-just-use-one-framework" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why not just use one framework?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Each framework is right about its own slice and blind to the other two. A positioning read alone tells you to sharpen the message. An awareness read alone tells you to fix the funnel. Both can be true and still incomplete. The diagnosis only holds when all three point to the same problem.</p>
</details>
<details id="who-is-this-method-for" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Who is this method for?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Fractional executives, full-time CMOs and CROs, founders, and experts building authority. Anyone responsible for making a market believe something can run the three lenses, regardless of title.</p>
</details>
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</item>
<item>
<title>The Diagnostic Skill That Separates Strategic Hires from Expensive Ones</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:36:32 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Expert Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Buyer Awareness]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Diagnostic Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[FORCEPS]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Market Analysis]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[OATH]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Power Positioning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Proof Stack]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Sherlocking]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5248</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most consultants start with solutions. The best fractional executives start by reading the business through three diagnostic lenses before they prescribe anything.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Growth tactics fail when they treat symptoms rather than root causes. This post introduces a three-lens diagnostic method called “Sherlocking” that identifies where a business is actually broken before any strategy gets written. The three lenses are buyer awareness (OATH framework), market positioning (Power Positioning/FAME), and proof stack (FORCEPS). The first 30 to 60 days of any fractional engagement should be almost entirely diagnostic.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-most-engagements-fail-before-they-start">Why Most Engagements Fail Before They Start</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-i-call-sherlocking">What I Call “Sherlocking”</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#lens-1-is-buyer-awareness">Lens 1 Is Buyer Awareness</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#lens-2-is-market-positioning">Lens 2 Is Market Positioning</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#lens-3-is-the-proof-stack">Lens 3 Is the Proof Stack</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-the-diagnosis-changes-everything">Why the Diagnosis Changes Everything</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-to-look-for-when-you-hire-strategic-leadership">What to Look for When You Hire Strategic Leadership</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every company I walk into has already tried something. They’ve hired an agency. Launched a campaign. Rebuilt the website. Sometimes all three at once, and yet the needle barely moved.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">By the time they call me, they’re not looking for more tactics. They’re looking for someone who can tell them why the tactics didn’t work. That’s the part most people skip. The diagnosis.</p>
<h2 id="why-most-engagements-fail-before-they-start" class="wp-block-heading">Why Most Engagements Fail Before They Start</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve spent over three decades watching this pattern repeat. A company identifies a symptom, like declining leads or flat revenue, and immediately jumps to a solution. New SEO strategy. Rebrand. Paid media blitz.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The problem is that symptoms lie. Declining leads might look like a traffic problem when it’s actually a positioning problem. Flat revenue might look like a sales problem when it’s actually a proof problem. The symptom points you in one direction while the root cause sits somewhere else entirely.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The consultants and agencies who get fired fastest are the ones who accept the client’s self-diagnosis at face value. The ones who last are the ones who push back and say, “Let me look at this myself first.”</p>
<h2 id="what-i-call-sherlocking" class="wp-block-heading">What I Call “Sherlocking”</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Early in my career, someone told me I had a habit of deconstructing problems the way a detective deconstructs a crime scene. I’d pull apart the messaging, the funnel, the competitive landscape, the customer journey, and reassemble the pieces until the real problem surfaced.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I started calling it <a href="https://michelfortin.com/ideal-framework/" data-type="link" data-id="https://michelfortin.com/ideal-framework/">Sherlocking</a>, not because it’s glamorous, but because it captures what the process actually feels like. You’re not guessing. You’re eliminating possibilities until only the truth remains.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Over time, I refined this into a repeatable diagnostic method. Three lenses, applied in sequence, that reveal where a business is actually broken before I write a single word of strategy.</p>
<h2 id="lens-1-is-buyer-awareness" class="wp-block-heading">Lens 1 Is Buyer Awareness</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first thing I need to know is your buyer’s current state of awareness. This comes from a framework I developed called <a href="/oath-formula/">OATH</a>, which maps buyers into four stages: Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">An Oblivious buyer doesn’t know they have a problem. An Apathetic buyer knows but doesn’t care yet. A Thinking buyer is actively researching solutions. A Hurting buyer needs help now and is ready to act.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most companies write all their content for the Thinking and Hurting stages because that’s where the immediate revenue sits. But when I diagnose a business that’s struggling to grow, I almost always find the same gap. They have nothing for the Oblivious and Apathetic buyers who make up the majority of their addressable market.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This single lens explains why so many content strategies produce traffic but not pipeline. The content exists, but it’s speaking to people who are already close to buying while ignoring everyone else.</p>
<h2 id="lens-2-is-market-positioning" class="wp-block-heading">Lens 2 Is Market Positioning</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The second lens is positioning. I use a framework called <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">Power Positioning</a> built on four pillars I call FAME: Focus, Aim, Multiply, and Engage.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Focus means narrowing what you do and who you do it for until there’s no confusion. Aim means identifying the specific audience whose problem you solve better than anyone. Multiply means building a content and visibility system that amplifies your focused message. Engage means creating the conversion path that turns visibility into revenue.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I run this lens across a business, I’m looking for the gap between how they see themselves and how the market sees them. That gap is where most positioning failures live.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A company might describe themselves as a “full-service digital agency” when what they actually do best is B2B demand generation for mid-market SaaS companies. The broader label feels safer, but it makes them invisible to the buyers who would value them most. I see this pattern in at least half the engagements I take on.</p>
<h2 id="lens-3-is-the-proof-stack" class="wp-block-heading">Lens 3 Is the Proof Stack</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The third lens asks a question most companies avoid: Can you actually back up what you’re claiming?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Many clients have told me that “great products sell themselves.” To a degree, this is true. If you have a great product and apply the first two lenses, <a href="https://michelfortin.com/quest-formula/" data-type="post" data-id="632">transitioning the audience into buyers</a> comes easier.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">But where many firms stumble is assuming that great products that sell themselves do it by themselves, when they don’t. People talk about them. Tests show they live up to the hype. Guarantees reverse the risk. Clients share their experiences. These are all proof elements. Some are explicit, others not so much.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I use a framework called <a href="/forceps-framework/">FORCEPS</a> to audit seven types of proof: Factual, Optical, Relational, Credential, Evidential, Perceptual, and Social. Each one works differently on different buyers at different awareness stages.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A Thinking buyer needs Factual and Evidential proof, like data, case studies, and third-party validation. A Hurting buyer responds more to Relational and Social proof. They want to know that someone like them solved this exact problem with your help.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I audit a company’s proof stack, I’m rarely surprised by what I find. Most businesses lean heavily on one or two proof types and neglect the rest. They’ve got testimonials but no case studies. They’ve got data but no narrative around it. They’ve got credentials but never mention them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The proof gap is usually the easiest to fix and produces the fastest results. It’s also the most commonly ignored because companies assume their work speaks for itself. It doesn’t.</p>
<h2 id="why-the-diagnosis-changes-everything" class="wp-block-heading">Why the Diagnosis Changes Everything</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s what happens when you skip straight to tactics. You build a beautiful new website that still has a positioning problem. You launch a content strategy that still targets the wrong awareness stage. You invest in advertising that still lacks proof. The money moves, but the needle doesn’t.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I walk into a <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional CMO</a>, <a href="/fractional-cro/">CRO</a>, or <a href="/fractional-cso/">CSO</a> engagement, the first 30 to 60 days are almost entirely diagnostic. I’m running all three lenses simultaneously, mapping where the gaps are, and building a strategy that addresses root causes instead of symptoms.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That diagnostic phase is where most of the value gets created. Not in the execution that follows, but in the clarity that precedes it.</p>
<h2 id="what-to-look-for-when-you-hire-strategic-leadership" class="wp-block-heading">What to Look for When You Hire Strategic Leadership</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you’re a senior leader evaluating consultants or a recruiter sourcing fractional executives, here’s the simplest filter I can offer.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Ask them what they do in the first 30 days. If the answer is a list of deliverables, keep looking. If the answer is a diagnostic process that starts with questions rather than solutions, you’re probably talking to someone who will actually move the needle.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The best strategic hires don’t walk in with a playbook. They walk in with a flashlight.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="what-is-sherlocking-and-why-does-it-matter-before-writing-strategy" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is “Sherlocking” and why does it matter before writing strategy?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Sherlocking is the diagnostic process of pulling apart a business’s messaging, funnel, competitive landscape, and customer journey to find where the real problem lives — not just the symptom the company reports. Most tactics fail because they treat the symptom. Sherlocking eliminates possibilities until the root cause surfaces, so strategy addresses the actual breakdown rather than a plausible-looking guess.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-are-the-three-diagnostic-lenses-used-in-a-fractional-engagement" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What are the three diagnostic lenses used in a fractional engagement?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The three lenses are buyer awareness, market positioning, and the proof stack. Buyer awareness (using the OATH framework) identifies where prospects sit on the spectrum from oblivious to ready-to-buy. Market positioning (using Power Positioning and the FAME pillars) surfaces the gap between how a company sees itself and how the market actually sees it. The proof stack (audited through the FORCEPS framework) tests whether the company can substantiate what it’s claiming to buyers at each awareness stage.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-do-so-many-content-strategies-produce-traffic-but-not-pipeline" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why do so many content strategies produce traffic but not pipeline?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Usually because the content is written entirely for buyers who are already close to purchasing — the Thinking and Hurting stages of the OATH framework — while ignoring the Oblivious and Apathetic majority. Those early-stage buyers make up most of the addressable market, but companies skip them because the immediate revenue is elsewhere. Traffic accumulates, but pipeline doesn’t grow because the content isn’t meeting buyers where they actually are.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-a-proof-stack-and-why-does-it-matter-for-conversion" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is a proof stack and why does it matter for conversion?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A proof stack is the full set of evidence a company uses to validate its claims. The FORCEPS framework audits seven types: Factual, Optical, Relational, Credential, Evidential, Perceptual, and Social. Different proof types work on different buyers — a Thinking buyer needs data and case studies, while a Hurting buyer responds more to social and relational proof. Most companies rely on one or two types and neglect the rest, which leaves a conversion gap that better execution can’t close.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-should-the-first-30-to-60-days-of-a-fractional-executive-engagement-look-like" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What should the first 30 to 60 days of a fractional executive engagement look like?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Almost entirely diagnostic. Running all three lenses simultaneously — awareness, positioning, and proof — to map where the gaps are before any strategy gets written. That diagnostic phase is where most of the real value gets created. Execution follows clarity; without the diagnosis, you risk building a better version of something that was already aimed in the wrong direction.</p>
</details>
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</item>
<item>
<title>What Makes a Content Strategy Actually Drive Revenue</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/content-strategy/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 21:06:10 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Strategies]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[SEO Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Buyer Awareness]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Content Marketing]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Content Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Revenue Architecture]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=641</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most companies have content but no content strategy. Here's how I build content systems that connect to revenue, from architecture to distribution to maintenance.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most businesses publish content without a strategy. The difference shows up in revenue. A content strategy is a system with clear goals, buyer awareness mapping, hub-and-spoke architecture, and deliberate distribution that moves prospects from first encounter to committed client. As AI-powered search reshapes how buyers find answers, the businesses that win are those with genuine topical depth across the full awareness spectrum, not just the buyers who are already close to buying.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#start-with-goals-not-keywords">Start with Goals, Not Keywords</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#understand-your-market-at-a-conversational-level">Understand Your Market at a Conversational Level</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#map-content-to-the-buyers-awareness-journey">Map Content to the Buyer’s Awareness Journey</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#build-the-architecture">Build the Architecture</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#think-in-two-dimensions">Think in Two Dimensions</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#video-as-a-visibility-multiplier">Video as a Visibility Multiplier</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#email-as-the-channel-you-actually-own">Email as the Channel You Actually Own</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-five-elements-every-piece-of-content-needs">The Five Elements Every Piece of Content Needs</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#creating-new-content-vs-expanding-existing-content">Creating New Content vs. Expanding Existing Content</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-maintenance-problem-most-companies-ignore">The Maintenance Problem Most Companies Ignore</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#how-i-audit-a-content-library">How I Audit a Content Library</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#freshness-as-a-revenue-signal">Freshness as a Revenue Signal</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#content-strategy-in-the-age-of-ai-search">Content Strategy in the Age of AI Search</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#connecting-content-to-revenue">Connecting Content to Revenue</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most businesses have content. Very few have a content strategy.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The difference is not semantic. A company that publishes regularly without a strategy is broadcasting into the void, hoping something resonates, measuring nothing that matters, and wondering why organic growth is flat despite years of effort.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A content strategy is a system. It defines who you’re writing for, what stage of awareness they’re in, how the pieces connect to each other, and what each piece is supposed to do.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Done well, it doesn’t just generate traffic. It moves buyers through a journey that ends in revenue.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">One of the first questions I get from founders and executive teams when I step into a <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional CMO</a> engagement is some version of this: “We’re producing content, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.” The problem is almost never the content itself. It’s the architecture around it, and often the complete absence of a strategy driving it.</p>
<h2 id="start-with-goals-not-keywords" class="wp-block-heading">Start with Goals, Not Keywords</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The single most common mistake in content strategy is starting with keyword research. Keywords are not goals. They’re signals. They tell you how people are searching, but not what you’re trying to accomplish.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Before any research, any architecture, or any content creation, answer this question: what is this content supposed to do? Is it to build awareness with buyers who don’t yet know they have a problem? To generate qualified leads? To support your sales team with material that shortens deal cycles? To build <a href="/organic-visibility/">organic visibility</a> so that inbound interest compounds over time?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The answer drives everything that follows. Two businesses in the same industry with different goals should have very different content strategies, even if their keyword research looks identical.</p>
<h2 id="understand-your-market-at-a-conversational-level" class="wp-block-heading">Understand Your Market at a Conversational Level</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Once you have clarity on what content needs to accomplish, the next step is understanding the market you’re writing for. Not at a demographic level, but at a conversational one.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The best advice I ever encountered applies equally to content strategy: enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind. Your content should feel like a continuation of something your reader was already thinking about, not an interruption.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">To do that, you need to understand three things about your audience. What problems are they experiencing, not at the surface level, but the ones that keep them up at night? How are they talking about those problems, because buyers describe symptoms while experts describe diagnoses? And where are they in their <a href="/oath-formula/">awareness journey</a>, because a buyer who just recognized they have a problem needs completely different content than one comparing vendors?</p>
<h2 id="map-content-to-the-buyers-awareness-journey" class="wp-block-heading">Map Content to the Buyer’s Awareness Journey</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I developed the <a href="/oath-formula/">OATH framework</a> to solve the awareness mismatch problem. OATH stands for Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting. These are the four stages a buyer moves through before they’re ready to act. I’ve written about it in depth elsewhere on this site, so I’ll focus here on how it shapes content strategy specifically.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most marketers use the shorthand TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU for top, middle, and bottom of funnel. But I add one stage most marketers ignore entirely: the buyers who haven’t entered your funnel at all. I call them OOFU, or “out of funnel.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>OOFU (Oblivious).</strong> These buyers don’t know they have a problem. They’re not searching for solutions. Content at this stage surfaces the problem and names it. For B2B audiences, this looks like content about industry pressures, organizational challenges, or revenue leaks that buyers are experiencing but haven’t connected to a solvable problem.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>TOFU (Apathetic).</strong> These buyers know they have a problem but don’t yet know their options or how serious the situation is. Content here educates. It explains the scope, the risks of ignoring it, and introduces the category of solution without pushing a specific vendor. The goal is continuation, not conversion.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>MOFU (Thinking).</strong> These buyers know solutions exist and are actively evaluating options. This is where your differentiation lives. Educate buyers about your specific approach, your methodology, your unique mechanism. Address the question I hear in every B2B buying process: “Why not just handle this internally?”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>BOFU (Hurting).</strong> These buyers are ready to decide. <a href="/forceps-framework/">Case studies, social proof</a>, pricing transparency, and a clear path to the next step do the final persuasion work. But this only works if the earlier stages have done their job.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most companies create content for the Thinking and Hurting stages only, which means they’re invisible to the majority of their potential market. A complete content strategy addresses all four.</p>
<h2 id="build-the-architecture" class="wp-block-heading">Build the Architecture</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Once you understand your market and your goals, you need a structure that turns individual pieces into a coherent system.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most effective model I’ve found is the hub-and-spoke. A single piece of comprehensive pillar content sits at the center of each major topic. Supporting pieces, each more specific and narrowly focused, radiate outward as spokes. Together they form a topical cluster that signals deep expertise on a given subject.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The power of this model is cumulative. Each spoke reinforces the authority of the hub. The hub gives context and credibility to the spokes. Together, they build topical depth that establishes authority in search engines and in the minds of your buyers.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When defining your content architecture, map your major themes first. Then identify the pillar topics within each theme, and the subtopics that cluster around each pillar. This becomes your editorial roadmap.</p>
<h2 id="think-in-two-dimensions" class="wp-block-heading">Think in Two Dimensions</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I architect a content system for a client, I think in two dimensions simultaneously.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Depth means going substantively into the topics your ideal audience is searching for, at the level of expertise they expect from a credible leader in your space. Shallow content produces shallow results. The companies that win organically are those that answer questions more thoroughly and credibly than their competitors.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Breadth means distributing that depth across multiple formats and channels so it reaches your audience wherever they consume information. The same core idea can live as a long-form article, a short-form video, an audio segment, a social post, and a newsletter excerpt, each one pulling a different segment of your audience into your ecosystem.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is what I call derivative content strategy. You don’t create more. You extract more from what you’ve already built.</p>
<h2 id="video-as-a-visibility-multiplier" class="wp-block-heading">Video as a Visibility Multiplier</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Of all the formats available to growth-stage firms today, video remains one of the most underutilized, particularly at the leadership level.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Google is the world’s largest search engine. YouTube is the second largest. A company whose executives appear on video, sharing real insight on topics their market cares about, occupies two distinct visibility channels simultaneously. That’s before considering LinkedIn video, which continues to outperform text-only content in reach and engagement.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The barrier most executive teams cite is production quality. In my experience, that concern is misplaced. Audiences respond to relevance and authenticity far more than production value. A founder sharing a sharp, well-framed insight in a two-minute video will consistently outperform a polished corporate explainer with no point of view.</p>
<h2 id="email-as-the-channel-you-actually-own" class="wp-block-heading">Email as the Channel You Actually Own</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Of all the distribution channels available, email remains the one you actually own. Social platforms change their algorithms and search rankings shift. But an email list is a direct line to an audience that opted in because they want to hear from you.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I treat newsletter strategy the same way I treat content architecture. It’s not a separate activity but a distribution layer that makes everything else in the system work harder. Every pillar article, every video, every new insight gets a second life when it reaches subscribers directly.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What makes email uniquely powerful for growth-stage firms is the relationship signal it sends. A subscriber who opens your newsletter regularly is pre-qualifying themselves, telling you through their behavior that your expertise is relevant to them. That signal is more valuable than a pageview or a social impression.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For firms investing in the depth-and-breadth model, email closes the loop. Depth lives in your long-form content, breadth lives in your social and video distribution, and email ties it together by giving your most engaged audience a single, reliable place to find all of it.</p>
<h2 id="the-five-elements-every-piece-of-content-needs" class="wp-block-heading">The Five Elements Every Piece of Content Needs</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every piece of content I create for a client gets evaluated against five strategic inputs. These aren’t style preferences. They determine whether a piece will do its job.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Audience.</strong> Every piece should have a specific reader in mind. A CFO evaluating a strategic investment needs different language and depth than a VP of Marketing who suspects their approach isn’t working. Content with a defined audience speaks directly to someone, and that someone recognizes it immediately.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Intent.</strong> What does the reader want when they arrive? Informational intent means they want to learn. Investigational intent means they’re comparing options. Transactional intent means they’re ready to act. Each requires a <a href="/search-intent/">different kind of content</a>.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Awareness.</strong> Where are they on the OATH spectrum? This determines how much education, urgency-building, or friction-removal the content needs to do.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Topic.</strong> The best topics come from market research, not internal assumptions. They’re the questions your buyers are already asking, in the language they use when asking them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Format.</strong> The same information can be delivered as a long-form article, a case study, a video, or a checklist. The right format depends on awareness stage, intent, and how your audience consumes content.</p>
<h2 id="creating-new-content-vs-expanding-existing-content" class="wp-block-heading">Creating New Content vs. Expanding Existing Content</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">One of the most common questions I field is whether to create new pieces or expand what already exists.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If a subtopic shares the same search intent as an existing piece, adding to that piece is usually better. It deepens the content, increases comprehensiveness, and strengthens the topical signal without fragmenting your authority across multiple URLs. If a subtopic has different intent or can stand alone as a complete answer to a distinct question, it warrants its own piece.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The practical test is simple. If someone searching for the subtopic would be satisfied landing on the existing piece, expand it. If they’d be confused or underserved, create a new one.</p>
<h2 id="the-maintenance-problem-most-companies-ignore" class="wp-block-heading">The Maintenance Problem Most Companies Ignore</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Building a content system is the first half of the work. Keeping it functional over time is the second half, and it’s where most organizations fall short.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Content gets stale. Links break. Data becomes outdated. Old articles compete with new ones for the same search terms. A content library that was designed to build authority starts to dilute it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A case that illustrates this well: a client came to me with five separate websites, all with blogs, all covering overlapping topics. Each site was competing against the others. Traffic was fragmented. My recommendation was to consolidate everything under one domain. We merged the content, redirected the old URLs, and combined the authority. Traffic didn’t just equal the sum of the five. It more than doubled.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That experience reinforced something I apply in every engagement: a content audit isn’t a maintenance task. It’s a <a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">revenue diagnostic</a>.</p>
<h2 id="how-i-audit-a-content-library" class="wp-block-heading">How I Audit a Content Library</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A content audit answers a simple question: which pieces are working, which are underperforming, and what should you do about each one?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Build a complete inventory.</strong> Pull every published URL from your site using a crawl tool or your XML sitemap. This becomes your master document.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Score each page on three dimensions.</strong> Traffic (pageviews), visibility (search impressions), and authority (backlinks). A page can have high traffic and low visibility, meaning it gets direct traffic but no search presence. A page can have high visibility and low traffic, meaning it appears in results but doesn’t earn clicks.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Assign an action.</strong> The scoring drives five options: keep (high on at least two dimensions), refresh (potential but underperforming on one), merge (multiple pieces competing for the same terms), redirect (low performance but has backlinks), or remove (low on all three with no meaningful backlinks).</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Execute in order of impact.</strong> Merge competing pieces first. Refresh high-visibility underperformers second. Remove deadweight last.</p>
<h2 id="freshness-as-a-revenue-signal" class="wp-block-heading">Freshness as a Revenue Signal</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">There’s an SEO argument for keeping content fresh. But the more important argument is about buyer behavior. When a prospect lands on a page that’s clearly outdated, an article with a years-old timestamp, a reference to a defunct tool, or statistics that predate a major market shift, they leave. Stale content undermines credibility at exactly the moment you’re trying to build it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Refreshed content demonstrates that your thinking is current and that you’re invested in staying relevant. It also builds what I think of as a content moat. A competitor who copies your ideas is always working from an older version of your thinking. By the time they’ve published their version, yours has already moved forward.</p>
<h2 id="content-strategy-in-the-age-of-ai-search" class="wp-block-heading">Content Strategy in the Age of AI Search</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="/ai-marketing/">AI-powered tools</a> like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews are fundamentally altering how buyers find information. Instead of returning links for the user to evaluate, these systems synthesize answers on the spot.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This changes the visibility question. The old goal was ranking on page one. The emerging goal is becoming the source AI systems draw from and cite when answering questions in your category. What earns that position is the same thing that earns search authority: topical depth, breadth, and content that clearly demonstrates expertise.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The hub-and-spoke model becomes even more important in this context. Pillar content supported by spoke content builds exactly the kind of topical signal AI systems weight heavily.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">There’s a practical shift at the top of the funnel, too. Buyers in the OOFU and TOFU stages increasingly get their initial orientation from AI-generated summaries rather than search results. The ones who do click through arrive further along in the awareness journey, so your MOFU and BOFU content needs to be ready for that more sophisticated audience.</p>
<h2 id="connecting-content-to-revenue" class="wp-block-heading">Connecting Content to Revenue</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A content strategy that isn’t connected to revenue outcomes is a publishing schedule, not a strategy.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every piece of content should have a clear role in the buyer journey. Some pieces create awareness, some build conviction, and some remove the last obstacles to action. Together, they form a system that moves buyers from first encounter to committed client through education and trust-building over time.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When you know what each piece is supposed to do, you can measure it properly. Traffic means something different for an awareness piece than for a decision-stage piece, just as time on page matters more for educational content and conversion rate matters more for bottom-of-funnel content.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The businesses that generate the most revenue from content are not the ones that publish the most. They’re the ones that have mapped their content to their buyer journey with intention and built the architecture to support it. That’s not a content strategy. That’s a <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue architecture</a>.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="what-is-the-difference-between-having-content-and-having-a-content-strategy" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is the difference between having content and having a content strategy?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A content strategy is a system — it defines who you’re writing for, where they are in their awareness journey, how each piece connects to the others, and what every piece is supposed to accomplish. Publishing regularly without that system means broadcasting into the void. Traffic may exist; revenue usually doesn’t follow.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-is-starting-with-keyword-research-a-mistake" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why is starting with keyword research a mistake?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Keywords are signals, not goals. They tell you how people search but not what your content needs to accomplish. Two companies in the same industry with different revenue goals should have very different content strategies even if their keyword research looks identical. Goals come first. Keywords inform the execution.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-the-hub-and-spoke-content-architecture" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is the hub-and-spoke content architecture?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Hub-and-spoke organizes content around a single comprehensive pillar piece on a major topic, with more specific supporting pieces radiating outward from it. The spokes reinforce the authority of the hub; the hub gives context to the spokes. Together they build the kind of topical depth that earns credibility with both search engines and buyers.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-oofu-and-why-does-it-matter-for-content-strategy" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is OOFU and why does it matter for content strategy?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OOFU stands for “out of funnel” — buyers who haven’t entered your funnel at all because they don’t yet know they have a problem. Most businesses create content only for buyers who are already Thinking or Hurting, making them invisible to the majority of their addressable market. A complete content strategy creates content for all four awareness stages, including the ones that haven’t started looking yet.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-does-content-strategy-change-with-ai-powered-search" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How does content strategy change with AI-powered search?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews synthesize answers rather than returning links. The goal shifts from ranking on page one to becoming the source these systems cite. Topical depth and breadth — exactly what hub-and-spoke architecture builds — are what earn that position. It also means buyers who do click through arrive more informed, so mid- and bottom-funnel content needs to meet a more sophisticated audience.</p>
</details>
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<title>How the OATH Formula Reveals Whether Your Buyer Is Ready to Act</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/oath-formula/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:55:44 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Frameworks & Models]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Buyer Awareness]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Messaging Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Revenue Architecture]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=612</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most messaging misreads the buyer. OATH reads two things, how aware they are and how willing they are to act, so your message meets them where they are.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most marketing fails not because the offer is weak, but because the message misreads the buyer. OATH reads two things at once, how aware a buyer is of the problem and how willing they are to act on it. The four levels, Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting, come from combining both. Used as a diagnostic, OATH reveals gaps in content strategy, explains pipeline stalls, and guides the messaging that moves buyers forward, level by level.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-most-messaging-misses-the-mark">Why Most Messaging Misses the Mark</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#where-oath-fits-and-the-missing-link">Where OATH Fits, and the Missing Link</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-four-levels">The Four Levels</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#o-is-for-oblivious">O is for Oblivious</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#a-is-for-apathetic">A is for Apathetic</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#t-is-for-thinking">T is for Thinking</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#h-is-for-hurting">H is for Hurting</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#how-to-use-oath-strategically">How to Use OATH Strategically</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-this-looks-like-in-practice">What This Looks Like in Practice</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#a-practical-framework-for-revenue-leaders">A Practical Framework for Revenue Leaders</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#oath-doesnt-work-alone">OATH Doesn’t Work Alone</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-bottom-line">The Bottom Line</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most revenue problems aren’t really sales problems. They’re alignment problems.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A prospect visits your website, reads your proposal, sits through your demo. And still they don’t convert. You assume the offer was wrong, the price too high, the timing off. Usually it’s simpler than that, and more fixable. You read the buyer wrong.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I created the OATH formula back in 2003 to solve exactly that. OATH stands for Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting. Most people treat it as an awareness ladder, four rungs from clueless to ready.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s only half of it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH reads two things at once. How aware a buyer is that they have a problem, and how willing they are to do something about it. Awareness without willingness is just trivia. A market can understand its problem in perfect detail and still sit on its hands.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The name is the reminder. The real question isn’t only how much your market knows. It’s how willing they are to take an oath and act on it. Where a buyer sits on both axes decides how you message them, what content you lead with, and how much persuasion is left to do.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Get it right and your message resonates. Get it wrong and even the best offer falls flat.</p>
<h2 id="why-most-messaging-misses-the-mark" class="wp-block-heading">Why Most Messaging Misses the Mark</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most businesses write for buyers who are aware and willing, the ones ready to buy. They lead with solutions, features, and calls to action, assuming the prospect already understands the problem, agrees it needs fixing, and has narrowed the search to a short list.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s a small slice of your market. Most of your potential buyers are short on one axis or the other. Some don’t recognize the problem yet. Some recognize it but feel no urgency to act. Some are aware, willing, and actively shopping, but haven’t chosen an approach.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If your message doesn’t match where they are on both axes, it doesn’t land. It confuses them, pushes them away, or gets ignored. OATH gives you a diagnostic lens for this. It maps your messaging to the actual state your buyer is in, not the state you wish they were in.</p>
<h2 id="where-oath-fits-and-the-missing-link" class="wp-block-heading">Where OATH Fits, and the Missing Link</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Two older models shaped how marketers think about buyer readiness, and each captured half of it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) tracks responsiveness. It follows how engaged a buyer becomes on the way to a decision, from first noticing you to finally acting.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Eugene Schwartz’s five stages of awareness track sophistication. They map how much a market already knows, from unaware of the problem to fully aware of you and your offer. Schwartz built his model around what the buyer knows.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Both are useful, and both leave out the same thing. A buyer can be fully aware of the problem, fully aware of your solution, and engaged with all of it, and still do nothing. Knowing isn’t the same as wanting to act. That gap, between awareness and action, is willingness. It’s the variable neither model isolates, and it’s the one that decides whether a deal actually moves.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH adds it. Awareness gets a buyer in the door. Willingness moves them through. Two questions sort any buyer. Do they know they have a problem? And are they willing to do something about it?</p>
<figure class="wp-block-table"><table class="has-fixed-layout"><thead><tr><th>Level</th><th>Aware of the problem?</th><th>Willing to act?</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Oblivious</td><td>No</td><td>Not yet possible</td></tr><tr><td>Apathetic</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Thinking</td><td>Yes</td><td>Starting to</td></tr><tr><td>Hurting</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Oblivious buyers are low on awareness, so willingness can’t register yet. Apathetic buyers know and still won’t move. Thinking buyers have crossed into willingness and are acting on it by researching. Hurting buyers are high on both and ready to commit.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s the missing link. Schwartz told you what your market knows. AIDA told you how engaged they are. OATH tells you whether they’re willing to take an oath and act.</p>
<h2 id="the-four-levels" class="wp-block-heading">The Four Levels</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Each level is a different mix of awareness and willingness. That combination, not awareness alone, tells you what to say.</p>
<h3 id="o-is-for-oblivious" class="wp-block-heading">O is for Oblivious</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Low on both axes. Your buyer doesn’t know they have a problem, or doesn’t know it’s solvable. Either way, they’re not looking for you.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Think how often a business owner doesn’t realize their churn is a positioning problem, not a product problem. Or a leadership team doesn’t see that stalled growth is a messaging problem, not a market problem. They’re oblivious, not because they’re uninformed, but because no one has connected the dots for them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your job here isn’t to sell. It’s to educate. Surface the problem, name it clearly, and show them what it’s costing. Lead with your solution before they recognize the problem and you’ll create confusion or resistance.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Content for Oblivious buyers is educational and perspective-shifting. Thought leadership, industry data, diagnostic questions, and stories that help them see themselves differently.</p>
<h3 id="a-is-for-apathetic" class="wp-block-heading">A is for Apathetic</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">High awareness, low willingness. Apathetic buyers know the problem exists. They just don’t care enough to do anything about it yet.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is the stage a pure awareness ladder can’t explain, and the most underestimated one. These buyers often know they should address the issue. They’ve probably talked about it internally. But they’ve normalized the pain, resigned themselves to it, or decided the effort of solving it outweighs the payoff.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your job is to raise the stakes. Make the problem real, concrete, and urgent. What does it cost them to do nothing? What’s the compounding effect of delay? What risk are they carrying by treating this as a back-burner issue?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is where a strong business case, ROI framing, and competitive context do their best work. You’re not convincing them the problem exists. You’re convincing them it matters enough to move.</p>
<h3 id="t-is-for-thinking" class="wp-block-heading">T is for Thinking</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Awareness is high, and willingness has crossed into action. Thinking buyers accept the problem is real and worth solving. Now they’re researching, comparing, evaluating.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is where most businesses think the sale begins. In some ways it does. It’s also where you lose buyers who feel like everyone is saying the same thing.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your job here is differentiation. Why your approach over the alternatives? What’s your methodology, your point of view, your track record? What makes your way of solving this meaningfully different, not just marginally better?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is where clear <a href="https://michelfortin.com/power-positioning-pillars/">positioning</a> pays off. Buyers at this stage are narrowing their options. Make it easy to choose you and hard to justify choosing anyone else.</p>
<h3 id="h-is-for-hurting" class="wp-block-heading">H is for Hurting</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">High on both axes, and ready to act. Hurting buyers have accepted the problem, decided to solve it, and are evaluating specific providers. They’re not researching the category anymore. They’re deciding between you and a handful of alternatives.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">At this stage, friction and doubt are your obstacles. A past bad experience makes them skeptical. Unanswered questions about implementation, risk, or fit hold them back. Sometimes the decision itself overwhelms them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your job is to remove those obstacles. <a href="https://michelfortin.com/forceps-framework/">Proof</a>, guarantees, case studies, clear next steps, transparent pricing, and honest answers to the hard questions all carry weight here. The desire to solve the problem is already there. Your work is to lower the perceived risk of saying yes.</p>
<h2 id="how-to-use-oath-strategically" class="wp-block-heading">How to Use OATH Strategically</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH isn’t just a content planning tool. It’s a revenue diagnostic.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When a pipeline stalls, run it through OATH. Where are prospects entering the conversation? Where are they dropping off? Are you creating enough for buyers who are aware but unwilling, or are you only visible to the few already hurting?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When a campaign underperforms, ask which level it was written for, and which axis it was trying to move. A thought leadership piece for Oblivious buyers looks nothing like a case study for Thinking buyers. Mixing up the message for the level is one of the most common and expensive content mistakes I see.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When you build a <a href="https://michelfortin.com/content-strategy/">content strategy</a> or a nurture sequence, map each piece to a level. You want assets that move buyers forward on awareness, on willingness, or both. The goal isn’t to serve buyers where they are. It’s to meet them there and advance them.</p>
<h2 id="what-this-looks-like-in-practice" class="wp-block-heading">What This Looks Like in Practice</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A SaaS firm came to me stalled at the same revenue plateau for three years. Good product, capable team, leads coming in. They just weren’t closing.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The OATH diagnostic surfaced the problem in the first two weeks. Their positioning was built for an Apathetic buyer, someone who understood the problem but felt no urgency. Their funnel was built for a Hurting buyer who was ready to buy now: demo requests, pricing pages, hard calls to action.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The two were aimed at different levels. The marketing attracted buyers who weren’t urgent, then the funnel rushed them to decide. They stalled, predictably.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">We realigned the messaging to the buyer’s actual state. Raise the stakes first, make the cost of inaction concrete, then move them toward the decision. Same product, same price, same ad spend. Qualified pipeline rose 197% in 90 days.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The fix wasn’t a better offer. It was matching the message to where the buyer actually was.</p>
<h2 id="a-practical-framework-for-revenue-leaders" class="wp-block-heading">A Practical Framework for Revenue Leaders</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you’re a CMO, CRO, or growth leader, here’s how I’d use OATH operationally.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Audit your content library against the four levels. Most companies are overweight on Thinking and Hurting content and nearly absent for Oblivious and Apathetic buyers. That makes them invisible to most of their market.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Score your inbound leads by level. Where buyers enter your funnel tells you where your marketing is working and where it’s leaving demand on the table.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Align sales and marketing messaging to level, not just persona. A CFO who is oblivious needs something entirely different from a CFO who is hurting, even though they share the same profile.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Use OATH as a shared language between marketing and sales. When both teams know a buyer’s awareness and willingness, handoffs get cleaner, follow-up gets smarter, and deals close faster.</p>
<h2 id="oath-doesnt-work-alone" class="wp-block-heading">OATH Doesn’t Work Alone</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH tells you where a buyer is. Two other frameworks tell you what to do about it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="https://michelfortin.com/quest-formula/" data-type="post" data-id="632">QUEST handles the sequence</a>. Once OATH gives you a buyer’s level, QUEST (Qualify, Understand, Educate, Stimulate, Transition) structures the conversation that moves them forward. The level decides where you pick them up. An Oblivious buyer starts at Qualify and Understand. A Hurting buyer is already at Stimulate and Transition.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="https://michelfortin.com/forceps-framework/" data-type="post" data-id="4492">FORCEPS handles the proof</a>. Different levels are convinced by different evidence. Oblivious and Apathetic buyers respond to perceptual and factual proof, the stories and plain facts that reframe how they see the problem. Thinking buyers want evidential and credential proof, the data and qualifications that hold up under comparison. Hurting buyers respond to social, optical, and relational proof, the testimonials and visible results that lower the risk of saying yes.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Read together, the three answer the whole question. OATH tells you where the buyer is. QUEST tells you how to move them. FORCEPS tells you what proof closes the gap.</p>
<h2 id="the-bottom-line" class="wp-block-heading">The Bottom Line</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your buyers aren’t in the same place. Some don’t know they need you. Some know but won’t move yet. Some are shopping. Some are ready to sign.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">One message can’t serve all four. OATH is a simple, durable way to read both how aware your buyers are and how willing they are to act, then build the content and conversations that move them forward.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s not just good marketing. That’s how you build a <a href="https://michelfortin.com/revenue-architecture/">revenue architecture</a> that compounds over time.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="what-does-oath-stand-for" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What does OATH stand for?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH stands for Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting. The four levels combine how aware a buyer is of the problem with how willing they are to act on it. Each level needs a different message. What works for a Hurting buyer will confuse or push away an Oblivious one.</p>
</details>
<details id="who-created-the-oath-formula-and-when" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Who created the OATH formula and when?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Michel Fortin created the OATH formula in 2003 as a diagnostic for reading how aware a buyer is and how willing they are to act. It started in direct response copywriting and now applies across content strategy, revenue architecture, pipeline diagnostics, and sales and marketing alignment.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-do-most-marketing-messages-fail-to-convert" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why do most marketing messages fail to convert?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most businesses write messaging aimed at buyers who are already ready to buy — Thinking or Hurting stage. That’s a small fraction of the total addressable market. The majority of potential buyers are Oblivious or Apathetic, and messaging built for late-stage buyers doesn’t reach them. Misaligning message to stage is one of the most common and expensive content mistakes in marketing.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-do-you-use-oath-to-diagnose-a-stalled-pipeline" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How do you use OATH to diagnose a stalled pipeline?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Map where most prospects are entering the conversation and where they’re dropping off. Early drop-off usually signals weak coverage of Oblivious and Apathetic buyers — the content isn’t meeting them where they are. Mid-funnel stalls often point to undifferentiated Thinking-stage messaging. OATH turns a vague “the pipeline is slow” problem into a specific content or messaging gap you can fix.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-kind-of-content-works-for-each-oath-stage" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What kind of content works for each OATH stage?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Oblivious buyers need perspective-shifting content that surfaces and names the problem. Apathetic buyers need ROI framing and competitive context that raises the stakes of inaction. Thinking buyers need clear differentiation and a strong point of view. Hurting buyers need proof, case studies, transparent pricing, and answers to the hard questions that reduce the perceived risk of saying yes.</p>
</details>
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