Creative Brief — 52 Claude Skills for Independent Consultants

Date: May 25, 2026 For: Wren (Designer) From: Cade (Media Buyer) via Kathryn Deadline: Morning of May 26, 2026 Product: 52 Claude Skills for Independent Consultants, $7 front-end offer Campaign: Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram) — cold traffic to SLO sales page

Existing LTO Creative — Build On What's Working

The LTO campaign ("The Build" — CIB lead magnet funnel) has been running since April 8. Performance through May 25:

• CPC: $1.61 (strong for B2B professional services)
• CTR: 1.94% (winning range — above 1.5% threshold)
• CPM: $31.22

The creative files are in the vault: campaigns/the-build/wip/ad-images/

Five ads are running. Three visual styles, all converting:

1. Text-on-teal (ad1-time-sink): Deep teal (#0f2d3e) background, large Fraunces serif headline ("2 minutes."), gold horizontal rule, one line of supporting text, "Practice Builders" wordmark bottom-left in gold. Extremely minimal.

1. Lo-fi document (ad2-rolling-items): Off-white (#f7f5f0) background simulating a document/output screenshot. Gold header "ROLLING ITEMS ALERT", specific example line items, bold serif CTA "Paste emails. Get this back." Looks like a real product screenshot, not an ad.

1. Authority/product (ad3-free-ai-skill): Teal-to-slate gradient, gold eyebrow text "FREE AI SKILL", large Fraunces serif product name, gold accent bar, bullet feature list. More designed than the others but still text-driven.

What this means for SLO creative: The SLO ads should follow the same visual language. Same brand colors, same Fraunces serif headlines, same text-heavy minimal approach. The SLO concepts below are already aligned — the key is maintaining consistency so the audience recognizes the brand across both campaigns.

Specific guidance: Concept 1 (Product Shot) maps to style 3 (authority). Concept 2 (Before/After) maps to style 1 (text-on-teal). Concept 3 (List Format) maps to style 2 (lo-fi document). Concept 4 (Pattern Callout) maps to style 1 (text-on-teal). Use the LTO images as direct visual references when building each concept.

Winning LTO ad copy (for tone/voice reference):

You're using AI for content and summaries. Meanwhile it could be running your client relationships.

The Client Intelligence Brief is an AI skill that preps you for any client call in 2 minutes.

Paste a few recent emails. Get back rolling items nobody flagged, client priorities, and a call playbook with specific language for the conversation.

Not a chatbot. Not a prompt. A skill that reads your real data and produces a structured brief.

It's free.

The winner was ad 3 — the authority/product style (the-build/image.png). Teal gradient background, gold eyebrow "FREE AI SKILL", large Fraunces serif product name, gold accent rule, bullet feature list, "Practice Builders" wordmark. It beat out the minimal text-on-teal, the lo-fi document screenshot, the pain callout, and the UGC quote styles.

What this tells us: Direct product positioning won on the LTO. That's one data point — not a mandate. The SLO is a different offer ($7 paid vs. free lead magnet), different audience intent, and different funnel entry. All 4 SLO concepts get built and tested. The LTO winner tells us the visual language and tone that resonates with this audience — use it as a style reference across all concepts, not as a reason to skip testing the other hooks.

This copy + this image = $1.61 CPC, 1.94% CTR. Build all 4 concepts. Test all 4. Let the data pick the SLO winner. Match the tone across all of them: direct, specific, no hype.

What We Need

Static ad images for a Meta ad campaign. These pair with four ad copy variations (already written). We need 2-3 image variations per concept = 8-12 images total.

Priority Order

Build in this order. If time is tight, deliver 1 and 3 first -- those are the most direct performers.

Image Concepts

Concept 1: Product Shot

Description: Clean mockup of the skill files as a digital product spread. Think: a collection of document/file icons or a Notion-style library view arranged on a dark background. Gold accent elements. Price overlay showing "$7" prominently.

Feel: Premium digital product, not a PDF ebook. The buyer should see a system -- multiple files organized into categories, not a single download. The gold accent should feel like a quality signal without looking luxury-brand.

Text on image: "$7" (large, gold on dark). Optional: "52 Claude Skills" or "52 Skills. 8 Categories."

Variations to produce:

• Variation A: Product spread with "$7" overlay
• Variation B: Product spread with "52 Skills. $7." overlay
• Variation C: Tighter crop, fewer files visible, "$7" more prominent

Concept 2: Before/After Split

Description: Clean split-screen. Left side: "45 minutes." Right side: "5 minutes." Text on brand background colors. No imagery -- just the numbers and the contrast doing the work.

Feel: Simple, immediate, scannable. The viewer gets the value proposition in under one second. This should look like a note or comparison, not a designed infographic.

Text on image:

• Left: "45 minutes." (or "4 hours.")
• Right: "5 minutes." (or "40 minutes.")
• Optional bottom line: "52 Claude Skills. $7."

Variations to produce:

• Variation A: "45 minutes / 5 minutes" (session prep use case)
• Variation B: "4 hours / 40 minutes" (proposal use case)
• Variation C: "From scratch / From a system" (conceptual, not time-based)

Concept 3: List Format

Description: Text-heavy image listing deliverable types. Looks like a note or a list someone jotted down -- not a designed graphic. Minimal design. The text IS the creative.

Feel: Native to the platform. Should look like something a person posted, not something an ad team produced. Per Callan (creative testing expert): the "note" style and text-heavy formats consistently outperform polished graphics for info-product offers. Lean into that.

Text on image:

Proposals.
SOWs.
Session recaps.
Follow-ups.
Case studies.
Pipeline reviews.
Client onboarding.
Content.
Capacity planning.

52 skills. $7.

Variations to produce:

• Variation A: Full list as shown above, dark background, cream text
• Variation B: Shorter list (5-6 items + "52 skills. $7."), more whitespace
• Variation C: Same list but styled as a handwritten note or sticky note on dark background

Concept 4: Pattern Callout

Description: Pain-point text on a clean background. The text names a behavior the viewer recognizes in themselves. No product imagery -- the copy does the selling.

Feel: Direct, slightly confrontational but not aggressive. The viewer should think "...yeah, that's me." Clean background, large readable text.

Text on image:

You've written this proposal before.
Same structure. Same sections.
Still building it from scratch.

Variations to produce:

• Variation A: The text above, cream text on dark/charcoal background
• Variation B: Different pain point -- "Every session recap has the same sections. You're still writing it by hand."
• Variation C: Different pain point -- "A third of your hours go to work that already has a pattern."

Sizing

Every image needs both sizes:

That means each variation = 2 files (1 feed + 1 stories). With 8-12 variations, that is 16-24 total files.

Brand Specs

Colors — Dark Theme

Note: Gold text (#b79d64) on cream backgrounds fails accessibility contrast. If using a light background for any variation, use #6b5d3e for text instead of gold.

Fonts

Logo

Not required on the ads. These should look native to the platform, not branded.

Creative Direction

This is the most important section. Read it twice.

These ads should look native to the feed, not polished. The audience is independent consultants aged 30-65. They scroll past obvious ads. What stops them is content that looks like something a peer posted -- a note, a list, a screenshot, a thought.

Specific guidance from Callan (our creative testing source):

• The "note" style and text-heavy formats outperform designed graphics for info-product offers
• More variations tested = faster discovery of winners, so speed of production matters more than perfection of any single image
• We are testing hooks, not designs. The image supports the hook -- it does not compete with it
• If you have to choose between "looks professional" and "looks like something someone actually posted," choose the latter

What to avoid:

• Gradients, glows, or effects that scream "ad"
• Stock photography of any kind
• Busy layouts with multiple competing elements
• Overly polished product mockups that look like SaaS marketing
• Bright/saturated colors that clash with the dark theme

What to lean into:

• High contrast text on dark backgrounds
• Generous whitespace (even in the text-heavy List Format)
• The product shot can be more "designed" than the others -- that is the one concept where polish helps
• The List Format and Pattern Callout should feel like screenshots of notes, not designed assets

File Delivery

Format: PNG (preferred) or JPG at highest quality Naming convention: [concept]-[variation]-[size].png

• Example: product-shot-a-feed.png, product-shot-a-stories.png
• Example: list-format-b-feed.png, list-format-b-stories.png

Summary