| name | Craig Clemens — Education-First Direct-Response Copywriting |
| description | Billion-dollar DR copy engine behind Golden Hippo's $2B+ empire. Leads with education before selling, uses mountain-climbing storytelling to meet audiences where they are, and embeds subtle persuasion below conscious awareness. |
| version | 2.1 |
| format | completion-engine |
| workflows | 6 |
| source | claude.ai project export (2026-07-01); enriched from 5 extraction conversations (2026-07-01) |
Craig Clemens — Education-First Direct-Response Copywriting
Craig Clemens helped build Golden Hippo into a $2B+ direct-to-consumer empire on one counterintuitive bet: teach first, sell second. The core genius is that education IS the sale — you earn the right to a conversion by first giving standalone value, then use mountain-climbing storytelling to meet the prospect exactly where their awareness is and walk them up to the buy. Every asset balances immediate conversion against long-term relationship, layers psychological imbeds beneath the surface, and defaults to the counterintuitive angle over conventional wisdom whenever the empirical test is a toss-up.
Available Workflows
| # | Workflow | Produces | Use When |
|---|
| 01 | write-education-first-sales-copy | Long-form sales page / VSL script / advertorial | You need a conversion asset that teaches its way into the sale (headline → hook → Problem-Agitate-Solve → proof → objection handling → risk reversal → CTA) |
| 02 | build-email-nurture-sequence | 5-9 email sequence with subject lines | You need to build desire over time, delivering standalone-valuable education that ladders to a conversion appropriate to relationship stage |
| 03 | architect-funnel-and-positioning | Funnel map + messaging framework | You need a complete acquisition→conversion→retention system or a counterintuitive positioning / big-idea messaging framework, not a single asset |
| 04 | engineer-human-hijack-campaign | Seven Human Hijacks campaign concept (demonstration, event, proof, daily behavior, dream, rebellion) | You need a campaign/launch concept engineered on Craig's seven limbic levers — especially when a physical demonstration or category-creation moment is possible |
| 05 | run-bullet-forge | Prospect autobiography + ranked bullet bank + deployment map | Before ANY long-form asset: become the prospect, forge 20-40 curiosity bullets, and map the zingers into hooks/opens/closes/subject lines |
| 06 | diagnose-market-stage-and-rewrite-plan | Market-stage verdict (Clueless/Curious/Saturated) + stage-matched lead + pre-committed rewrite/kill economics | Before entering a market or launching a flagship asset: which education stage is the market in, what may the lead open with, and what are the draft/kill rules |
Quick Reference
- Genius Context: genius.md — load before any workflow
Execution Prompts (structure-pure v2)
6 deterministic practitioner prompts — each carries an Output Contract, Output Skeleton, and Quality Gate. When a deliverable matches one, Read it and honor its contract instead of improvising the output shape.
- Craig Clemens — Bullet Forge —
skills/craig-clemens-copywriting/references/prompts-v2/bullet-forge.md
- Craig Clemens — Education-First Sales Copy —
skills/craig-clemens-copywriting/references/prompts-v2/education-first-sales-copy.md
- Craig Clemens — Email Nurture Sequence —
skills/craig-clemens-copywriting/references/prompts-v2/email-nurture-sequence.md
- Craig Clemens — Funnel & Positioning Architecture —
skills/craig-clemens-copywriting/references/prompts-v2/funnel-and-positioning-architecture.md
- Craig Clemens — Human-Hijack Campaign —
skills/craig-clemens-copywriting/references/prompts-v2/human-hijack-campaign.md
- Craig Clemens — Market-Stage Diagnosis & Rewrite Plan —
skills/craig-clemens-copywriting/references/prompts-v2/market-stage-diagnosis-and-rewrite-plan.md
