How to Use Claude Skills for Marketing: A Practical Guide to Corey Haines’ Marketing Skills

Claude Skills are folders of instructions (a SKILL.md file, plus optional references and scripts) that Claude loads automatically when your request matches what the skill is for. For marketers, the quickest way to use them is to install Corey Haines’ free Marketing Skills library: 52 ready-made playbooks for CRO, copywriting, SEO, AI search, ads, email, pricing and launches. Install it with one command in Claude Code or Cursor (npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills), or upload single skills to Claude on the web. Then set up your product context once and ask for marketing work in plain English.

That’s the short answer. Below is the full walkthrough: what skills are, how to install Marketing Skills in Claude, Claude Code and Cursor, the setup step most people skip, 10 example prompts, a five-day starter plan, and the limits you should know before you trust the output.

How we wrote this guide: every install step and file path here was checked against the official documentation (the Marketing Skills README, the Claude Help Center, Cursor’s docs and the skills CLI docs) on 22 October 2026. We haven’t run the full library on a client project, so treat the example prompts as starting points, not tested recipes.

Want the quick facts first? See the Marketing Skills listing on Digital Marketing Supermarket, or browse more AI marketing automation tools.

Why marketers are talking about Claude Skills right now

Spend ten minutes on LinkedIn or X this week and you’ll see a wave of “Claude is our marketing team” posts, free skill packs offered as lead magnets, and agencies showing their Claude workflows. Exposure Ninja, for example, has just published a full walkthrough called I Taught Claude to Be a World-Class Marketer.

The library at the centre of a lot of this conversation is Marketing Skills by Corey Haines. On 22 October 2026 it had 55,899 stars and 8,275 forks on GitHub, more than 50 contributors, and its latest release (v2.13.0) shipped on 19 October. For a library of marketing playbooks, that’s an unusual level of attention.

The reason is simple. Claude doesn’t know how to market your product. Out of the box, it gives you competent, generic advice, and you spend half of every chat re-explaining your audience, your positioning and what you’ve already tried. Skills fix the “generic” part. A shared context file fixes the “re-explaining” part.

What are Claude Skills, in plain English?

A skill is a folder named after the job it does. Inside is a SKILL.md file with a short description at the top (“use this when the user wants to optimise a landing page”) and detailed instructions underneath. It can also hold reference documents, templates and scripts.

Claude reads the short descriptions of every installed skill. When your request matches one, it loads the full instructions and follows them. You don’t have to remember which skill to use, though you can call one directly by name.

Skills follow an open standard, the Agent Skills specification, which is why the same skill folder works in Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenAI Codex and other agents.

Skills vs prompts vs Projects

	Prompts	Claude Projects or custom GPTs	Skills
What it is	Text you paste into a chat	Saved instructions and files for one workspace	Reusable playbooks the agent loads when relevant
When it’s used	Only when you paste it	Every chat in that project	Only when the task matches
Best for	One-off tasks	Shared background for one client or brand	Repeatable methods across many tasks
Weakness	You repeat yourself	One big instruction block for everything	Needs a little setup

Cursor’s own documentation puts it neatly: rules are always on, while skills are “loaded dynamically” when the agent decides they’re relevant (Cursor). That keeps the agent focused and stops one giant prompt from crowding out your actual task. If you already have a bank of prompts, such as our ChatGPT prompts for digital marketers, the ones you reuse every week are the best candidates to turn into skills.

What’s inside Corey Haines’ Marketing Skills

Marketing Skills is free and released under the MIT licence. Corey Haines is the founder of the conversion agency Conversion Factory and the Swipe Files newsletter. The README describes the library as “built for technical marketers and founders who want AI coding agents to help with conversion optimization, copywriting, SEO, analytics, and growth engineering” (GitHub).

Here’s how the 52 skills group together:

Area	Example skills
SEO and content	seo-audit, ai-seo, programmatic-seo, schema, site-architecture, content-strategy, link-building
Conversion (CRO)	cro, signup, onboarding, popups, paywalls
Copy and content	copywriting, copy-editing, cold-email, emails, social, video, image, sms
Paid and measurement	ads, ad-creative, ab-testing, analytics, conversion-tracking, attribution
Growth and retention	referrals, free-tools, churn-prevention, lead-magnets, community-marketing, co-marketing
Sales and go-to-market	revops, sales-enablement, launch, pricing, competitors, prospecting
Strategy	marketing-plan, marketing-ideas, marketing-psychology, customer-research, marketing-council

Two skills deserve a special mention. marketing-council simulates a board of advisers in the style of well-known marketers, for when you want several perspectives on one decision. marketing-loops sets up recurring workflows an agent runs on a schedule, such as a weekly ads check.

The one that matters most is product-marketing. It builds a single context document about your product, audience and positioning, and every other skill checks it before doing anything. More on that in step 2.

A small discrepancy: marketing-skills.com said “50 skills” when we checked, while the GitHub repository and the Claude Code plugin manifest both list 52. We’ve used the repository figure.

Before you start: pick your route

Where you use Claude	Install method	Best for
Claude Code (terminal or IDE)	One command, or the Claude Code plugin	The full library and the shared context file
Cursor	The same command, targeting Cursor	Marketers and developers who already work in Cursor
Claude on the web or desktop app	Upload one ZIP per skill	Trying a few skills without a terminal
OpenAI Codex	Codex plugin marketplace	Teams that use Codex rather than Claude

You don’t need to be a developer. You do need to be comfortable opening a terminal and pasting a command. If that’s new to you, Corey publishes a companion guide, Coding for Marketers, for exactly this.

Step 1: Install Marketing Skills

Option A: Claude Code (recommended)

Open a terminal in the folder you work in. For a marketer that might be a folder per client or per website. Then run:

npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills

This uses the open-source skills CLI from Vercel, which needs Node.js 22.20 or later (skills CLI). It detects which agents you have and asks where to install. For Claude Code, skills go into .claude/skills/ in your project. Add -g to install them globally for every project (~/.claude/skills/).

To start small, install only the skills you need:

npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill product-marketing cro copywriting

One gotcha from the README: if you ask Claude Code to run the install for you, the CLI runs non-interactively and may install only to .agents/skills/, which Claude Code doesn’t read. Add -a claude-code to force the right location:

npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills -a claude-code

Prefer plugins? In an interactive Claude Code session, run /plugin marketplace add coreyhaines31/marketingskills and then /plugin install marketing-skills. The /plugin command isn’t available in Claude Code on the web or in other non-interactive environments, so use the npx route there.

Option B: Cursor

Run the same command with Cursor as the target:

npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills -a cursor

The skills CLI installs Cursor skills into .agents/skills/ in your project, or ~/.cursor/skills/ with -g. Cursor loads skills from .agents/skills/ and .cursor/skills/, and, for compatibility, from Claude’s .claude/skills/ folder too (Cursor docs). So if you already installed for Claude Code in the same project, Cursor can pick those up as well.

In Cursor, the agent applies a skill when it’s relevant, or you can type / followed by the skill name, such as /cro, to call it directly.

Option C: Claude on the web or the desktop app

You can’t run commands in the chat app, but you can upload skills one at a time:

1. On individual Free, Pro and Max plans, go to Settings → Capabilities and make sure Code execution and file creation is switched on. On Team and Enterprise plans, an owner needs to allow skills in Organization settings (Claude Help Center).
2. Download the ZIP for each skill you want from the Marketing Skills releases page. Each one is named <skill>-claude-web.zip, for example cro-claude-web.zip.
3. In Claude, go to Customize → Skills, click +, choose Create skill, then Upload a skill, and upload the ZIP.
4. Toggle the skill on. Uploaded skills are private to you until you share them.

Start with product-marketing-claude-web.zip, cro-claude-web.zip and copywriting-claude-web.zip. The README notes that web ZIPs use a shorter, reviewed description, and that installing a ZIP doesn’t set up local tools, connections or related skills.

Option D: OpenAI Codex

Run codex plugin marketplace add coreyhaines31/marketingskills, then open /plugins inside a Codex session and select marketing-skills. Run codex plugin marketplace upgrade to pick up new releases.

Step 2: Set up your product marketing context (don’t skip this)

This is the step that turns “generic AI marketing advice” into “advice about your business”. In your agent, type something like:

Set up my product marketing context.

The product-marketing skill then offers two routes. It can auto-draft from your codebase or website, reading your README, landing pages, marketing copy and existing docs, or it can walk you through each section conversationally. The skill itself says most users prefer the first option and then correct the draft.

It captures:

• Product overview: one-liner, category, business model and pricing
• Target audience: company type, decision-makers, jobs to be done
• Personas (for B2B): user, champion, decision-maker, financial buyer
• Problems and pain points, including the emotional side
• Competitive landscape: direct, secondary and indirect competitors
• Differentiation and why customers choose you
• Objections and who is not a good fit
• Switching dynamics: push, pull, habit and anxiety
• Customer language: the exact words customers use, and words to avoid
• Brand voice, with real examples from copy that has worked
• Proof points: metrics, results and testimonials

The output is saved as .agents/product-marketing.md. The skill keeps a version number and a changelog, so you can see what changed and why.

Two tips. First, paste in real customer language from reviews, sales calls and support tickets. The skill explicitly prefers verbatim phrases to polished descriptions, and that’s where the best copy comes from. Second, if you’re an agency, keep one folder per client so each client has its own context file.

On Claude web: there’s no project folder for the file to live in. Our suggestion is to save the finished context document and add it to a Claude Project for that brand, so it’s available in every chat. That’s our workaround, not something the library documents.

Step 3: Ask for marketing work in plain English

You don’t need special syntax. The README’s own examples:

• “Help me optimize this landing page for conversions” → uses cro
• “Write homepage copy for my SaaS” → uses copywriting
• “Set up GA4 tracking for signups” → uses analytics
• “Create a 5-email welcome sequence” → uses emails

To choose the skill yourself, call it by name: /cro, /emails, /seo-audit.

10 marketing use cases, with example prompts

These prompts are written to get the most out of each skill. Swap in your own URLs and details.

1. Audit a landing page for conversions (cro)

Audit [URL], our highest-traffic landing page. Its goal is [demo bookings]. Most visitors come from [paid search]. Rank the issues by likely impact on conversions, explain why each one matters, and suggest 3 A/B tests.

The cro skill works through value proposition clarity first, then headline, then the rest of the page, in order of impact. It also has a reference file of experiment ideas by page type. If you’d rather use a dedicated app, compare the AI conversion optimisation tools in our directory.

2. Rewrite the hero section (copywriting)

Using our product marketing context, write 5 hero section options for [URL]: headline, subheadline and CTA. Make one outcome-focused, one specific with numbers, one built on customer language, one contrarian and one social-proof led. Say which you’d test first and why.

Want to benchmark the output? Compare it with what the 27 best AI writing tools for 2026 produce from the same brief.

3. Get cited in AI answers (ai-seo)

We want to be recommended when people ask ChatGPT and Perplexity “[best X for Y]”. Review [URL] and our top 3 competitors’ equivalent pages. What should we change on our site, and which third-party pages should we try to get onto?

The ai-seo skill covers AEO, GEO, LLMO and AI Overviews. To measure whether it’s working, you’ll need a tracker. See our Peec AI review and the Peec AI listing, or compare trackers in our GEO tools category. For the strategy behind it, read our complete guide to answer engine optimisation (AEO).

4. Run a technical SEO health check (seo-audit)

Run an SEO audit of [URL]. Our traffic fell [20%] in [September]. Check on-page issues, internal linking, indexability and Core Web Vitals risks, and give me a prioritised fix list.

The skill works from what it can read, so pair it with crawl and ranking data from a dedicated platform. Our 25 best AI SEO tools for 2026 lists the main options.

5. Add schema markup (schema)

Write JSON-LD for our pricing page and our FAQ page at [URLs]. Explain which rich results each could qualify for, and what we’d need to change on the page for them to be valid.

6. Build a welcome email sequence (emails)

Create a 5-email welcome sequence for new free-trial sign-ups. The goal is activation: [first project created]. Give timing, subject lines, preview text, body copy and the trigger and exit rules for each email.

Skills write the sequence. They don’t design, test or send it. If you need on-brand, inbox-tested emails ready to go, pair this with a builder like Migma AI, or compare the best AI email marketing tools in 2026.

7. Generate ad creative at scale (ad-creative)

Write 15 Google Ads RSA headlines and 4 descriptions for [product], targeting [audience]. Group the headlines by angle (pain, outcome, proof, offer), keep to character limits, and flag any claim we’d need to substantiate.

For ads specifically, our Fastlane AI ad agent review covers a tool that makes, launches and iterates on Meta ads.

8. Fix your pricing page (pricing)

Review our pricing page at [URL]. Is our value metric right? Are the tiers clearly differentiated? Suggest changes to packaging and page layout, and a low-risk way to test a price increase.

9. Plan a launch (launch)

We’re launching [feature] on [date]. Build a launch plan covering pre-launch, launch day and the two weeks after, across email, social, in-app and Product Hunt. Include a pre-launch QA checklist.

10. Build competitor comparison pages (competitors)

Plan “[Us] vs [Competitor]” and “[Competitor] alternatives” pages for our top 3 competitors. For each, give the angle, the comparison table rows and the honest trade-offs we should admit.

Bonus: get a second opinion (marketing-council). Ask “Run this positioning past the marketing council” when you want several contrasting viewpoints on a big decision before you commit.

A five-day starter plan

Don’t install all 52 skills and hope. Give it one working week.

Day	Do this	Judge it on
Monday	Install product-marketing, cro and copywriting. Set up your product context and correct the first draft	Does the context read like your best sales person wrote it?
Tuesday	Run a CRO audit on your highest-traffic landing page	Are the top 3 issues ones you’d agree with?
Wednesday	Ask for 5 hero rewrites and pick 1 to test	Is the best option better than your current hero?
Thursday	Launch the A/B test, or get the rewrite reviewed by a colleague	Is it ready to ship without heavy editing?
Friday	Add one more skill that matches your biggest gap: emails, ai-seo or ads	Did it reuse your context without you repeating yourself?

If the first three skills save you time and lift quality, add more. If they don’t, you’ve lost an afternoon and spent nothing.

Connecting your marketing data (optional)

Marketing Skills includes a guided workflow for connecting marketing accounts, such as GA4, Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads and Stripe, to a local agent. It’s sensible about security. It connects one tool at a time, starts with a read-only report, stores credentials in a private local file, and tells the agent never to ask you to paste a token into the chat (setup guide).

Our advice: get value from the skills on their own first. Connect data only when you have a specific question that needs it, such as “which campaigns have ad fatigue?”, and only with read-only access. If you need dashboards rather than ad-hoc questions, see our 25 best AI analytics tools in 2026.

Articos brings synthetic user research into Claude through its MCP connector; read our Articos review before you connect it.

The limits and risks to know

• It’s instructions, not judgement. Skills make the agent follow better methods. They don’t know your market the way you do. Treat output as a strong first draft.
• It’s only as good as your context. A thin product-marketing file means generic output. Put the effort in on step 2.
• The library moves fast. Version 2.0 renamed 17 skills (for example, page-cro became cro), and the README has clean-up steps if you installed an older version. Run npx skills check and npx skills update from time to time.
• There’s a partner model, and it’s disclosed. The library is funded by “Verified Partners” (Converly, Ploy, AIsa and Omnia when we checked). They’re marked with a â—†, and the partner rules say sponsorship “funds the work, never the recommendations”. Still, notice when a skill suggests a tool, and choose on merit.
• Claude web is a lighter experience. One ZIP per skill, shorter descriptions, and no shared context file unless you add one yourself.
• Check facts before you publish. Any statistic, claim or competitor detail the agent produces needs a source before it goes on your website or in an ad.
• Watch what you share. If you connect accounts or paste customer data, follow the read-only, local-credentials approach above, and check your company’s AI policy.

Who Marketing Skills is for, and who it isn’t

Great fit:

• Technical marketers and growth leads already using Claude Code, Cursor or Codex
• SaaS founders doing their own marketing
• Agencies that want a consistent, documented method across clients
• SEO teams adding AI search (GEO) work to their process

Not a fit (yet):

• Teams that want a finished app with a dashboard and no setup, where a specialist tool like Migma AI for email or Peec AI for AI visibility will feel easier
• Anyone who can’t install software on their work computer
• Brands in heavily regulated sectors without a review step for AI-written copy

If you’d rather not build your own agent set-up, see our Different AI review, an AI system that builds, runs and improves B2B journeys across LinkedIn ads, landing pages and email.

Our verdict

If you use Claude, Cursor or Codex for marketing, Marketing Skills is the best free upgrade available right now. The skills themselves are well structured, but the real value is the shared product context. It turns the agent from a clever generalist into something closer to a trained marketer who has read your brief. It won’t replace a strategist, and you’ll still edit what it writes. But for the price of an afternoon, it removes the most tedious part of working with AI: explaining your business again and again.

Start with three skills and one landing page. Judge it on whether you’d ship the result.

For more tools like this, browse the AI marketing tools on Digital Marketing Supermarket, read our practical guide to AI agents for digital marketing, see our roundup of AI conversion rate optimisation tools, or compare hosted options in the best AI marketing agents in 2026.

FAQs

What are Claude Skills? Claude Skills are folders containing a SKILL.md file of instructions, and optionally reference files and scripts, that Claude loads automatically when a task matches the skill’s description. They follow the open Agent Skills standard, so they also work in Cursor, Codex and other agents (Claude docs).

How do I use Claude Skills for marketing? Install a marketing skill library such as Marketing Skills by Corey Haines, set up your product marketing context once, then ask for marketing tasks in plain English, such as “audit this landing page for conversions”. Claude picks the right skill, or you can call one directly with a slash command like /cro.

Is Marketing Skills by Corey Haines free? Yes. It’s open source under the MIT licence, so you can use and adapt it, including commercially. You only pay for the AI tool you run it in (GitHub).

How many skills are in Marketing Skills? The GitHub repository lists 52 skills as of 22 October 2026, covering CRO, copywriting, SEO, AI search, ads, analytics, email, pricing, launches, retention and strategy.

Can I use Claude Skills on the free Claude plan? According to Anthropic, skills are available on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, with code execution switched on (Claude Help Center). In the web app you upload skills as ZIP files under Customize, Skills.

Do Claude Skills work in Cursor? Yes. Cursor supports Agent Skills and loads them from .agents/skills/, .cursor/skills/ and, for compatibility, .claude/skills/ (Cursor docs). Install Marketing Skills for Cursor with npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills -a cursor.

What’s the difference between a Claude Skill and a prompt? A prompt is text you paste each time. A skill is saved, reusable and loaded only when relevant, and can include reference files and scripts. Marketing Skills also shares one product context across every skill, which a single prompt can’t do.

Can Marketing Skills help with GEO and AI search? Yes. The ai-seo skill is designed to help content get cited by LLMs and appear in AI-generated answers. To track your results across ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, pair it with a visibility tool such as Peec AI.

This guide is based on publicly available information from the Marketing Skills GitHub repository, marketing-skills.com, the Claude Help Center, Cursor’s documentation and the skills CLI documentation, as of 22 October 2026. Digital Marketing Supermarket is an independent directory. This guide hasn’t been sponsored or paid for by Corey Haines, Conversion Factory or Anthropic.