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Local vertical opportunity scan

Analyzes a local market and a set of recent client briefs to surface demand patterns, underserved verticals, and 8-12 ranked advertiser opportunity areas — each with a demand signal, seasonal window, budget-tier…

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Purpose

Turn a stack of recent briefs and known market conditions into a ranked map of advertiser opportunity areas across verticals — showing where local demand is heating up, which categories are underserved, and how to approach each one — so sales and strategy teams stop chasing every account and focus on the verticals most likely to spend.

When to Use

Invoke this skill when the user asks to:

  • Identify which verticals to prioritize for local ad sales in a specific market
  • Spot patterns or emerging demand across a set of recent client briefs
  • Build a prospecting or territory plan for a local market
  • Find underserved advertiser categories worth pitching
  • Prepare for a quarterly planning or pipeline-building session
  • Understand where seasonal or event-driven ad demand is about to spike locally

Inputs Required

Before starting, collect:

  • Market: The specific city, metro, DMA, or region being analyzed
  • Recent briefs: A set of 5+ recent client or RFP briefs — advertiser name, vertical, budget range, campaign goal, timing if available
  • Media inventory: What the seller can actually offer (e.g., local TV, radio, OOH, digital display, sponsored content, events)
  • Planning horizon: The window being planned for (next quarter, next 6 months, next year)
  • Known market events: Local seasonality, elections, sports seasons, festivals, or economic shifts relevant to the horizon
  • Current book of business: Which verticals already spend with the seller (to distinguish new opportunity from renewal)

If budget ranges or timing are missing from briefs, infer tiers from advertiser type and note the assumption.

Instructions

Step 1: Normalize and Tag the Brief Set

Standardize the briefs into a comparable dataset before looking for patterns.

  • Assign each brief a vertical using a consistent taxonomy: Auto, Home Services, Health & Wellness, Legal, Financial Services, QSR/Restaurant, Retail, Real Estate, Education, Entertainment/Events, B2B/Professional Services, Government/Public
  • Tag each with a budget tier: Tier 1 (under $10K), Tier 2 ($10K–$50K), Tier 3 ($50K–$250K), Tier 4 ($250K+)
  • Tag each with a campaign goal: awareness, lead gen, foot traffic, event promotion, brand launch
  • Note the timing/flight window where available

Step 2: Detect Demand Patterns

Read across the normalized set for signals, not one-off requests.

  • Volume clustering: Which verticals appear 3+ times? Repeated briefs in a category signal live, funded demand
  • Budget concentration: Where is the dollar weight, not just the brief count? Two Tier-4 briefs can outweigh six Tier-1s
  • Goal patterns: Are multiple advertisers in the same vertical chasing the same goal (e.g., all Home Services want lead gen)? That points to a repeatable pitch
  • Timing clusters: Do briefs bunch around a season, event, or fiscal cycle?
  • Absence signals: Which verticals you'd expect in this market are missing from the briefs entirely? Absence can mean untapped opportunity or a category that doesn't buy locally

Step 3: Layer in Market Context

Overlay the brief patterns against real market conditions.

  • Map known local events, seasons, and economic shifts to the verticals they typically activate (e.g., election year → Government/Political + Legal; back-to-school → Retail + Education)
  • Flag verticals with structural local demand that the brief set may not yet reflect (e.g., Auto and Home Services are near-universal local spenders)
  • Note any inventory-vertical fit: which opportunity areas match what the seller can actually deliver

Step 4: Rank 8-12 Opportunity Areas

Score each candidate opportunity on three factors and rank accordingly:

  • Demand strength (High/Medium/Low): How live and funded is the demand, based on brief volume, budget concentration, and market context
  • Competitive whitespace (Open/Contested/Saturated): How much of this category the seller already owns vs. how crowded the field is
  • Inventory fit (Strong/Partial/Weak): How well the seller's available media matches the vertical's typical needs

Rank primarily by demand strength, breaking ties with whitespace, then inventory fit. Prioritize opportunities that are High-demand AND Open whitespace.

Step 5: Build the Opportunity Profile

For each of the 8-12 ranked opportunities, produce:

  1. Vertical + specific sub-segment: Not just "Auto" — "Used-car dealer groups" or "EV service centers"
  2. Demand signal: The evidence (X briefs, budget tier pattern, market event) — cite what triggered the flag
  3. Seasonal/timing window: When this category buys and the next window to hit
  4. Budget tier estimate: Likely spend range per advertiser
  5. Pitch angle: One sentence on the message or product package that fits this vertical's goal
  6. Whitespace note: Whether this is net-new or expansion of existing book

Output Format

  • Structure: Pattern summary → ranked opportunity table → detailed opportunity profiles → recommended focus
  • Length: 900–1,300 words
  • Format: Ranked table for the 8-12 opportunities, followed by structured profile blocks
  • Sections: Demand Pattern Summary → Opportunity Ranking Table (vertical, demand, whitespace, inventory fit) → Opportunity Profiles (8-12) → Recommended Top 3 Focus for the Horizon
  • Tone: Sales-strategy director — pragmatic, evidence-led, oriented toward where the money actually is

Quality Checklist

Before delivering output, verify:

  • [ ] Between 8 and 12 opportunity areas are surfaced and ranked
  • [ ] Every opportunity cites a specific demand signal — brief count, budget pattern, or market event — not a hunch
  • [ ] Each opportunity has all six profile elements (sub-segment, signal, timing, budget tier, pitch angle, whitespace note)
  • [ ] The ranking distinguishes net-new whitespace from existing-book expansion
  • [ ] At least one opportunity comes from an absence/whitespace signal, not just brief volume
  • [ ] A specific Top 3 focus is named for the planning horizon (don't leave it open-ended)

Notes

  • The highest-value opportunities often come from Step 2's absence signals — categories that should be spending locally but aren't in the brief set yet
  • Brief volume and budget weight tell different stories; always check both before ranking, since a few large advertisers can outrank a crowd of small ones
  • Seasonal timing is where sellers leave money on the table — flag the next buying window for each vertical so the team can pitch ahead of it, not during the rush
  • If the brief set is small (under 5), lean more heavily on market context in Step 3 and note the lower confidence in pattern-based signals

How to use this skill

This file is a Claude Code skill in Anthropic's standard format — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.

Installing in Claude Code:

  • ~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md — auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)
  • <your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md — auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)

Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.

Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:

  1. Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
  2. Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits

For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills