📊 View Lecture Slides Full-screen presentation with navigation

Day 1: The Digital Home Base, Strategy & Initial Architecture

Session Duration: 2 Hours     Phase: 1 — Foundation: Build & Protect

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, students will be able to:

  • Articulate why a website is a converting asset, not a digital brochure
  • Map a customer’s complete digital journey from awareness to retention
  • Explain the foundational components of web architecture (domain, hosting, DNS, SSL)
  • Identify core cybersecurity risks and corresponding protocols relevant to their industry
  • Use AI to generate a structured brand blueprint and customer persona for their mock business

Hour 1: Strategy & Prompt Design (Instructor-Led — 60 minutes)

1.1 The Executive Macro View

Most businesses treat their website as an online leaflet—a place to list their phone number and opening hours. This is a catastrophic strategic error.

The correct mental model: Your website is your most senior, always-available salesperson. It works 24/7, speaks to thousands of prospects simultaneously, never asks for a raise, and every single interaction it has with a visitor is measurable. No other asset in your business has this profile.

1.2 The Digital Customer Journey

Understanding how customers move from stranger to buyer is the foundation of every marketing decision you will ever make. The model below is the lens through which all 10 days of this course will be viewed:

Stage What the customer does What your business must do
Awareness Discovers you exist Be visible on the right channels
Interest Explores your brand Deliver immediate, credible value
Consideration Compares you with alternatives Differentiate clearly; remove doubt
Conversion Takes the desired action Eliminate friction; make it obvious
Retention Returns and buys again Deliver on the promise; stay in contact
Advocacy Refers others to you Give them a reason to talk about you

Classroom Discussion (10 min): Ask students to name one brand they are loyal to. What made them loyal? Reverse-engineer the journey that brand took them through. Most students will identify moments at the Interest and Retention stages — this is where battles are won.

1.3 Brand Positioning: The Strategic Foundation

Brand positioning answers one question: In the mind of your target customer, why should they choose you over every alternative, including doing nothing?

A weak positioning statement: “We provide quality products at competitive prices.”

A strong positioning statement: “For Kathmandu-based small business owners who are overwhelmed by marketing, [Brand] is the only AI-powered marketing toolkit that gives you a Fortune-500 marketing strategy in under 2 hours per week — without hiring an agency.”

The formula is:

For [specific customer segment]
who [have this specific problem],
[Brand Name] is the only [category]
that [delivers this specific outcome]
— unlike [the main alternative].

Hour 2: Digital Sandbox Lab (Individual Execution — 60 minutes)

The AI Prompting Framework: The Core Brand Blueprint Prompt

This prompt transforms AI into a strategic brand consultant. Instead of asking AI general questions, you are instructing it to adopt a specific expert persona and produce structured, business-ready outputs.

Why this prompt works: McKinsey-style consulting frameworks force AI to think beyond surface-level descriptions and uncover the psychological motivations driving customer behaviour. This is the same research process that agencies charge NPR 5–10 lakh to produce.

The Full Prompt Template

Copy this prompt exactly. Fill in the [ ] brackets with your specifics:

You are a McKinsey Brand Strategy Partner with 20 years of experience
helping Fortune 500 companies build digital-first market positions.

My business concept is: [describe your business in 2–3 sentences —
what it does, who it serves, and what problem it solves]

My target market is: [describe your primary customer — age, location,
income level, profession, lifestyle, digital behaviour]

I need you to produce the following structured outputs:

1. BRAND POSITIONING STATEMENT
   Using the formula: "For [customer segment] who [problem],
   [Brand] is the only [category] that [outcome] — unlike [alternative]."

2. CUSTOMER PERSONA PROFILE
   Name: [give them a realistic name]
   Demographics: Age, location, occupation, income
   Psychographics: Values, fears, aspirations, lifestyle
   Digital Behaviour: Which platforms they use daily, how they research
   purchases, what content they consume
   Primary Pain Points: The 3 most frustrating problems in their life
   related to my product/service
   Hidden Desires: The 3 deeper emotional outcomes they want (beyond
   the functional outcome of my product)
   Objections: The 3 reasons they might NOT buy from me

3. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE SNAPSHOT
   Name 3 types of alternatives my customer currently uses (including
   "doing nothing"). For each, explain why my brand offers a superior outcome.

Expected Outputs From This Prompt

When run correctly, this prompt should produce:

  • A sharp, differentiated brand positioning statement (ready to use on your homepage hero)
  • A detailed customer persona with genuine psychological depth
  • A competitive landscape analysis that clarifies your market position

How to Refine the Output

AI first drafts are never the final answer. Refine by:

  1. Check for generic language — if any phrase could apply to any business (“quality service,” “competitive prices”), replace it with something specific
  2. Stress-test the persona — ask yourself: “Do I actually know someone who matches this description?” If not, the persona is too abstract
  3. Challenge the pain points — are these the real reasons someone wouldn’t sleep at night, or are they surface-level descriptions?

Step-by-Step Lab Instructions

⚙️ Setup (5 minutes)

  1. Open your AI tool of choice: ChatGPT or Claude.ai — both free tiers work
  2. Open a new Google Doc titled: [Your Business Name] — Brand Blueprint
  3. Create a folder in Google Drive: AI Strategy Sandbox — [Your Name]

📋 Part 1: Business Concept Selection (10 minutes)

Select ONE of the following business archetypes and make it specific and realistic:

Archetype Example Specifics
Niche E-Commerce Handmade Nepali silver jewellery, exported internationally
Localized Service Premium corporate photography for Kathmandu businesses
B2B SaaS Accounting software for Nepali CA firms
Content / Education Online IELTS preparation for Nepali students
Food & Beverage Speciality coffee subscription box for Nepali consumers
Health & Wellness Home physiotherapy service for Kathmandu’s aging population

Rule: Your business must be something you could realistically start in Nepal OR an international concept you genuinely find interesting. Generic ideas (“a clothing brand”) produce generic outputs. Specific ideas (“vintage-inspired streetwear for Kathmandu university students”) produce valuable outputs.

🤖 Part 2: Run the Brand Blueprint Prompt (20 minutes)

  1. Copy the full prompt template above into your AI tool
  2. Fill in your business concept and target market details — be as specific as possible
  3. Run the prompt. Read the full output carefully
  4. Copy the entire output into your Google Doc under the heading “AI Output — Raw”
  5. Run the prompt a second time with one refinement: add “The output I received was good but the customer persona felt too generic. Please add more specificity to the pain points and hidden desires, and give the persona a real backstory (3–4 sentences about their daily life).”

✏️ Part 3: Refine & Document (25 minutes)

  1. In your Google Doc, create a new section: “Refined Brand Blueprint”
  2. Rewrite the brand positioning statement in your own words — make it feel authentic to a real brand
  3. Fill in the Customer Persona Worksheet below with your refined output

Templates & Worksheets

Template 1: Customer Persona Card

Print or complete digitally. Use this as a reference document for all future sessions.

CUSTOMER PERSONA CARD
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Name: ___________________________________
Age: ______ | Location: __________________
Occupation: _____________________________
Monthly Income (approx.): ________________

PSYCHOGRAPHIC PROFILE
Values: _________________________________
Biggest Fear: ___________________________
Core Aspiration: ________________________

DIGITAL BEHAVIOUR
Primary Platforms: ______________________
How they research purchases: _____________
Content they consume daily: ______________

TOP 3 PAIN POINTS
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________

HIDDEN DESIRES (emotional outcomes)
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________

TOP 3 OBJECTIONS TO BUYING
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________

BRAND POSITIONING STATEMENT
"For __________ who __________,
[Brand] is the only __________
that __________ — unlike __________."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Resources & Further Reading

🛠️ Tools Required Today

Tool Purpose Cost Link
ChatGPT Brand Blueprint Prompt Free chat.openai.com
Claude.ai Alternative AI tool Free claude.ai
Google Docs Document outputs Free docs.google.com
Google Drive File organisation Free drive.google.com
Namecheap Domain research (no purchase needed today) Free to browse namecheap.com
Netlify Hosting option (no setup today) Free tier netlify.com

📚 Reference Reading

🔐 Security Resources

📖 Frameworks Referenced Today

  • Brand Positioning Formula — Al Ries & Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981), still the definitive text
  • Customer Journey Stages — Adapted from McKinsey’s Consumer Decision Journey (2009)
  • Principle of Least Privilege — Cybersecurity standard from NIST SP 800-12

Key Takeaways

  1. Website = Converting Asset — Not a digital brochure. It is your most measurable, scalable salesperson.
  2. Brand Positioning is Strategic — The formula “For [customer] who [problem], we are the only [category] that [outcome]” is the foundation of everything that follows.
  3. Know Your Customer Psychologically — Functional benefits attract attention; emotional benefits drive decisions; social benefits create loyalty.
  4. AI Accelerates Research, Not Thinking — The Brand Blueprint prompt is powerful only if you bring specific, real inputs. Garbage in, garbage out.

Next: Day 2 – Web Architecture, Security & UX Design →