Define the One Side That Matters First using Get Who To By
Look, if your campaign brief looks like a grocery list for a family of twelve, you've already lost. Most strategies fail because they try to be everything to everyone and end up being expensive wallpaper. The Get Who To By framework is the slap in the face you need to pick a lane. It forces you to stop hiding behind vague 'brand awareness' goals and actually commit to a specific human behavior you want to change before you waste another dime of the client's money.
The TL;DR
Stop overcomplicating things. Pick a specific person (GET), find the weird or lazy thing they currently do (WHO), tell them exactly what you want from them (TO), and give them a mechanism to actually do it (BY). If you can't fit it on a cocktail napkin, it's not a strategy; it's a mess.
Why This Beats Your 50-Slide Strategy Deck
Because nobody has time to read your fluff, and frankly, your budget isn't infinite. You need to focus or fail.
The Four Steps
GET
Who exactly is worth your limited budget?
Define the smallest, most winnable group. If you say 'moms 25-45,' go back to 1995. We need the specific subset that actually has the problem you solve and is ready to move.
WHO
What's the uncomfortable truth about their behavior?
Not what they tell pollsters. What they actually do when they're annoyed or stuck in their ways. This is the friction point or the secret habit that keeps them from buying you.
TO
What's the one thing you want them to do?
The 'To' is your message. It should be so obvious it hurts. No metaphors, no poetic waxing. Just the direct call to action that makes the next step stupidly clear.
BY
How are you actually going to bribe or nudge them?
The mechanism. Is it a discount? A demo? A terrifying realization? This is the 'how' that turns a clever message into an actual business result.
Common Campaign Blunders
(Yes, We’ve All Been There)
- ×Targeting 'Everyone with a credit card' because you're afraid of commitment
- ×Using 'Who' to describe demographics instead of actual human behavior
- ×Writing a 'To' that requires a PhD and three minutes of deep thought to decode
- ×Forgetting the 'By' and just hoping people will feel 'inspired' to find your website
- ×Setting three different 'To's' for one campaign and confusing everyone
- ×Mistaking a product feature for a behavioral insight
- ×Using marketing jargon that sounds like a corporate AI wrote it
- ×Ignoring the fact that your audience is probably too busy to care about you
Avoiding these pitfalls puts you miles ahead of the mediocre campaigns currently clogging up everyone's feed.
Real Examples
SaaS Productivity
A campaign for a project management tool targeting overwhelmed freelancers.
GET
Freelancers who are currently drowning in unorganized email threads.
WHO
They use five different 'to-do' apps but still end up using their inbox as a chaotic, stressful task list.
TO
Stop losing sleep over buried emails and move your projects to a single screen.
BY
A '1-Click Gmail Import' feature that organizes their entire project history in 30 seconds.
DTC Health Food
A campaign for high-end meal prep kits for busy professionals.
GET
City-dwelling professionals who 'intend' to cook but never do.
WHO
They spend $25 on sad, wilted office salads every day because they're too tired to meal prep on Sundays.
TO
Eat better than a restaurant for half the price of your sad desk salad.
BY
A 'First Week for the Price of Two Salads' trial offer to break the expensive delivery habit.
B2B Cybersecurity
Promoting a network security audit for mid-sized firms.
GET
Overworked IT Managers at companies with 50-200 employees.
WHO
They know their security is full of holes but they're too busy fixing printers to actually do anything about it.
TO
Get the report that proves you need a budget increase before a breach proves it for you.
BY
Offering a free 5-minute 'vulnerability snapshot' that generates a scary one-page PDF for their boss.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I have two 'GETs' in one framework?
No. Pick one or double your budget. If you try to talk to two different groups at once, you'll end up boring both of them.
What if my 'WHO' is just a guess?
Better a specific guess than a vague certainty. Test the insight; if the audience doesn't bite, your guess was wrong. Move on.
Is the 'TO' the same as a tagline?
Usually not. Taglines are for awards; 'TO' is for action. It’s the raw command you want the creative to communicate.
Why is there no 'Strategy' box in this framework?
Because this *is* the strategy. Adding another box just gives you more room to hide behind buzzwords.
Does this work for boring B2B products?
Yes. Even B2B buyers are just stressed-out humans with bad habits and bosses they want to impress. Find the behavior and exploit it.
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